Seismic risk assessment of mega-thrust Mw9-class subduction earthquakes and aftershocks in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada using multi-variate seismic demand models

Abstract

This study extends current seismic demand estimation methods based on incremental dynamic analysis by characterizing dependence among different engineering demand parameters using copulas explicitly. The developed method is applied to a 4-story non-ductile reinforced concrete frame in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The developed multi-variate seismic demand models are integrated with a story-based damage-loss model to assess the seismic risk due to different earthquake loss generation modes (i.e. non-collapse repairs, collapse, and demolition). Results obtained from this study indicate that the effects of multi-variate seismic demand modeling on the expected seismic loss ratios are significant. The critical information is the limit state threshold for demolition. In addition, consideration of a realistic dependence structure of maximum and residual inter-story drift ratios can be important for seismic loss estimation as well as for multi-criteria seismic performance evaluation.