Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of

Building Types in India

Technical Document (Tech-Doc)

on Seismic Vulnerability
Assessment Methods for Buildings

by

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Project Group of

IIT Bombay
IIT Guwahati
IIT Kharagpur
IIT Madras
IIT Roorkee

Submitted to
National Disaster Management Authority
Government of India
September 15, 2013

Technical Document (Tech-Doc) on

Seismic Vulnerability Assessment
Methods for Buildings
Seismic Vulnerability Assessment Project Group, consisting of the following
authors, has contributed to the Tech-Doc:

IIT Bombay

IIT Madras

Mahendra Meena

Arun Menon

Rohan Shinde

A Meher Prasad

Ashish Sapre

Devdas Menon

Ravi Sinha

CVR Murty

Alok Goyal

Deepti R Krrishnan
N Uma

IIT Roorkee

IIT Guwahati

Yogendra Singh

SK Deb

DK Paul

Kaustubh Dasgupta

Putul Haldar

Hemant B Kaushik

Aditya Rahul
Ankita Sood

IIT Kharagpur
Nirjhar Dhang
Sushanta Chakrabarty
Arghya Deb

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................... ii
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................... v
Abstract .................................................................................................................... vi
Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................ 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5

GENERAL ............................................................................................................................... 1
DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT FOR EARTHQUAKE ............................................................................ 2
SEISMIC RISK .......................................................................................................................... 2
SEISMIC VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF BUILDINGS ........................................................................ 3
SCOPE OF THE TECHNICAL DOCUMENT .......................................................................................... 5

Chapter 2 Vulnerability Assessment Methods ......................................................... 7

2.1
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................... 7
2.2
EXPERT OPINION ..................................................................................................................... 7
2.2.1 Introduction................................................................................................................... 7
2.2.2 Procedure...................................................................................................................... 7
2.2.3 Limitations of the Method ............................................................................................ 14
2.3
EMPIRICAL METHODS ............................................................................................................. 14
2.3.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 14
2.3.2 Damage Probability Matrix ......................................................................................... 15
2.3.3 Capacity Index Method ................................................................................................ 17
2.3.4 Empirical Fragility Curve for European RC buildings.................................................. 23
2.4
ANALYTICAL METHODS............................................................................................................ 28
2.4.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 28
2.4.2 Displacement-based Vulnerability Curves for RC Buildings ......................................... 29
2.4.3 Monte Carlo-based Simulation Method ........................................................................ 33
2.4.4 Fragility curves for RC buildings in Skopje (Macedonia) region ................................... 37
2.4.5 Simplified pushover based earthquake loss assessment (SP-BELA) ............................... 38
2.4.6 Study of material and ground motion uncertainty on 3 story RC structures ................... 39
2.5
HYBRID METHODS ................................................................................................................. 40
2.5.1 Introduction................................................................................................................. 40
2.5.2 Hybrid Method for RC Buildings in Greece .................................................................. 40

Chapter 3 Components of Seismic Vulnerability Assessment ................................ 44

3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 44
BUILDING TYPOLOGY .............................................................................................................. 44
DAMAGE SCALE ..................................................................................................................... 44
EARTHQUAKE INTENSITY SCALE.................................................................................................. 45
DAMAGE PROBABILITY MATRIX ................................................................................................. 45
FRAGILITY CURVE ................................................................................................................... 48

Chapter 4 Vulnerability Assessment in the Indian Context .................................... 50

4.1
4.2
4.3

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 50
DAMAGE SCALE ..................................................................................................................... 52
SEISMIC INTENSITY SCALE......................................................................................................... 53

ii

4.4
COMMON STRUCTURAL MATERIAL ............................................................................................. 54
4.4.1 Masonry ...................................................................................................................... 54
4.4.2 Wood ........................................................................................................................... 54
4.4.3 Concrete...................................................................................................................... 54
4.4.4 Steel ............................................................................................................................ 55
4.4.5 Mixed Construction ..................................................................................................... 55
4.5
ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE ........................................................................................................ 55
4.5.1 Expert-Opinion Method ............................................................................................... 55
4.5.2 Empirical Method ........................................................................................................ 57
4.5.3 Analytical Method ....................................................................................................... 58
4.5.4 Hybrid Method ............................................................................................................ 60

Chapter 5 Conclusions .......................................................................................... 63

References ............................................................................................................... 65

iii

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: The components of seismic risk assessment and choices for the vulnerability
assessment procedure; the bold path shows a traditional assessment method (Calvi
et al., 2006).................................................................................................................... 5
Figure 2: Idealised Pushover Curve (Yakut, 2004) .......................................................... 19
Figure 3: Relationship between Vy/Vc and number of stories (n) (Yakut, 2004) ............ 19
Figure 4: Influence of filler wall on the yield base shear capacity (Yakut, 2004) ........... 20
Figure 5: Influence Application of Capacity Index procedure (Yakut, 2004) ................ 23
Figure 6: Conversion of the RC building damage statistics observed in Plateas after the
Korinthos earthquake (Greece, 1981) to the HRC-scale (Rossetto and Elnashai,
2003) ........................................................................................................................... 27
Figure 7: Empirical Vulnerability curves for different ground motion parameters
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2003) .................................................................................... 28
Figure 8: Illustrations of the 2475YRP response surface (top) and its fit to the regression
data (bottom; the dashed lines indicate the 5th and 95th percentile
observed/predicted ISDmax% bounds) (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005). .................. 32
Figure 9: Comparison of the infilled frame population fragility curves with eight
observed post-earthquake damage distributions for like populations of structures.
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005) .................................................................................... 33
Figure 10: Steps for development of fragility curved and DPM (Singhal and
Kiremedjian, 1996)..................................................................................................... 34
Figure 11: Building plan of generic structure (Singhal and Kiremedjian, 1996) ........... 35
Figure 12: Building elevation of generic structure for three classes (a) Low-rise frame,
(b) mid-rise frame and (c) high-rise frame (Singhal and Kiremedjian, 1996) ......... 36
Figure 13: Analytical models for structures analysed: (a) four-story building; (b) ninestory building. (Kappos et al., 1998) .......................................................................... 41
Figure 14: Vulnerability curves produced by Spence et al. (1992) for bare momentresisting frames using the parameterless scale of intensity (PSI); D1 to D5 relate to
damage states in the MSK scale................................................................................. 49
Figure 15: Flowchart for vulnerability assessment based on expert opinion for masonry
buildings. .................................................................................................................... 56
Figure 16: Flowchart for empirical vulnerability assessment for masonry buildings. ... 57
Figure 17: Flowchart for analytical vulnerability assessment for capacity spectrum
based method.............................................................................................................. 59
Figure 18: Flowchart for analytical vulnerability assessment for time-history analysis
based method.............................................................................................................. 60
Figure 19: Flowchart for hybrid method. ........................................................................ 61

iv

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Earthquake Engineering Facility Classification (ATC-13, 1985) ....................... 9

