The full text of this item is not available at this time because the student has placed this item under an embargo for a period of time. The Libraries are not authorized to provide a copy of this work during the embargo period, even for Texas A&M users with NetID.
Evaluating Post-Earthquake Functional Recovery of Critical Buildings Accounting for Lifelines’ Restoration
Abstract
Assessing how to regain the pre-earthquake functionality of a building or lifeline system in an adequate time, known as functional recovery, has become the center of interest for achieving community resilience goals. Despite ensuring life safety, current design/retrofit codes/guidelines lack considerations for functional recovery goals. Examining the possibility of achieving these goals in buildings’ new design and retrofit is critical for policymakers to define proper performance objectives targeting functional recovery. Among various factors affecting a building’s functional recovery (e.g., components’ damage, collapse probability, etc.), access to utilities is significant in identifying when a building is functional.
Several frameworks were proposed for assessing one building’s post-earthquake functional recovery. However, these studies either neglect utilities’ effect on a building's functional recovery due to their complexity or consider them to perform as binary switches. Furthermore, there are limited studies on the feasibility of achieving functional recovery goals by retrofitting existing buildings, which are critical due to their significant seismic vulnerabilities.
This study focuses on assessing buildings’ functional recovery, accounting for utility systems’ restoration effects. First, a simplified probabilistic method was proposed to evaluate the post-earthquake restoration time of interdependent lifeline systems, translatable to a previously proposed framework for assessing one building’s functional recovery. This method exempts engineers from performing complex analyses and is applicable to different regions and networks. Then, the method and framework were integrated to incorporate the utility systems’ restoration in one building’s functional recovery calculations, mainly for residential, commercial, and warehouse buildings. Furthermore, to fill the gap in evaluating the feasibility of achieving functional recovery goals through the existing buildings’ retrofit, a set of older reinforced concrete buildings retrofitted with shear walls and dampers was simulated and probabilistically assessed for functional recovery by the integrated framework. The improvements in functional recovery time were discussed in terms of functionality gains.
The findings of this study are critical for engineers, stakeholders, and policymakers interested in assessing buildings’ functional recovery considering utilities’ restoration while keeping practicality and simplicity. Moreover, it is beneficial in evaluating the feasibility of achieving functional recovery goals for future retrofit projects and considering such in codes and standards.
Citation
Mohammadgholibeyki, Negar (2023). Evaluating Post-Earthquake Functional Recovery of Critical Buildings Accounting for Lifelines’ Restoration. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /198992.