Practical seismic resilience evaluation and crisis management planning through GIS-based vulnerability assessment of buildings

The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how assessment of seismic vulnerability can be effective in protection against earthquakes.Findings are reported from a case study in a densely populated urban area near an active fault,utilizing practical methods and exact engineering data.Vulnerability factors were determined due to technical considerations,and a field campaign was performed to collect the required data.Multi-criteria decision making was carried out by means of an analytical hierarchy process including a fuzzy standardization.Earthquake scenarios were applied through an implicit vulnerability model.GIS was utilized and the results were analyzed by classifying the state of vulnerability in levels as very low,low,moderate,high,and very high.Seismic resilience was evaluated as vulnerabilities below the moderate state,being about 40% in an intensity of 6 Mercalli and less than 10% in 10 Mercalli.It is concluded that seismic resilience in the area studied is not acceptable,the area is vulnerable in the expected scenarios,and due to the high seismicity of the region,proper crisis management planning is required in parallel with attempts toward retrofitting.In this regard,an emergency map was developed with reference to the assessed vulnerabilities.

Controlled rocking pile foundation system with replaceable bar fuses for seismic resilience

Bridges designed following a conventional approach minimize the risk of collapse,but often require challenging,costly,and time-consuming restoration after an earthquake occurs.The new seismic design philosophy requires bridges to maintain functionality even after severe earthquakes.In this context,this paper proposes a controlled rocking pile foundation(CRPF)system and numerically evaluates bridges′degree of seismic resilience.The CRPF system allows a pile cap to rock on a pile foundation and dissipate seismic energy through inelastic deformations of replaceable bar fuses that connect a pile cap and piles.Following the conceptual design of the CRPF system,two analytical models were developed for a bridge pier utilizing the CRPF system and a pier designed to develop a plastic hinge in its column.The analytical results indicate that,after experiencing a severe earthquake,a conventionally designed bridge pier sustained substantial damage in its column and exhibited significant residual displacement.In contrast,a pier using the CRPF system showed negligible residual displacement and maintained elastic behavior except,as expected,for bar fuses.The damaged fuses can be rapidly replaced to recover bridge seismic resistance following an earthquake.Therefore,the CRPF system helps to achieve the desired postearthquake performance objectives.

Seismic resilience assessment of corroded reinforced concrete structures designed to the Chinese codes

The natural landscape in China exposes many existing RC buildings to aggressive environments.Such exposure can lead to deterioration in structural performance with regard to resisting events such as earthquakes.Corrosion of embedded reinforcement is one of the most common mechanisms by which such structural degradation occurs.There has been increasing attention in recent years toward seismic resilience in communities and their constituent construction;however,to date,studies have neglected the effect of natural aging.This study aims to examine the effect of reinforcement corrosion on the seismic resilience of RC frames that are designed according to Chinese seismic design codes.A total of twenty RC frames are used to represent design and construction that is typical of coastal China,with consideration given to various seismic fortification levels and elevation arrangements.Seismic fragility relationships are developed for case frames under varying levels of reinforcement corrosion,i.e.,corrosion rates are increased from 5%to 15%.Subsequently,the seismic resilience levels of uncorroded and corroded RC frames are compared using a normalized loss factor.It was found that the loss of resilience of the corroded frames is greater than that of their uncorroded counterparts.At the Rare Earthquake hazard level,the corrosioninduced increase in loss of resilience can be more than 200%,showing the significant effect of reinforcement corrosion on structural resilience under the influence of earthquakes.

A benchmark city for seismic resilience assessment

The concept of seismic resilience has received significant attention from academia and industry during the last two decades. Different frameworks have been proposed for seismic resilience assessment of engineering systems at different scales(e.g., buildings, bridges, communities, and cities). Testbeds including Centerville virtual community(CVC), Memphis testbed(MTB), and the virtual city of Turin, Italy(VC-TI) have been developed during the last decade. However, the resilience assessment results of Chinese cities still require calibration based on a unified evaluation model. Therefore, a geographic information system(GIS)-based benchmark model of a medium-sized city located in the southeastern coastal region of China was developed. The benchmark city can be used to compare existing assessment frameworks and calibrate the assessment results. The demographics, site conditions, and potential hazard exposure of the benchmark city, as well as land use and building inventory are described in this paper. Data of lifeline systems are provided, including power, transportation, water, drainage, and natural gas distribution networks, as well as the locations of hospitals, emergency shelters, and schools. Data from past earthquakes and the literature were obtained to develop seismic fragility models, consequence models, and recovery models, which can be used as basic data or calibration data in the resilience assessment process. To demonstrate the completeness of the data included in the benchmark city, a case study on the accessibility of emergency rescue after earthquakes was conducted, and the preliminary results were discussed. The ultimate goal of this benchmark city is to provide a platform for calibrating resilience assessment results and to facilitate the development of resilient cities in China.

