Combined Hurricane and Earthquake Hazard Component Vulnerability Analysis

Recent advancements in the area of structural dynamics have allowed civil engineers to better understand and control the response of structures to natural hazards, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. The social and economic impacts of natural disasters are continually increasing due to population growth and increasing number of older buildings with time. Through hazard mitigation engineers are able to reduce the potential threat of damage to a building, its contents, and injury or death to the building occupants. An important component of hazard mitigation is being able to predict damage prior to a hazardous event. This paper is an overview of a proposed new approach to hazard damage predictions through the use of damage functions, fragility curves. Understanding the vulnerability of individual building components and how that vulnerability propagates from one component to another is essential to assessing system vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to predict damage based on system vulnerability. Fault tree analysis will be used to relate component fragilities to one another. Generalized fragility curves will be developed based on an input demand conversion. By establishing a damage function that is independent of the input load, the amount of damage may be estimated for any natural hazard. This study will focus on low-rise and mid-rise structures exposed to extreme earthquake and wind loading.