Assessment of the earthquake vulnerability of multi-residential buildings in Slovenia

Abstract

The paper assesses the earthquake vulnerability of multi-residential buildings in Slovenia, although it is limited to the buildings that were built before 1981, in the time when the earthquake building codes were much less elaborated than today. In the paper, based on the building completion year, buildings are classified into different time periods, which are characterized by important historical events and bigger changes in earthquake building codes. The assessment of earthquake vulnerability is based on the data from the building completion year, number of storeys, prevailing structural material and the year of the last renovation as obtained from the last census of the population, households and apartments completed in 2002. The result is an estimation of the earthquake vulnerability of a building, also because for very similar buildings the earthquake resistance depends on the architectural design of a building, the amount and layout of its structural elements, foundations, soil profile and other influences. In the first part of the paper the multi-residential buildings are divided by age, material and number of storeys. In the second part, the assessment of the earthquake vulnerability of these buildings is divided into three classes: a) probably earthquake unsafe, b) probably earthquake less safe and c) probably earthquake safe. Additionally the earthquake vulnerability assessment is presented geographically by showing the earthquake less safe and unsafe buildings on the maps and charts for different communities in Slovenia. It has been concluded that the earthquake safety of many multi-residential buildings in Slovenia might be questionable, while we have detected also bigger differences between communities.