Table 2: Social Function Classification (ATC-13, 1985) .................................................. 10
Table 3: Damage State Classification (ATC-13, 1985)..................................................... 13
Table 4: Building typologies used by Whitman et al. (1973) ........................................... 16
Table 5: Format of DPM proposed by Whitman et al. (1973) ......................................... 16
Table 6: DPMs and MDRs for all buildings in various intensity zones (Whitman et al.,
1973) ........................................................................................................................... 17
Table 7: Comparison of weighting coefficients for architectural factors (Yakut, 2004) 21
Table 8: Recommended values of CM (Yakut, 2004)........................................................ 21
Table 9: Earthquake Database used to check Capacity Index procedure (Yakut, 2004)21
Table 10: Homogenised Reinforced Concrete Damage Scale (Rossetto and Elnashai,
2003) ........................................................................................................................... 24
Table 11: Equivalence between HRC and other damage scales (Rossetto and Elnashai,
2003) ........................................................................................................................... 26
Table 12: Material parameter probability distribution functions used in the population
generation (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005) ................................................................. 30
Table 13: Characteristics of the earthquake events defining the target spectra (Rossetto
and Elnashai, 2005) .................................................................................................... 30
Table 14: Summery of the infilled frame population vulnerability curve equation
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005) .................................................................................... 33
Table 15: Ranges of park and Ang damage index for different damage states (Singhal
and Kiremedjian, 1996) ............................................................................................. 35
Table 16: random variable to model structural uncertainties (Singhal and Kiremedjian,
1996) ........................................................................................................................... 35
Table 17: Damage States (Dumova-Jovanoska, 2000) ..................................................... 38
Table 18: Random variable for representative buildings (Borzi et al., 2008) ................. 39
Table 17: DPM for medium-rise (4-7 story) non-ductile RC frame building (Kappos et
al., 1998)...................................................................................................................... 42
Table 18: Format of DPM proposed by Whitman et. Al. (1973) ..................................... 46
Table 19: Damage model provided by EMS-98 for Class-B ............................................ 47
Table 20: Proposed vulnerability assessment methods for Indian building typologies .. 50
Table 21: Damage scale of GSDMA (2006) and its comparison with other international
methods ...................................................................................................................... 53
Table 22: MSK-64 earthquake intensity scale adopted in India (IS:1893-2002) ............ 54

Abstract
The past few decades have witnessed an increase in the number of damaging
earthquakes in India, with nine damaging earthquakes occurring during the last two decades
itself. The vast extent of damage and the consequent loss of life associated with these events
reflect the poor construction practice in India. Before the 2001 Bhuj earthquake,
constructions with poor seismic resistance were assumed to be a feature of non-urban areas,
with urban structures considered safer due to the use of engineering knowledge and modern
construction materials. However, this earthquake shattered the myth of urban seismic safety
through widespread damage to modern buildings. The low awareness among the general
public towards structural safety and the inability of regulatory bodies and technical
professionals in maintaining quality standards in constructions has created an urgent need to
educate the leaders, public, city planners, architects and the engineering professional about
the consequences of earthquakes.
As a step in understanding the seismic risk in our country, there is a need to determine
the vulnerability of prevalent construction types in India, against earthquakes. When classes
of buildings are considered for risk assessment, the vulnerability can be established in terms
of the structural characteristics, and suitable modifiers to the vulnerability function can be
established in terms of the geometrical characteristics. Since the construction practices vary
in different parts of the country even when using the same construction material, the
vulnerability function of different buildings in the typology catalogue will need to be
developed for each region separately.
This report presents a summary of the building typologies used or proposed in
different parts of the world. The report presents an analysis of these typologies to assess their
suitability for India. Based on this assessment, the building typology for use in India has been
presented in the report. The proposed building typology is hierarchical, and considers
material of construction, structural system, structural irregularities, building height, code
compliance and level of maintenance. The building typology catalogue is also developed in a
format that is amenable to database management and use of portable computing devices for
field data collection.

vi

Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 General
India faces threats from a large number of natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods,
droughts, landslides, cyclones and tsunamis. During the period 1990 to 2010, India
experienced 9 damaging earthquakes that have resulted in over 30,000 deaths and caused
enormous damage to property, assets and infrastructure. In many cases buildings and
structures have proven inadequate to resist earthquake forces and the failure of these can be
held responsible for most of the resulting human fatalities. It is also evident from past fatal
earthquakes around the world that the existence of vulnerable buildings in high intensity
areas has in most cases contributed the total human losses (Jaiswal and Wald, 2008).
Understanding the causes of such damage and means to reduce risk demands effective
participation of the scientific and engineering community. The detailed assessment of damage
after past earthquakes in our country shows that both non-engineered and engineered
buildings suffer extensive structural damage (for example, Sinha et al., 2001). It is also found
that even the non-engineered constructions sometimes possess the required resistance to
earthquake ground motions (for example, the Assam-type traditional housing in NorthEastern states and the Dhajji-Diwari buildings in Kashmir have good earthquake resistance).
Recent earthquakes, such as the 2001 Bhuj earthquake that had followed the damaging Anjar
earthquake in 1957 in the same area, have shown that the vulnerability of the constructions
were not reduced due to the experiences from the 1957 earthquake. As a result, the same
tragic lessons had to be re-learnt in 2001 as during 1957 (Sinha et al., 2001).
In order to predict the likely impact of an earthquake on the built environment in any
part of the country, it is essential to know the seismic vulnerability of the built environment
on the affected areas. This information depends on the structural systems of the buildings to
resist vertical and lateral loads, performance of similar buildings in past earthquakes, and
engineering standards adopted during construction. The assessment of likely impact also
depends on the location and distribution of vulnerable building stock in the affected areas.
Very limited data currently exists in our country to quantify the building stock and
their seismic vulnerability in different parts of the country. The Housing Census data
collected every decade compiles information on the construction materials used for walls,
floor and ceiling of dwellings. However, this information is technically very difficult to relate
to the construction materials used for buildings as a whole due to the nature of data collection
that separates out information regarding walls, floor and ceiling so that their combination for
buildings is not reported. Even where such information is available based on detailed field
surveys, the use of construction materials has not been related to the seismic vulnerability of
the buildings. As a result, the technical information on building constructions cannot be fully
used for earthquake risk management strategies and programs.

1.2 Disaster Risk Management for Earthquake

The country has initiated several programs from time to time to manage disasters, as
well as to mitigate their adverse impacts. The effectiveness of programs related to earthquake
risk mitigation is difficult to evaluate due to the absence of tools that can provide
consequence analysis. The consequence analysis is carried out using scientifically valid
earthquake damage scenarios. These earthquake damage scenarios, if available for different
earthquake-prone parts of the country, can also be invaluable for advocacy of seismic safety
and for disaster management. The disaster scenario information can be used to sensitize the
various stakeholders regarding the risk and the potential consequences of earthquakes. The
information can thus overcome some of the limitations due to the absence of earthquake
disaster memory in society. The disaster scenario can also help in identifying the most
vulnerable areas and population groups that will require special attention in the aftermath of a
damaging earthquake.
The pros and cons of various disaster management interventions can also be evaluated
using earthquake disaster scenario tools by simulating the effectiveness of these measures in
reducing losses over time. The use of disaster scenarios is very useful for both urban and
rural areas. Their use for effective disaster management planning is essential in urban areas
due to the intense concentration of people, infrastructure and resources that may be affected
by a damaging earthquake. As a result, disaster management plans that are prepared without
carrying out rigorous risk assessment and scenario development are unable to take advantage
of this information for optimal prioritization of resources and monitoring long-term reduction
of risk.

1.3 Seismic Risk

The assessment of seismic risk involves the estimation of consequences of an
earthquake in the chosen area in terms of the expected damage and loss from a given hazard
to given elements at risk. For The risk assessment involves evaluation of seismic hazard,
vulnerability of structures, exposure and finally loss estimation. Thus, the total risk can be
expressed simply in the following conceptual form.
Risk = Hazard Vulnerability Exposure

(1)

Seismic hazard quantifies the ground motions generated due to an earthquake. Any
local effect such as due to soil properties is incorporated in hazard assessment. The seismic
vulnerability quantifies the propensity of types of buildings to be damaged due to specified
ground motions. Exposure of an area struck by earthquake depends upon the human
population and economic activity affected by it. A metro city has more exposure compared to
rural region. When carrying out risk assessment of large areas, where the built environment
information may be available only at low resolution, vulnerability of the buildings implied in
macro-seismic intensity scales is most commonly used. The method utilizes damage
probability matrices that estimate the level of damage corresponding to ground motion
intensity as a conditional probability factor. Different buildings vary in their degree of
vulnerability to earthquake ground motions as a function of geometrical or qualitative
characteristics (such as height, plan dimensions and elevation configurations, age etc.), and

structural characteristics (such as material of construction, mass, stiffness, quality of

construction, strength, intrinsic ductility, state of stress, seismic displacements, non-linear
behaviour parameters and other structural information). Vulnerability assessment thus
provides an important input to seismic risk assessment.

1.4 Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of Buildings

The earthquake resistance of buildings greatly influences seismic losses. The
overwhelming majority of deaths and injuries in earthquakes occur because of the
disintegration and collapse of buildings, and much of the economic loss and social disruption
caused by earthquakes is also attributable to the failure of buildings and other human-made
structures.
Studies of earthquake damage show that some types of construction tend to be more
vulnerable than others. The form of construction of the main vertical load-bearing elements is
one of the main determinants of vulnerability of a building. For instance, a building with
unreinforced masonry walls can be expected to be much more vulnerable than a timber frame
building. Vulnerability assessment is also useful in estimation of consequences of building
damage such as casualties and economic losses (Coburn and Spence, 2002).
Early efforts were based on identifying damage/loss pattern from existing earthquake
data and predicting it for future earthquake (Liu and Hsieh, 1981; Scawthorn et al., 1981 and
Norea et al., 1989). These data were limited to a small area and particular intensity of
earthquake, which made application of such methods highly localized. These early
vulnerability assessment methods tried to find damage in a building type due to
predetermined earthquake. This damage was then extrapolated to evaluate city-based or
region-based damage. Such methods are usually called as Empirical Methods because they
are largely dependent on the observed post-earthquake damage data. When this kind of
method is applied in Indian scenario first it should be validated with survey of few damaged
buildings.
With the advancement of computation and data collection techniques more
comprehensive methods were proposed. These methods dealt with nonlinear analysis of
structures, probabilistic modeling of earthquake, and generalizing results of smaller area to a
region or other cities etc. (Singhal and Kiremidjian, 1996; DAyala, 2005; Rossetto and
Elnashai, 2005 and Borzi et al., 2008). Recently fuzzy-logic based methods have been
proposed to develop vulnerability function of buildings [Fischer et al., 2002; Demartinos
and Dritsos, 2006 and Tesfamariam and Saatcioglu, 2010). These types of methods are
usually referred as Analytical Methods because they have sound mathematical formulation
as base.
There is another class of methods which lie in between empirical and analytical
methods, and known as semi-analytical or hybrid methods. Some earthquake scenarios are
difficult to simulate on computer and hence part of analysis result must rely on observed
damage pattern. Sometimes analytical results are calibrated using on-field damage records
and analysis methods are improved. Similarly, based on the observed damage, computer
analysis is used to estimate damage of higher earthquake intensity, which cannot be verified
with the available observed damage. Thus, empirical methods play the role of a bridge
between analytical and empirical methods.
3

A special class of method is known as Expert-Opinion based method. In such methods

earthquake damage scenario are created using knowledge of the experts in this field. A
questionnaire or series of questionnaires are designed to seek their opinion on probable
damage to various classes of building for different earthquake intensity. This type of method
relies on knowledge and experience of the participant experts (ATC-13, 1985).
Apart from above broad categorization vulnerability assessment methods can be
classified based on other factors. These include deterministic and probabilistic analytical
methods, and methods based on onsite assessment, known as visual assessment methods, that
include quick or detailed survey methods. There are also several different classes of
analytical methods such as failure mechanism-based methods, etc.
Different vulnerability assessment methods have many common or overlapping
features and above mentioned classifications are not strict. Calvi et al. (2006) performed
detailed study of available vulnerability assessment methods and classified them broadly as
empirical, analytical and hybrid methods. The main features of the most suitable vulnerability
assessment procedure were summarized as:

Incorporation of most recent developments in the field of seismic hazard assessment.

Explicit accounting of all sources of uncertainty.
Easy adaptability of model in different regions around the world.
Balance between computational intensity and detailed survey.

Figure 1 shows the classification of vulnerability assessment methods proposed by

Calvi et al. (2006).
Scenario Earthquake
Ground Motion Characterisation
Damage Scale
Vulnerability
Assessment Method
Empirical

Hybrid

Damage
Probability Matrix
Typology

Field
Survey

Vulnerability
Functions

Analytical

Capacity
Spectrum based

Collapse
Mechanism based

Fully
Displacement
based

Expert
Judgement

Ratio between cost of repair and cost of

replacement of whole building stock

Figure 1: The components of seismic risk assessment and choices for the vulnerability
assessment procedure; the bold path shows a traditional assessment method (Calvi et al.,
2006)

1.5 Scope of the Technical Document

This report deals in detail with various earthquake vulnerability assessment methods
developed across the world in last few decades. These methods are critically analysed for
their applicability and relevance for risk assessment.
The report also presents proposed modifications considering the Indian perspective.
Modified methods suitable for various building typologies in Indian context are also
proposed.

Chapter 2 Vulnerability Assessment

Methods
2.1 Introduction
Vulnerability assessment methods are grouped into four categories for the purpose of
this report. This grouping is only for representation purpose because any method in one way
or the other is connected to other methods. Categorization of the methods in this report is
based on the approach adopted for vulnerability assessment. The four categories are: (1)
Expert opinion methods, (2) Empirical methods, (3) Semi-analytical or hybrid methods, and
(4) Analytical methods.

2.2 Expert Opinion

2.2.1 Introduction
Expert opinion is one of the earliest methods used for earthquake vulnerability
assessment, estimation of damage losses, and death/injury predictions. These types of
methods rely on expertise of chosen experts of the field and their ability to relate the
earthquake intensity with observed damage. They are very useful where damage data from
previous earthquake is not available at all or for some intensity its not available. These
methods are used in absence of any reliable post earthquake damage and loss data. Such
methods are quite common in social sciences field
The expert opinion method was first applied to seismic vulnerability assessment in
California, USA by the Applied Technology Council. The report, ATC-13, is based on expert
opinion of more than 70 experts in earthquake engineering. This methodology of expert
opinion was based on Delphi method of solicitation of expert opinion.

2.2.2 Procedure
The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
1. Decide the objective of seeking expert opinion. There can be several objectives for
seeking experts opinion about building seismic vulnerability. The objective may include
damage intensity assessment, loss estimation, etc.
2. Classify the building inventory of the area/region based on engineering properties as well
as occupancy and usage. The two classes are necessary because while engineering
classification provides structural performance of the building during an earthquake, usage

classification help to predict the quantum of structural/non-structural damage, possibility

of death/injury and impact of damage to the structure.
3. Choose the earthquake intensity indicator and its value. This indicator should be such that
it should adequately cover earthquake ground motion characteristics. These
characteristics are important for determining structural response, namely: Amplitude,
Frequency content, Periodicity and Duration. This indicator should also be familiar to the
experts. ATC-13 used Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) to represent ground motions.
4. Define the damage states of structure. These damage states may be specified based on
previous earthquake damage data, economic impact assessment or expert opinion.
Damage state can be linked with monetary losses as well as casualties. Experts are asked
to give their opinion in terms of damage state for a given intensity of earthquake for
chosen building typology.
5. Identify the experts in the field. Each expert can be ask to rate his/her experience and a
weight factor can be assigned to give due weighting for more accomplished expert.
6. Design the questionnaire clearly stating the objectives, limitations, building
classifications, earthquake intensity scale, damage scale and any other information which
may be required.
7. After compiling the expert opinion, a revised questionnaire can be developed if required
and to streamline the variation in expert opinion. This can be considered as an iterative
step till the desired uniformity among expert opinions is achieved or pre-decided number
of iterations has been performed.
8. Response of all the experts should be processed by statistical operations to arrive at final
conclusion.
The steps mentioned above are described in detailed in the following section.
2.2.2.1 Objective of Survey
Seismic vulnerability assessment is a time consuming and extensive exercise which
should address different requirements using the same questionnaire. Hence it is of utmost
importance to decide clear objectives of the survey. Some of the main objectives can be to
assess direct economic loss due to building collapse and damage to internal contents, indirect
economic loss due to loss of production or estimation of casualties for scenario earthquake.
Secondary objectives can be to spread awareness among common people after the survey,
help governing bodies to make policy, identifying the most vulnerable areas within a
city/region or prepare ground work for more detailed future vulnerability assessment.
2.2.2.2 Building Classification
Buildings are designed based on design-level vertical and lateral loads considering its
usage. Hence every building can be seen as having two aspects: engineering and social
function. The main engineering characteristics of a building need to be evaluated to assess its
seismic vulnerability are:

Construction material (strength and weight)

Soil / foundation material
Structural foundation

Height
Structural framing system
Configuration
Structural continuity
Design and detailing
Construction quality
Age and maintenance
Proximity to other structures

The functional usage of building indicates the non-structural components as well as

number of users of the building. A building can be broadly classified based on usage as:

Residential buildings
Commercial buildings
Industrial buildings
Critical facilities (i.e. fire brigade, police station, communication towers etc)
Lifeline buildings (i.e. hospitals, water supply system etc)

ATC-13 classified buildings into 78 classes of structures based on engineering

classification and into 35 classes based on functional classification. Table 1 and 2 list both the
classification used in the ATC-13 report (for buildings only).
Table 1: Earthquake Engineering Facility Classification (ATC-13, 1985)
A. BUILDINGS
1. Wood Frame (Low Rise)
2. Light Metal (Low Rise)
3. Unreinforced Masonry (Bearing Wall)
o Low Rise (1-3 Stories)
o Medium Rise (4-7 Stories)
4. Unreinforced Masonry (With Load Bearing Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise (8+ Stories)
5. Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall (Without Moment Resisting Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
6. Reinforced Masonry Shear Wall (Without Moment Resisting Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
7. Reinforced Masonry Shear Wall (With Moment Resisting Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
8. Braced Steel Frame
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise

o High Rise
9. Moment Resisting Steel Frame (Perimeter Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
10. Moment Resisting Steel Frame (Distributed Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
11. Moment Resisting Ductile Concrete Frame (Distributed Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
12. Moment Resisting Non-ductile Concrete Frame (Distributed Frame)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
13. Precast Concrete (Other than Tilt-up)
o Low Rise
o Medium Rise
o High Rise
14. Long-Span (Low Rise)
15. Tilt-up (Low Rise)
16. Mobile Homes
B. STORAGE TANKS
1. Underground
o Liquid
o Solid
2. On ground
o Liquid
o Solid
3. elevated
o Liquid
o Solid

Table 2: Social Function Classification (ATC-13, 1985)

A. RESIDENTIAL

Permanent Dwelling
Temporary Lodging
Group Institutional Housing

B. COMMERCIAL

Retail Trade
Wholesale Trade
Personal and Repair Services
10

Professional, Technical and Business Services

Health Care Services
Entertainment and Recreation
Parking

C. INDUSTRIAL

Heavy Fabrication and Assembly

Light Fabrication and Assembly
Food and Drugs Processing
Chemical Processing
Metal and Minerals Processing
High Technology
Construction
Petroleum

D. AGRICULTURE
E. RELIGION AND NON-PROFIT
F. GOVERNMENT

General Services
Emergency Response Services

G. EDUCATION
H. UTILITIES

Electrical
Water
Sanitary Sewer
Natural Gas
Telephone and Telegraph

I. COMMUNICATION (Radio and TV)

J. FLOOD CONTROL

Apart from classifying the buildings into various structural and functional categories,
it is equally important to have a reliable building database of area of interest. There are
various sources which could provide data for vast number of buildings. It has been observed
that while it is easier to get data about the functional utility of a building, its structural details
are often very difficult to obtain.
In India functional utility can be obtained from census data, municipal records and
other sources. However, it is very difficult to get engineering data of buildings as good record
keeping of these details does not exist. In the USA and European countries structural details

11

have been obtained through insurance data also. It has been possible because of deeper
penetration of insurance industry and better record maintenance.
The ATC-13 methodology used a three level approach to build facility inventory.
Level-1:

Use of existing facility specific database

Level-2:

Synthesis of facility inventories from FEMA and EEA economic data

Level-3:

Synthesis of facility inventories from population or other data

These levels are applied progressively, i.e. higher level sought only if facility
inventory was not available at lower level. Level-1 was considered as most reliable and most
of the inventory data was obtained from this level itself.
2.2.2.3 Earthquake Intensity Indicator
Many earthquake scales have been developed in the past to measure the after effect of
earthquake. Earlier scales were based on peoples observation during earthquake and
observed damage. These are known as seismological intensity scales. All personal experience
and observed damage during and after the earthquake are graded in a scale having arbitrary
divisions and so these scales are essentially qualitative. The first intensity scale introduced by
Rossi and Forell in 1878 had 10 divisions from I to X. Italian seismologist Mercalli modified
it in 1902. Later in 1931 this was further improved by American seismologist Wood and
Newman. This final scale is known as Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale and has 12
grades from I to XII (Papathanassiou and Pavlides, 2007). Other commonly used scales are
Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik (MSK scale, introduced in 1964), Japan Meteorological
Agency (first introduced in 1884 and last modified in 1995), European Macroseismic scale
(introduced in 1998). An important positive feature of these scales is that categorization is
based on observable phenomenon and applicable to various parts of world. On the other hand,
serious limitation of these scales that those are not directly applicable to engineering analysis.
During last half century, after the instrumentation facility for measuring various
ground motion parameters became common, several engineering characterizations of
earthquake ground motion have been proposed and used for design purpose. The most
commonly used parameter among these is peak ground acceleration.
Earthquake ground motion parameters which affect the performance of the structure
are: amplitude, frequency content, periodicity and duration. Any intensity scale that
incorporates all or maximum of these parameters is likely to represent earthquake damage in
most widely manner.
The ATC-13 used MMI scale to relate probable damage for different building
typologies. It was chosen over other scales because it was most commonly used scale in
USA. This scale is largely based on performance of unreinforced masonry buildings,
chimneys and limited number of old types of construction.
2.2.2.4 Building Damage Scale
Building damage scale helps to quantify the extent of damage. The damage scale
usually link repair cost to replacement cost of the building.

12

The ATC-13 methodology defined damage scale based on damage factor. Damage
Factor (DF) is the ratio of monetary loss of building divided by its replacement value. The
following table lists the damage scale used in ATC-13:
Table 3: Damage State Classification (ATC-13, 1985)

1 None
2 Slight

Damage
Factor Range
(%)
0
01

Central
Damage
Factor
0
0.5

3 Light

1 10

4 Moderate

10 30

20

5 Heavy

30 60

45

6 Major

60 100

80

7 Destroyed

100

100

Damage State

Description
No Damage.
Limited localized minor damage not requiring repair.
Significant localized damage of some components
generally not requiring repair.
Significant localized damage of many components
warranting repair.
Expensive damage, require major repairs.
Major widespread damage that may result in the
facility being razed, demolished or repaired.
Total destruction of the majority of the facility.

