The Vulnerability Assessment of Current Buildings by a Macroseismic Approach Derived from the Ems-98 Scale

A hierarchical family of Damage Probability Matrices (DPM) has been derived in this paper from the ones implicitly contained in the EMS-98 Macroseismic Scale for 6 vulnerability classes. To this aim the linguistic definitions provided by the scale, and the associated fuzzy sub-sets of the percentage of buildings, have been completed according to reliable hypotheses. A parametric representation of the corresponding cumulative probability distributions is moreover provided, through a unique parameter: a vulnerability index variable in the range from 0 to 1 and independent of the macroseismic intensity. Finally, an innovative macroseismic approach allowing the vulnerability analysis of building typologies is defined within the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS-98) and qualitatively related to the vulnerability classes. Bayes’ theorem allows the upgrading of the frequencies when further data about the built-environment or specific properties of the buildings are available, allowing the identification of a different behaviours with respect to the one generally considered for the typology. Fuzzy measures of any damage function can be derived, using parametric or nonparametric damage probability matrices. For every result of the seismic analysis, the procedure allows supply to the user of the final uncertainty connected with the aforementioned fuzzy relation between the probability of the damage grade, the macroseismic intensity and the vulnerability classes.