Open Collections

Evaluation of structural earthquake damage to buildings in Southwestern B.C.

University of British Columbia

Seismic risk to the general building inventory is difficult to quantify. Risk analyses study the regional distribution of estimated damage that a building inventory will experience given a level of seismic intensity. This thesis presents a methodology for the evaluation of structural earthquake damage to buildings in Southwestern British Columbia. The steps in the risk analysis i addressed in this methodology are: (1) development of building inventory, (2) selection and application of motion-damage relationships and (3) regional distribution of damage using a geographic information system. Damage is measured as the ratio of dollar loss to replacement cost, or mean damage factor. The seismic hazard is characterized in terms of the Modified Mercalli Intensity. Only damage due to ground shaking hazard is considered. Several motiondamage relationships from prior expert opinion based studies were compared to select appropriate damage functions for use in this methodology. A case study is presented of the City of New Westminster, British Columbia. The seismic risk analyses was performed on a building inventory consisting of approximately 8,000 residential, commercial and industrial buildings. Two separate analyses were performed for comparison. The first uses a structural classification system based on 15 building types and the second is based on 31 building types. The regional distribution of results are aggregated and presented using the geographic information system, Maplnfo®.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-06-15

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9133

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace