Abstract
Historical seismic events show that water supply networks are increasingly vulnerable to seismic damage, especially in a violent earthquake, which leads to an unprecedented level of risk. Evaluation of vulnerability to seismic hazards can be considered as one of the first steps of risk management and mitigation. This paper presents a stochastic interpolation-based fractal model for assessing the physical vulnerability of urban water supply pipelines. Firstly, based on the formation mechanism of natural disaster risk and the concept of seismic vulnerability, the most representative factors were selected as the vulnerability evaluation indices, and the classification criterion of each index was teased out according to the earthquake damage investigations and researches on the aseismatic behavior of water supply pipelines. Secondly, considering the randomness of vulnerability to earthquake hazards, the test data set was produced by way of stochastic interpolation according to the uniform distribution, on the basis of the classification criterion. The fractal dimensions of all of the indices were calculated based on the test data set. The fractal interpolation diagnosis function for identifying the vulnerability levels of pipelines to earthquake disasters was established. Finally, the application of the proposed model to a real water supply network and its comparative analysis showed that the water supply network was basically in a medium vulnerability level. Through the case study verification, we could find that the model was theoretically and practically feasible. This study helps to gain a better understanding of the extents of potential vulnerability levels of water supply pipelines. It can provide technical support for disaster prevention plans of urban water supply networks.
Highlights
The water supply network (WSN) is an important facility of urban lifeline systems
Recent events proved that urban water supply networks are becoming increasingly vulnerable to earthquake damage; it is alarming that once water supply pipes are damaged, people's work and living will suffer great inconvenience, emergency rescues will be impeded, and post-earthquake fires will produce amplification effects owing to the loss of emergency service function of the water supply pipes [5,6,7,8], as shown during events in the USA (San Fernando, 1971; Northridge, 1994), Japan (Kobe, 1995; East Japan, 2011), China (Wenchuan, 2008; Lushan, 2013), and Nepal (2015)
Since seismic hazard cannot generally be diminished, the vulnerability is one aspect where efforts can be expended with the goal of disaster risk reduction [9]
Summary
The water supply network (WSN) is an important facility of urban lifeline systems. It provides daily water for people, and meets the emergency functional requirements during disasters, such as the water for emergency medical refuge evacuation, fire relief, etc. [1,2]. The information that we obtain is incomplete, and the earthquake or the site condition has highly random characteristics These methods proposed above are not very practical in urban earthquake disaster prevention plans. Bai [25] and Wu et al [26] established a vulnerability assessment index system of water supply pipes exposed to seismic hazards based on the structure characteristics of pipes and built a theory-based catastrophe model. The studies above developed a vulnerability assessment system to evaluate the seismic vulnerability level of water supply pipelines from the structure property perspective. Considering the randomness and nonlinearity between vulnerability indices and the vulnerability level of the pipes, this paper developed a stochastic interpolation-based fractal model for vulnerability diagnosis of water supply pipes, and the model was applied in a WSN of a city in South China
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