Generation of new fragility curves for common types of buildings in Iran

Abstract

Physical vulnerability of buildings is one of the key parameters needed to assess earthquake risk and to address appropriate disaster management interventions in earthquake prone countries. In order to evaluate this parameter, appropriate fragility functions prepared based on local construction should be applied. However, in Iran reliable fragility curves for different types of buildings have not been developed yet. To address this issue, 19 sets of fragility curves for different types of buildings of Iran were generated in this study, based on empirical approach, incorporated with statistical analysis. Accordingly, at first, different types of common buildings in Iran such as steel frame, reinforced concrete, and masonry buildings were classified into 19 categories. Then, appropriate fragility curves were generated for each class, using existing empirical fragility curves in Iran as well as those proposed for similar types of buildings in other countries. For this purpose, a statistical approach was adopted to weight different curves based on the construction provisions and expert’s judgment. Finally, fragility curves obtained from this study were validated with the observed damages of the previous earthquakes in Iran that shows acceptable compatibility. The proposed approach provides more reliable results for vulnerability assessments in Iran and can be employed in other regions having similar conditions.