2.2.2.5 Expert Selection

This is one of the most important aspects of the expert opinion method. ATC-13
defines an expert a person with high degree of knowledge in a particular area, which may be
attained through organized research, field experience, or other means. A total of 71 experts
were consulted for vulnerability assessment of California for 78 earthquake engineering
facility classes (ATC-13, 1985). For any one type of facility class maximum 8 specialists
were available. Rigorous procedure to choose experts ensured reliable results.
The weakest aspect of expert opinion method is the possibility of bias. It can come
into result due to various reasons, such as selection of experts, personal/professional/political
motivations, overconfidence, and time interval since last major destructive earthquake. Some
of them can be avoided with due care but some are difficult or impossible to remove. A
diverse selection of experts from various institutions and different work experience (research,
design engineers, site engineer, contractor, etc.) can avoid bias due to motivation.
ATC-13 methodology tried to avoid bias because of overconfidence or pessimism by
asking each expert to scale his/her expert level on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means no
experience and 10 represents extensive experience. Another safeguard against this bias is to
share the cumulative knowledge of result with each expert and ask them to revise their
estimates if they feel so.
2.2.2.6 Questionnaire Procedure
Before developing the questionnaire, its end goals should be very clear. Usually the
prime goal of vulnerability assessment is to find out the probability of damage a particular
building type may suffer in the event of predefined earthquake. Earthquake is defined in
terms of chosen intensity and building damage in terms of predefined damage states. A clear
definition of chosen earthquake intensity scale and damage scale should be provided to
experts.
Expert opinion procedure is an iterative procedure, where greater consensus is tried to
be built up with each iteration. Hence the criteria to terminate iterations should be decided

13

beforehand. Valid criteria can be pre-decided range of expert opinions or number of

iterations.
The ATC-13 questionnaire asked experts to give low, best and high estimate of
damage factor at Modified Mercalli Intensities VI to XII. The best estimate of a damage
factor at a specified intensity level is interpreted as the mean value or most likely observed
damage factor for a particular building typology. The low and high estimates are said to
define the 90% probability bounds of damage factor. In other words, there is only 10%
chance that the damage level will be either lesser or greater than the respective lower and
upper bounds specified by the expert. Experts were informed that damage factor should
exclude the possibility of fault rupture, inundation, fire or foundation sink/tilt. Design and
construction quality should be assumed to be regular for the region being considered.
In ATC-13, experts were also asked to rate their professional experience on a scale
from 0 to 10, where 0 corresponded to no opinion, total lack of knowledge or not sure at all;
and 10 corresponded to absolute certainty, complete knowledge or complete confidence.
Depending upon the experience level and damage factor provided by each expert, the average
damage factor was calculated and again sent to expert for their reconsideration. Each expert
was asked to compare his/her opinion with average result and make any changes if desired.
This exercise was completed with three rounds of questionnaire.

2.2.3 Limitations of the Method

The vulnerability assessment based on expert opinion is the result of subjective
assessment of several experts in the field. Questionnaire can be designed to minimize this
subjectivity but cannot be eliminated totally because of inherent human biases such as due to
conservatism, pessimism and optimism, and subjective pressure. Especially for the very high
intensity earthquake, i.e. MMI X, XI and XII, which possibly might not be observed by
some/many experts, damage estimates are projected based on experience with lower intensity
earthquakes.
Accuracy of the assessment also depends on documentation of the building inventory.
A detailed buildings database with structural and non-structural features, occupancy,
building usage helps to classify the buildings and estimate damage due to various intensity of
earthquake.

2.3 Empirical Methods

2.3.1 Introduction
Early efforts to identify seismic vulnerability were based on identifying damage/loss
patterns from existing earthquake data and predicting it for future earthquake (Liu and Hsieh,
1981; Scawthorn et al., 1981 and Norea et al., 1989). These data were limited to a small area
and particular intensity of earthquake, which made application of such methods highly
localized. Early vulnerability assessment methods tried to find damage in a building type due
to a predetermined earthquake. This damage was then extrapolated to evaluate city based or
region based damage. Such methods are usually called as Empirical Methods because they
are largely dependent on the observed post-earthquake damage data.

14

Empirical methods are thus based on the observed damage due to earthquake. These
types of methods were developed before advance computers were available to perform
complex analysis. With the advancement of computer-based analysis techniques these
methods play an important role in verifying or benchmarking analytical results with the
observed damage. The results obtained from these methods are used to cross-check the
analytical results and improve analytical techniques.
Many attempts have been made in different parts of world to use empirical data to
identify the earthquake damage pattern, synthesise the damage information, extract lessons
for future design and policy decisions. In the following sections various studies have been
described in detail.

2.3.2 Damage Probability Matrix

In one of the earliest attempt to create earthquake damage probability matrix,
Whitman et al. (1973) used damage data of San Fernando earthquake of 9 February 1971.
The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
1. Assessment of extent of damage. The degree of damage of a building in the aftermath of
an earthquake is basic need to start the construction of damage probability matrix. These
damage states may be determined based on previous earthquake damage data, some
economic impact assessment or expert opinion. In this study authors based scale on: (a) a
subjective description of physical damage, and (b) an objective ratio of repair cost to
replacement cost. The relationship between these two was developed from experience
during the San Fernando earthquake. Following damage scale was used for DPM:
In certain studies it is more appropriate to use mean damage ratios (MDRs). This
parameter evaluates only the expected damage value for each earthquake intensity.
2. Develop Damage Probability Matrices. The DPMs were developed for buildings with 5 or
more stories in this study. The experts categorized all available buildings in this category
into 10 building typologies based on number of stories, construction material and year of
construction. Tall building between 1933 and 1947 were omitted due to their relative few
numbers because of the Depression and World War II. Researchers chose to work only on
higher buildings because (a) others were studying damage to low residential buildings and
(b) it felt necessary to focus on high rise buildings where engineering design plays
important role.

15

Table 4: Building typologies used by Whitman et al. (1973)

S. No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Year of
construction

Number of
stories

Concrete
Steel
Concrete
Steel
Concrete
Steel
Concrete
Steel
Steel
Steel

5-7
Pre-1933
8-13
5-7
Post-1947

Material

8-13
14-18
19+

Table 5: Format of DPM proposed by Whitman et al. (1973)

Intensity of Earthquake

Damage
State

Structural
Damage

Nonstructural
Damage

Damage
Ratio
(%)

VI

VII

VIII

IX

None

None

0-0.05

10.4

None

Minor

0.05-0.3

16.4

0.5

None

Localised

0.3-1.25

40.0

22.5

Not Noticeable Widespread 1.25-3.5

20.0

30.3

2.7

3
4

Minor

Substantial

3.5-4.5

13.2

47.1

92.3

58.8

14.7

Substantial

Extensive

7.5-20

0.2

5.0

41.2

83.0

Major

Nearly total

20-65

2.3

Building Condemned

100

Collapse

100

3. Represent earthquake intensity using Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. Like many earlier
empirical methods this study also used Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) to represent
ground shaking. The area under the purview of this study had experienced MMI VI, VII
and VIII.
4. Collect information regarding observed damage. A lot of information was already
available through damage data studies of San Fernando earthquake about moderately and
highly damaged buildings. Researchers prepared a questionnaire to obtain statistics about
less damaged buildings. A one-page questionnaire was developed for building owners,
asking for data on building characteristic, total repair cost and breakdown of type of
damages. Damage data of about 370 buildings was available for further analysis through
questionnaire. Overall about 1600 damaged buildings data was with the researchers.

16

5. Process the data. After gathering all the damage data and defining damage scale, the data
was processed in different ways to simulate various situations. DPMs and MDRs were
generated for different building types, different building ages, different assumptions
concerning boundaries between intensity zones, different methods for relating replacement
cost to building characteristics, etc. The buildings were classified into various damage
states based on damage ratio, using the best estimate for damage cost and the best estimate
of replacement cost. Where possible, replacement cost was evaluated. MDRs were
computed by averaging the actual, individual damage ratios. The following table shows an
example DPM for all buildings:
Table 6: DPMs and MDRs for all buildings in various intensity zones (Whitman et al.,
1973)
Date of
Construction
Intensity

Pre-1933

Post-1947

VI

VII

VI

VII

VIII

90

14

79

33

10

12

18

34

17

35

20

39

18

10

11

11

11

MDR - %

0.03

2.8

0.05

0.5

7.5

Number of
Buildings

19

114

57

156

18

Damage
State

6. Compare and validate results. Various results and interpretations can be drawn once the
DPMs are constructed. Comparing the mean damage ratios of table given above, a clear
observation comes out that the buildings constructed prior to 1933 were more susceptible
to damage as compared to post-1947 construction. Since above table shows that more data
was available for buildings located in intensity VII compared to VI or VIII, the confidence
in the result of MMI VII is obviously more than those in the other two intensities.
This study was one of the first attempts to create DPM from the empirical data
collected through post earthquake damage survey and questionnaires.

