Earthquake Safety Assessment of Buildings through Rapid Visual Screening

Ehsan Harirchian,Sreekanth Buddhiraju,Tom Lahmer,Amir Mosavi,Kifaytullah Mohammad

doi:10.3390/buildings10030051

Abstract

Earthquake is among the most devastating natural disasters causing severe economical, environmental, and social destruction. Earthquake safety assessment and building hazard monitoring can highly contribute to urban sustainability through identification and insight into optimum materials and structures. While the vulnerability of structures mainly depends on the structural resistance, the safety assessment of buildings can be highly challenging. In this paper, we consider the Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) method, which is a qualitative procedure for estimating structural scores for buildings suitable for medium- to high-seismic cases. This paper presents an overview of the common RVS methods, i.e., FEMA P-154, IITK-GGSDMA, and EMPI. To examine the accuracy and validation, a practical comparison is performed between their assessment and observed damage of reinforced concrete buildings from a street survey in the Bingöl region, Turkey, after the 1 May 2003 earthquake. The results demonstrate that the application of RVS methods for preliminary damage estimation is a vital tool. Furthermore, the comparative analysis showed that FEMA P-154 creates an assessment that overestimates damage states and is not economically viable, while EMPI and IITK-GGSDMA provide more accurate and practical estimation, respectively.

Highlights

Failure of structures is the main cause of higher deaths and injuries during an earthquake, causing more economic losses [1]
To assess the damage estimations obtained from these three methods, the results are expressed in terms of structural damage state and practically compared with each other and the actual observed damage
From the results of this study, it can be determined that the Turkish Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) (EMPI) have significant efficiency in evaluating the vulnerability of buildings in Bingöl region

Summary

Introduction

Failure of structures is the main cause of higher deaths and injuries during an earthquake, causing more economic losses [1]. Studies showed that the behavior of different structure types during an earthquake and its vulnerability depends mainly on the primary vertical load-bearing elements [2]. Different construction methodologies have different levels of vulnerability. A masonry building with walls as load-bearing elements without any frame structure might be more vulnerable compared to that of a reinforced concrete structure with columns as load-bearing elements with a moment-resisting frame [3]. The damage caused to a building during an earthquake can be estimated by assessing seismic vulnerability [4]. “Seismic vulnerability” is defined as “the susceptibility of a population of buildings to undergo damage due to seismic ground motion” [5].

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Results

Conclusion