Resilience-incorporated seismic risk assessment of precast concrete frames with“dry”connections

A resilience-incorporated risk assessment framework is proposed and demonstrated in this study to manifest the advantageous seismic resilience of precast concrete frame(PCF)structures with“dry”connections in terms of their low damage and rapid recovery.The framework integrates various uncertainties in the seismic hazard,fragility,capacity,demand,loss functions,and post-earthquake recovery.In this study,the PCF structures are distinguished from ordinary reinforced concrete frame(RCF)structures by characterizing multiple limit states for the PCF based on its unique damage mechanisms.Accordingly,probabilistic story-wise pushover analyses are performed to yield story-wise capacities for the predefined limit states.In the seismic resilience analysis,a step-wise recovery model is proposed to idealize the functionality recovery process,with separate considerations of the repair and non-repair events.The recovery model leverages the economic loss and downtime to delineate the stochastic post-earthquake recovery curves for the resilience loss estimation.As such,contingencies in the probabilistic post-earthquake repairs are incorporated and the empirical judgments on the recovery parameters are largely circumvented.The proposed framework is demonstrated through a comparative study between two“dry”connected PCFs and one RCF designed as alternative structural systems for a prototype building.The results from the risk quantification indicate that the PCFs show reduced loss hazards and lower expected losses relative to the RCF.Particularly,the PCF equipped with energy dissipation devices at the“dry”connections largely reduces the expected economic loss,downtime,and resilience loss by 29%,56%,and 60%,respectively,compared to the RCF.

Resilience-based retrofitting of existing urban RC-frame buildings using seismic isolation

The improvement of the seismic resilience of existing reinforced-concrete(RC) frame buildings, which is essential for the seismic resilience of a city, has become a critical issue. Although seismic isolation is an effective method for improving the resilient performance of such buildings, target-oriented quantitative improvements of the resilient performance of these buildings have been reported rarely. To address this gap, the seismic resilience of two existing RC frame buildings located in a high seismic intensity region of China were assessed based on the Chinese Standard for Seismic Resilience Assessment of Buildings. The critical engineering demand parameters(EDPs) affecting the seismic resilience of such buildings were identified. Subsequently, the seismic resilience of buildings retrofitted with different isolation schemes(i.e., yield ratios) were evaluated and compared, with emphasis on the relationships among yield ratios, EDPs, and levels of seismic resilience. Accordingly, to achieve the highest level of seismic resilience with respect to the Chinese standard, a yield ratio of 3% was recommended and successfully applied to the target-oriented design for the seismic-resilience improvement of an existing RC frame building. The research outcome can provide an important reference for the resilience-based retrofitting of existing RC frame buildings using seismic isolation in urban cities.

Rapid report of seismic damage to hospitals in the 2023 Turkey earthquake sequences

The seismic performance of medical systems is crucial for the seismic resilience of communities.The report summarizes the observed damage to twelve hospital buildings in the area affected by the MW 7.8 and MW 7.5 earthquakes on February 6,2023 in Turkey.They include five base-isolated buildings and seven fixed-base buildings in southcentral Turkey's seven most heavily affected provinces.By relating the post-quake occupancy statuses of the hospitals with the estimated seismic demands during the earthquake doublet,the report offers the following observations:(1)the base-isolated hospital buildings on friction pendulum bearings generally exhibited superior performance of achieving the goal of immediate occupancy and provided better protection for nonstructural elements than fixed-base counterparts did;(2)the fixed-base hospital buildings of reinforced concrete structures constructed after 2001 successfully achieved the goal of collapse prevention even under very high seismic demands;(3)some fixed-base hospitals also remained operational even if they were very close to the fault rupture and were subjected to higher-than-design-level earthquake ground motions.

Seismic performance and resilience of composite damping self-centering braced frame structures

A magnetorheological self-centering brace(MR–SCB)has been proposed to improve the energy dissipation capability of the brace.In this paper,a 15-story MR–SCB braced frame is numerically analyzed to examine its seismic performance and resilience.The MR–SCB provides higher lateral stiffness than the buckling restrained brace and greater energy dissipation capability than the existing self-centering brace.The brace also exhibits a reliable recentering capacity.Under rare earthquakes,the maximum average residual deformation ratio of the structure is less than the 0.5%limit.Under mega earthquakes,the maximum average interstory drift ratio of the structure does not exceed the 2.0%elastoplastic limit,and its maximum average floor acceleration ratio is 1.57.The effects of mainshock and aftershock on the structural behavior are also investigated.The interstory drift and residual deformation of the structure increase with the increase of the intensity of the aftershock.Under aftershocks with the same intensity as the mainshocks,the maximum increment of the residual deformation ratio of the structure is 81.8%,and the average interstory drift ratios of the 12^(th),7^(th),and 3^(rd)stories of the structure are increased by 13.4%,9.2%and 7.5%,respectively.The strong aftershock may significantly cause increased damage to the structure,and increase its collapse risk and residual deformation.

Seismic resilient shear wall structures:A state-of-the-art review

The ductile design principle has been widely adopted in seismic design of structures,so the main structural components are designed to have the dual functions of bearing and energy dissipation under the earthquake.In recent years,the intensity of major earthquakes occurred in China,Chile,New Zealand,and Japan had reached or exceeded the design level of the maximum credible earthquake.In most cases,the designed structures did not collapse and the casualties were small.However,many structures were seriously damaged and must be overhauled or rebuilt,resulting in huge economic losses.Therefore,researchers have paid more attention to the seismic resilient structures.The shear wall can provide an efficient lateral force resisting capacity and has a wide range of applications in building structures.This review firstly summarized the research advances of seismic resilient shear wall structures,mainly from three aspects:high-performance materials,replaceable components,and hybrid structural systems;then,the development of seismic performance analysis,design methods,and engineering applications of seismic resilient shear wall structures were presented;finally,the key issues that need to be explored in the future research were discussed,which was helpful for the wide application of seismic resilient shear wall structures.

Parametric study on seismic performance of selfcentering reinforced concrete column with bottom-placed rubber layer

To realize seismic-resilient reinforced concrete(RC)moment-resisting frame structures,a novel selfcentering RC column with a rubber layer placed at the bottom(SRRC column)is proposed herein.For the column,the longitudinal reinforcement dissipates seismic energy,the rubber layer allows the rocking of the column,and the unbonded prestressed tendon enables self-centering capacity.A refined finite element model of the SRRC column is developed,the effectiveness of which is validated based on experimental results.Results show that the SRRC column exhibits stable energy dissipation capacity and no strength degradation;additionally,it can significantly reduce permanent residual deformation and mitigate damage to concrete.Extensive parametric studies pertaining to SRRC columns have been conducted to investigate the critical factors affecting their seismic performance.

Integrated framework for seismic fragility assessment of cable-stayed bridges using deep learning neural networks

The increasing intensity of strong earthquakes has a large impact on the seismic safety of bridges worldwide.As the key component in the transportation network,the cable-stayed bridge should cope with the increasing future hazards to improve seismic safety.Seismic fragility analysis can assist the resilience assessment under different levels of seismic intensity.However,such an analysis is computationally intensive,especially when considering various random factors.The present paper implemented the deep learning neural networks that are integrated into the performance-based earthquake engineering framework to predict fragility functions and associated resilience index of cable-stayed bridges under seismic hazards to improve the computational efficiency while having sufficient accuracy.In the proposed framework,the Latin hypercube sampling was improved with additional uniformity to enhance the training process of the neural network.The well-trained neural network was then applied in a probabilistic simulation process to derive different component fragilities of the cable-stayed bridge.The estimated fragility functions were combined with the Monte Carlo simulations to predict system resilience.The proposed integrated framework in this study was demonstrated on an existing single-pylon cable-stayed bridge in China.Results reveal that this integrated framework yields accurate predictions of fragility functions for the cable-stayed bridge and has reasonable accuracy compared with the conventional methods.

Seismic design and analysis of a high-rise self-centering wallbuilding:Case study

Post-tensioning self-centering walls are a well-developed and resilient technology.However,despite extensive research,the application of this technology has previously been limited to low-rise buildings.A ten-story selfcentering wall building has now been designed and constructed using the state-of-art design methodologies and construction detailing,as described in this paper.The building is designed in accordance with direct displacement-based design methodology,with modification of seismic demand due to relevant issues including higher-mode effects,second order effects,torsional effects,and flexural deformation of wall panels.Wall sections are designed with external energydissipating devices of steel dampers,and seismic performance of such designed self-centering walls is evaluated through numerical simulation.It is the first engineering project that uses self-centering walls in a high-rise building.The seismic design procedure of such a high-rise building,using self-centering wall structures,is comprehensively reviewed in this work,and additional proposals are put forward.Description of construction detailing,including slotted beams,flexible wall-to-floor connections,embedded beams,and damper installation,is provided.The demonstration project promotes the concept of seismic resilient structures and contributes to the most appealing city planning strategy of resilient cities at present.The paper could be a reference for industry engineers to promote the self-centering wall systems worldwide.