Vulnerability Assessment Using Fragility Curves

摘要

The use of fragility curves for the assessment of seismic losses is in increasing demand, both for pre-earthquake disaster planning as well as post-earthquake recovery and retrofitting programs. Fragility curves; important components of accurate risk assessment are functions that describe the probability of failure, conditioned on the full range of loads to which a system might be exposed. In general fragility curves provide estimates for the probabilities of a structure reaching/exceeding limiting deformation at given levels of ground shaking or it is a plot of the computed probability (deflection) Vs. Ground motion parameter. The scope of the proposed research is to develop fragility curves as a tool to develop suitable measures that can help in estimating the losses for the structures, similar to the case study building and thus to develop the same as an important tool in earthquake engineering mainly for urban risk reduction. The objective of the proposed study is the reliability assessment of the case study building to earthquake loadings through the development of fragility curves. The vulnerability of the structure is expressed with the development of fragility curves, which provides the probability of exceeding a prescribed level of damage for a wide range of ground motion intensities. Primary task is to identify a case study structure for which fragility curves are not developed yet and which could effectively represent the structural viability of present and future buildings. It is based on a concept that similar type of structures (structural typology) will have same probability of a given damage state for given earthquake intensity. Hence effective methods to develop fragility curves for representative buildings are very vital in earthquake engineering. We propose to develop fragility curves for a building with flat-slabs and shear wall system which effectively represents recent high rise buildings particularly in GCC countries.