In-service deviations of viscous dampers can reduce the collapse safety margin of viscous-damped structures under strong earthquakes. This study examines two representative mechanisms: global degradation of the damper group and local failure of a subset of dampers. Incremental dynamic analyses are conducted for five damper-state scenarios using the 22 far-field ground-motion records recommended by ATC-63. To support reliability-oriented, uncertainty-aware collapse-capacity comparison with limited records, three complementary probabilistic inference frameworks are developed: an event-based fragility model using binary collapse indicators, a drift-margin model leveraging continuous deformation information from non-collapse responses, and a fusion model that combines both sources via a weighted composite likelihood with fusion strength governed by the weight w. For each scenario, the capacity scale parameter μm is reported as IM50,m, and record-level bootstrap resampling is used to construct interval estimates. Multi-scenario effects are further summarized by the ensemble mean reduction b and inter-path dispersion σdamper, offering compact measures of systematic shift and pathway-to-pathway variability. Results indicate a dominant systematic downward shift in median collapse capacity, with IM50,m reduced by approximately 2.4–2.9% overall, whereas differences among degradation pathways are secondary and bounded by the intervals. Scenario rankings remain consistent across the three frameworks; fusion outputs show weak sensitivity to w and yield tighter interval constraints on σdamper than the event-only baseline. The resulting interval-based parameters enable risk- and reliability-informed interpretation of degradation effects and provide a consistent basis for uncertainty quantification in probabilistic performance comparisons across scenarios.
Zhao et al. (Mon,) studied this question.