2.3.3 Capacity Index Method

Yakut (2004) presented a preliminary seismic performance assessment procedure for
existing RC buildings. The proposed method is most suitable for low- to mid-rise RC frame
buildings with and without shear wall. Basic concept of the method is to determine the base
17

shear capacity of building using ground floor dimension, size, orientation and concrete
strength of the components part of lateral load resisting system.
Main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
1. Shear capacity of each structural member is computed based on its concrete contribution
using equation 2. Total shear capacity of entire building is obtained by adding individual
capacity of all members in each principal direction.

Vci c f ctk bwh

(2)

where:
Vci = shear capacity of a rectangular concrete member (without web reinforcement)
bw, h = dimensions of rectangular concrete member
fctk = direct concrete tensile strength, which is related to compressive strength and is
determined using NDTs. In absence of any test concrete compressive strength (fck)
was assumed below 10MPa for poor quality construction, between 10MPa and 16MPa
for average quality construction and above 16MPa for good quality construction.
Construction quality of poor, average or good was based on visual assessment.

= coefficient to represent combined effect of strength reduction factor and the

empirical coefficient that relates shear strength to the tensile strength (depends upon
specific code).
c = coefficient to account for the orientation of member. It is taken as 2/3 for
longitudinal capacity and 1/3 for transverse shear capacity. For shear wall it is
considered as 1 for in-plane direction.
2. The above formula for the concrete base shear capacity was related to the actual buildings
with the help of computer analysis. A 3D pushover analysis of 40 RC buildings of various
heights was performed and pushover curve was bi-linearised as per FEMA-273 procedure
(Figure 2). The ratio of concrete base shear capacity and yield base shear capacity (Vc/Vy) is
plotted against number of stories (n) and following equation is obtained (Figure 3):
Vy

Vc
0.95e0.125 n

(3)

With the help of equation 3 any base shear in concrete can be converted to actual base shear
capacity if the number of stories is known. While using these equations due considerations
are to be given to failure modes of joints and detailing of members along with joints as per
new and old design code rules.

18

Figure 2: Idealised Pushover Curve (Yakut, 2004)

Figure 3: Relationship between Vy/Vc and number of stories (n) (Yakut, 2004)
Another analysis was performed to simulate the effect of infill walls. These masonry
walls were modeled using diagonal strut members. Only walls without openings were
considered as effective resistance to lateral load. Modified yield base shear capacity with
infill walls (Vyw) was related to capacity without infill walls (Vy) in terms of total area of filler
walls (Aw) and total floor area of the building (Atf) with the help of equation 4 & Figure 4.

Vyw Vy 46 w 1
Atf

(4)

19

Figure 4: Influence of filler wall on the yield base shear capacity (Yakut, 2004)
3. After establishing the base shear of building with infill wall (Vyw) an index named Basic
Capacity Index (BCPI) was evaluated as the ratio of base shear capacity (Vyw) and code
specified base shear (Vcode).
BCPI

Vyw
Vcode

(5)

This index can be used to evaluate seismic performance of building assuming that it is
built according to seismic codes of region and does not have any architectural feature with
negative effects on its seismic performance. However, usually buildings have poor
construction quality and architectural features affecting seismic performance. To incorporate
these effects an improved Capacity Index (CPI) was suggested.

CPI C ACM BCPI

(6)

where CA and CM are coefficients, which represent architectural features and construction
quality, respectively.

C A 1.0 (C AS CASC C AP C AF )

(7)

Where:
CAS = Coefficient to incorporate soft story feature
CASC = Coefficient to incorporate short column feature
CAP = Coefficient to incorporate plan irregularity feature
CAF = Coefficient to incorporate vertical and in-plane discontinuity of frames
The above coefficients have been extensively dealt with in various analytical,
empirical and experimental studies. Table 7 compares these coefficients from various studies.
The coefficients listed in Table 7 are representative only and need to be calculated based on
the target building stock. However, quantification of these factors need not be precise
because the procedure is aimed to determine relative vulnerability of a group of building.
Hence approximate values can be assigned by examining and comparing the analytical
results, expert opinion and field observations.

20

Table 7: Comparison of weighting coefficients for architectural factors (Yakut, 2004)

Weighting Coefficients
Feature

FEMA 154
(1988)

Gulkan and
Yakut (1994)

Sucuoglu and
Yazgan (2003)

Soft Story (CAS)

0.36

0.50

0.32

Short Column (CASC)

0.18

0.25

0.11

Plan Irregularity (CAP)

0.19

0.125

0.19

Frame Irregularity (CAF)

0.27

0.125

0.38

Coefficient CM, which is based on material and construction quality, is determined

relative to CA. Ratio Qr = (1-CM)/(1-CA) is recommended as 0.1, 0.44 and 0.55 based on
scores given in FEMA 154 (1988), Gulkan and Yakut (2000) and Sucuoglu and Yazgan
(2003), respectively. Since the author of this study intended to use this method in Turkey, he
recommended use of value of Qr as 0.44 or 0.55, which are also based on field data of
extensive experience of substandard construction related earthquake damage of Turkish
buildings. The value of CM was recommended to be modified as per visual construction
quality, as represented qualitatively in Table 8.
Table 8: Recommended values of CM (Yakut, 2004)
Quality of construction and workmanship

CM
1.0 Qr (1 CA)

Poor

1.0 Qr (1 CA) / 3

Average

1.0

Good

4. The value of CPI should be calibrated/checked with various earthquake damage data to
obtain reliable seismic vulnerability classification of buildings. In the present study the author
cross-verified Capacity Index procedure with the three Turkish earthquake database, listed in
Table 9.
Table 9: Earthquake Database used to check Capacity Index procedure (Yakut, 2004)
Earthquake

Magnitude

Number of buildings examined

Erzincan earthquake, 1992

6.8

43

Afyon earthquake, 2002

6.5

18

Bingol earthquake, 2003

6.4

28

The Capacity Index of the buildings in the above database was calculated and cross
checked with the observed condition of building. In addition to above mentioned buildings,
131 existing reinforced buildings scattered all over Turkeys high hazard zones were also
analysed and categorised as adequate, to be strengthen and to be demolished. Later
21

CPI of the each building was calculated and checked compared to analytical results. The
comparison shows that while the CPI results were in good agreement with analytical results
for adequate and to be demolished category building, it is not very satisfactory for to be
strengthened buildings. The cut-off limit of CPI was set as 1.2 to compare with analytical
results, as mentioned in Figure 5.
The most challenging task in this procedure was the assessment of CA and CM, and
deciding the limit of CPI for classifying building as safe or unsafe. The most appropriate
value for CA and Qr, as suggested by Yakut (2004), is 0.85 and 0.55 respectively, which are
based on FEMA 154. These values represent more realistic conditions by incorporating
analytical results, expert opinion and field data. Limit for CPI depends upon the area,
construction practices and code specified earthquake. For Turkey the author suggested limit
value of 1.2 as a good starting point.

