A Detailed Comparison of Preliminary Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Methods for RC Buildings

Abstract

Tier 2 (preliminary) evaluation methods seem to be efficient in determining seismic vulnerability of buildings in large building stocks because they can be used to determine the seismic performance of a single building when compared to Tier 1 evaluation methods (street survey). Besides, they require less time as opposed to detailed evaluation methods (Tier 3). Eleven preliminary vulnerability analysis procedures are compared considering the data of 192 buildings experienced either 2011 Van Earthquakes, 2003 Bingol Earthquake or 2002 Afyon Earthquake. Comparisons are made in terms of the number of parameters, influence of parameters on final seismic score, weighing factors of the parameters, the success rate of predicting the seismic performance of the examined buildings. Investigated procedures use at least four parameters and at most 22 parameters. Although number of stories have adverse effect on the seismic performance, concrete strength, area of shear walls and columns seem to have positive effect. Among the main parameters used in all procedures, area of shear walls is found to be the most influential parameter; however, concrete strength is one of the least effective parameters. As for the rate of correct vulnerability estimate of the 192 buildings, it is found that the best prediction rate belongs to Sucuoglu and Yazgan (in Wasti and Ozcebe (eds) Seismic assessment and rehabilitation of existing buildings, NATO science series (series IV: earth and environmental sciences), Kluwer Academic Publishers, London, 2003) with 79.2%. All the procedures except Ozcebe et al. (in Wasti and Ozcebe (eds) Seismic assessment and rehabilitation of existing buildings, NATO science series (series IV: earth and environmental sciences), Kluwer Academic Publishers, London, 2003) have correct estimate rate equal to or higher than 63%.