Impact of spatial correlation of ground motions on seismic damage for residential buildings in Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

This paper focuses on the investigation of seismic risk for residential buildings situated in Bucharest, the capital city of Romania. With a population of nearly 2 million inhabitants and a residential building stock of more than 130,000 units, Bucharest represents a city with one of the highest seismic risks in Europe. The seismic risk is evaluated taking into consideration only the Vrancea intermediate-depth seismic source which exhibits a dominant influence on the seismic hazard in southern and eastern Romania (including Bucharest, as well). The analyses are conducted based on a Monte Carlo earthquake catalogue which covers a time span of 50,000 years and includes more than 13,000 seismic events with magnitudes M W ≥ 6.0. In addition, in order to account for the ground-motion variability throughout Bucharest, a recently developed spatial correlation model is applied. Thus, the influence of the ground-motion correlation on the damage estimates for Bucharest is evaluated, as well. The seismic risk estimates obtained for various earthquake scenarios show a significant variability of the results obtained and offer valuable information for the decision-makers from public institutions dealing with the risk management.