22

Figure 5: Influence Application of Capacity Index procedure (Yakut, 2004)

2.3.4 Empirical Fragility Curve for European RC buildings

Rossetto and Elnashai (2003) studied 99 post-earthquake damage datasets from 19
earthquakes and comprising 3,40,000 RC buildings. This study leads to development of a
new damage scale for European type RC buildings and new empirical fragility curve. This
new damage scale is capable of differentiating in damage rates of various structural systems.
The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
23

1. Number of buildings considered in this study was huge and varied because earthquakes
from all parts of world are considered. Authors developed a new set of damage scale to
incorporate the features of RC buildings in different parts of world. This scale is called
homogenised reinforced concrete damage scale (HRC scale) and used seven damage states to
define typical structural and non-structural damage in four main types of reinforced concrete
structures found in Europe (Table 10).
Table 10: Homogenised Reinforced Concrete Damage Scale (Rossetto and Elnashai,
2003)
DIHRC

DAMAGE
STATE

DUCTILE
MRF

NONDUCTILE
MRF

INFILLED
MRF

SHEARWALL

None

No damage

No damage

No damage

No damage

Slight

Fine cracks in
plaster
partitions/infills

Fine cracks in
plaster
partitions/infills

Fine cracks in
plaster
partitions/infills

Fine cracks in
plaster
partitions/infills

10

Start of structural Start of structural Cracking at wall- Start of structural

damage
damage
frame interface
damage

20

30
Light

Hairline cracking Hairline cracking Cracking initiates Hairline cracking

in beams and
in beams and
from corner of
on shear-wall
openings
columns near
columns near
surfaces &
joint (<1mm)
joint (<1mm)
coupling beams
Diagonal
cracking of walls. Onset of concrete
Limited crushing spalling at a few
locations
of bricks at b/c
connection

40

50

60
Moderate

70

80

Cracking in most Flexural and

Increased brick Most shear walls
exhibit cracks
beams &
shear cracking in crushing at b/c
columns
connection
most beams &
columns
Some walls reach
Some yielding in
Start of structural yield capacity
a limited number Some yielding in
damage
a limited number
Increased
Large flexural
Some diagonal diagonal cracking
cracks & start of Shear cracking shear cracking in & spalling at wall
concrete spalling and spalling is
corners
members,
limited
especially for
exterior frames

Ultimate capacity Loss of bond at

reached in some lap-splices, bar
Extensive elements large pull-out, broken
ties
flexural cracking,
concrete spalling

24

Extensive
Most shear walls
cracking of
have exceeded
infills, falling yield, some reach
bricks, out-of- ultimate capacity,
boundary

DIHRC

DAMAGE
STATE

DUCTILE
MRF

NONDUCTILE
MRF

& rebar buckling

Short column
failure
90

100

INFILLED
MRF

SHEARWALL

plane bulging

element distress
seen.

Main rebar may

buckle or
Partial failure of
elements fail in
many infills,
Re-bar buckling,
shear
heavier damage
extensive
in frame
cracking &
members, some
through wall
fail in shear
cracks. Shear
failure of some
frame members

Partial
collapse

Collapse of a few Shear failure of Beams and/or Coupling beams

columns, a
many columns or columns fail in shattered at some
shear walls fail
building wing or impending softshear causing
single upper floor story failure
partial collapse,
near total infill
failure

Collapse

Complete or Complete or soft- Complete or

Complete or
impending
story failure at
impending
impending
building collapse ground floor building collapse building collapse

The limit states are defined in terms of damage index, the HRC-damage index
(DIHRC), which is based on experimental calibration with structural response parameter of
maximum inter story drift ratio (ISDmax%). This damage index was calibrated with 25
published experimental reports on dynamic tests for RC structural models with bare wall,
infilled wall and shear wall. In these experiments the progression of structural damage and
inter-story drift response was recorded. Relationships (Eq. 8-11) were developed between
DIHRC & ISDmax% for different types of RC structures based on pseudo-dynamic tests. (In
these equations Ln represents natural logarithms and R2 is coefficient of correlation of data to
fitted curve.)

DI HRC 34.89 Ln( ISDmax % ) 39.39 , R2=0.991 for non ductile MRF

(8)

DI HRC 22.49 Ln( ISDmax % ) 66.88 , R2=0.822 for infilled frames

(9)

DI HRC 39.31Ln( ISDmax % ) 52.98 , R2=0.985 for shear wall systems

(10)

DI HRC 27.89 Ln( ISDmax % ) 56.36 , R2=0.760 for general structures

(11)

2. Homogenised reinforced concrete damage scale was used to derive empirical

vulnerability function for European type RC structure. For that purpose it was necessary to
correlate other damage scales, used in 99 datasets, with HRC scale. Four approximate
correlation tables were developed to serve this purpose using authors interpretation of the
relative limit state damage description. Another correlation was developed for a general RC

25

structure (Table 11) to understand damage of a building if it is not classified in the dataset in
any of the four building types, e.g. ductile MRF, non-ductile MRF, infilled MRF and shear
wall. Equations 7-10 were used to convert the assigned damage indices into equivalent
ISDmax% and, based on it, all the 99 datasets were plotted with ISDmax% (normalized to 6%) as
horizontal axis. The cumulative beta distributions were found to be the best fit for each of 99
datasets.
Table 11: Equivalence between HRC and other damage scales (Rossetto and Elnashai,
2003)
DIHRC

HRC

None

10

Slight

HAZUS
1999

Light

FEMA273

EMS98

MSK

AIJ

Fully
operational
Slight
damage

Immediate
occupancy

D1

EPPO

Green
tag

Green
tag

Yellow
tag

Yellow
tag

Red tag

Red
tag

Light
Light

operational

D2
Minor

Damage
control

50

Moderate
Moderate

Moderate
damage

Grade 3
Life safe

D3

Life safe

Moderate

70
80
Extensive
Extensive
damage

90
100

ATC-21

Slight
Grade 1

Grade 2
40

60

ATC-13

No damage limit state

20
30

VISION
2000

Partial
collapse
Collapse

Near
collapse

Heavy

Limited
safety
Grade 4
Collapse
prevention

D4

Major
Major
Partial
collapse

Collapse

Collapse limit state

3. Damage scale of each of the 99 datasets was converted to maximum inter-story drift. This
inter-story drift was normalized to 6% drift, i.e. ISDmax% was divided by 6%. Now the
cumulative probability of exceeding of inter-story drift was calculated and plotted against
normalized ISDmax%. This normalized inter-story drift was converted to HRC-scale and
exceeding probability for each damage state was found with the help of cumulative
probability vs. normalised ISDmax% graph. These steps are figuratively represented in Figure 6
for Korinthos earthquake (Greece, 1981).

26

Figure 6: Conversion of the RC building damage statistics observed in Plateas after the
Korinthos earthquake (Greece, 1981) to the HRC-scale (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2003)
In this way, all the 99 datasets were converted to give exceedence probability for each
of damage state of HRC scale. In other words, each damage state of HRC scale has 99 values
or data points, using which full vulnerability curve can be plotted.
4. Considering the amount of raw data used in this analysis and large associated scatter, it
was decided to assign weighting factor to each dataset. This was done by combining the
damage state exceedence probabilities of similar ground motion severities according to

27

number of surveyed buildings. This procedure helped in identification of trends in data and
reducing the influence on curve shape of single earthquake and non-European earthquake.
5. With the help of weighting procedure, the revised exceeding probabilities are found for
each damage state of HRC scale. Now various cumulative distribution functions were again
assessed to model vulnerability curve shapes. A comparison of the models was carried out
considering both acceleration and displacement based peak and spectral ground motion
parameters. It was found that relationship of the form of equation 12 gave best fit for various
ground motion parameters (GM), where and are estimated from non-linear regression on
the plotted observational data.

P(d DI HRC | GM ) 1 e( .GM

(12)

Using this relationship vulnerability functions for different ground motion parameters
were developed. These functions are homogenous, i.e. it can be used to predict behavior of
any type of RC structure.

Figure 7: Empirical Vulnerability curves for different ground motion parameters

(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2003)

2.4 Analytical Methods

2.4.1 Introduction
With the advancement of computation and data collection techniques more
complicated methods have been suggested. These methods deal with nonlinear analysis of
structures, probabilistic modeling of earthquake, and generalizing results of smaller area to a
28

region or other cities etc (Singhal and Kiremidjian, 1996; DAyala, 2005; Rossetto and
Elnashai, 2005 and Borzi et al., 2008). Recently fuzzy logic-based methods have been
suggested to develop vulnerability function of buildings (Fischer et al., 2002; Demartinos
and Dritsos, 2006 and Tesfamariam and Saatcioglu, 2010). These types of methods are
usually referred as Analytical Methods because they are based on sound mathematical
formulation.

2.4.2 Displacement-based Vulnerability Curves for RC Buildings

Rossetto and Elnashai (2005) presented an analytical method to compute vulnerability
curves for RC structures. Usually analytical methods are analytically intensive and time
consuming. The authors proposed a displacement-based approach, which adopts a response
surface methodology in the generation of population damage statistics. This ensures less
number of analyses and reliable presentation of building population response uncertainty to
be achieved. The authors used previously developed homogenised damage scale (HRC)
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005) to define damage state.
The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
1. System definition: In the first step of this method, a single building with material,
configuration and seismic resistance characteristics that are representative of the building
class being assessed is selected and designed as per typical practice. These properties are to
be decided based on composition of buildings in the selected region. Adequate number of
building typologies should be defined based on lateral load resisting system for assessing
reliable vulnerability of an area.
Rossetto and Elnashai (2005) focussed on low-rise infilled RC frames of typical
European construction, which are designed to older seismic codes (not including capacity
design concepts). A regular, three-story infilled frame configuration was selected for
analytical modeling. It was designed as per loading, material, member dimensioning and
detailing of the seismic and gravity load design codes of Italy in 1982. A nonlinear finite
element model of the building was built and analysed.
Once the structural configuration was fixed and design was done, some parameters
were considered as variable with a redefined probability distribution function (PDF). These
parameters can vary depending upon the analysis objective, available time frame, available
computational resources. This will also depend upon the likely impact of chosen parameter
on overall results and available data to define suitable scatter of parameter. In this study
concrete unconfined compressive strength (fc), the infill compressive strength (fcw) and the
beam and column reinforcing bar steel yield strength (fy) were chosen to be randomly varied
between frames. For reinforcing steel a correlation coefficient of 0.7 was assumed between
elements of single frame. The choice of random variable and corresponding PDF depended
upon the prevalent construction practice and reliability of the building material
manufacturing process. Using the above mentioned variables and their PDF several frames
are generated, which collectively represented a single frame structure. Table 12 presents the
properties of chosen random variables.
The general plan and elevation, section size and rebar configuration were considered
as deterministic property in this study. Considering the above mentioned variables, 25
structures were modelled, which collectively represent low-rise European-type old code RC
structure.

29

Table 12: Material parameter probability distribution functions used in the population
generation (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005)
Material

Concrete

Steel

Masonry infill

Random variable

Mean fc

COV fy1

Mean fcw

Distribution

Normal

Log-normal

Log-normal

Mean

Nominal fc

0.06

Nominal fcw

Coeff. of variation (COV)

0.12

0.25

0.20

Design variable

Mean fc

Mean fy2

Mean fcw

1 Use of COV of fy as the random variable allows a constant characteristic yield strength to be
maintained and a realistic variation in mean yield strength to be obtained.
2 Calculated for fyk = nominal fy.

2. Definition of ground motion input: Suitable earthquake records are selected for
analysis. Earthquake records are selected based on target performance level, return period and
soil type. Random variation in earthquake ground motion parameter is not considered. Three
performance states of Serviceability, Damage control and Collapse prevention, which
are defined in FEMA 273, are used for selection of accelerograms. These three performance
objectives are related to earthquakes of return period 95, 475 and 2475 years, respectively.
Ten earthquakes corresponding to each performance state were chosen from European
Strong-Motion Database. Records were chosen for different site soil conditions, considering
earthquakes with values of Ms and r within 0.5Ms and 10 km of those defining the target
curves, such that the average spectral shape of the selected suite of records closely
approximates the target spectrum. Table 13 lists the earthquake parameters for defining target
spectra.
Table 13: Characteristics of the earthquake events defining the target spectra (Rossetto
and Elnashai, 2005)
Soil category
Return period (years)
Target pga (cm/s2)

Rock
95

475

Firm
2475

95

475

Soft
2475

95

475

2475

6.70 12.30 21.70 6.10 11.90 20.70 6.10 11.80 22.30

Lower bound pga (cm/s2)

4.10

Upper bound pga (cm/s2)

9.30 18.50 34.90 8.70 18.20 33.90 8.70 18.10 35.50

7.60

13.80 3.50

7.30

12.80 3.50

7.20

14.40

Surface magnitude (Ms)

5.75

6.05

6.25

5.55

5.85

6.15

4.95

5.35

5.45

Fault distance (r, km)

22

14

30

18

12

16

10

3. Model evaluation: Analysis of structural model is carried out using adaptive pushover
analysis technique within a capacity spectrum framework of assessment. Adaptive pushover
(APO) analysis follows the same procedure as conventional pushover analysis, but at each
load increment updates lateral applied load distribution to take into account the instantaneous
structural stiffness, modal properties and consequent ground motion demand. Thus it can

30

account for the effect of ground motion characteristics on structural response and
computationally less cumbersome compared to time-history analyses.
Using the APO analysis total 750 base-shear versus top-displacement curves were
generated for 25 buildings and 30 earthquakes.
The maximum inter-storey drift response of each structure within the population is
assessed, for increasing intensities of ground motion, using a modified capacity spectrum
method. This assessment method avoids the repetition of analyses for increasing ground
motions, and further reduces the analysis number from several thousands to a few hundred.
In the study by Rossetto and Elnashai (2005), each of the 25 APO curves defining the
population was assessed approximately twenty times for the increasingly scaled accelerogram
used in their analysis, until an inter-storey drift value is obtained which exceeded that of the
most severe damage state of interest. The program was then run for a new earthquake and a
corresponding set of APO analysis results.
4. Statistical processing of analytical results: This step relates observed inter-story drift
with structural property and ground motion parameter value.
The capacity spectrum assessment for each frame of defined properties (fc, fcw, fy, fyb)
yields values of the maximum inter-storey drift response (ISDmax) for increasing values of
ground motion intensity. The results of the population assessment are used to construct
second-order response surfaces of the form of the following equation:

ISDmax
a1 f c2 a2 f cw2 a3 f yc2 a4 f yb2 a5 f c a6 f cw a7 f yc a8 f yb
S D 5% (T )
a9 f c fcw a10 f c f yc a11 f c f yb a12 f cw f yc a13 fcw f yb a14 f yc f yb C

(13)

A different response surface is generated for each damage state scenario, using the
results of the population assessment for the corresponding performance-compatible record
suite. An example response surface and its fit to regression data is shown in Figure 8.

31

Figure 8: Illustrations of the 2475YRP response surface (top) and its fit to the
regression data (bottom; the dashed lines indicate the 5th and 95th percentile
observed/predicted ISDmax% bounds) (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005).
The vulnerability relationships for the Slight and Light, Moderate and
Extensive, and Partial Collapse and Collapse damage states are selected from the curve
sets derived from the 95YRP, 475YRP and 2475YRP response surfaces, respectively. These
relationships are combined to form a performance-consistent set of vulnerability curves.
The curves are illustrated in Figure 9 and their equations are summarised in Table 14. In
Figure 9, the analytical vulnerability curve is also compared with the observed damage of
1154 infilled RC buildings from eight earthquakes. This observation shows good comparison
with average correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.62.

32

Figure 9: Comparison of the infilled frame population fragility curves with eight
observed post-earthquake damage distributions for like populations of structures.
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005)
Table 14: Summery of the infilled frame population vulnerability curve equation
(Rossetto and Elnashai, 2005)
HRC damage state
Mean
95% upper bound 5% lower bound

Slight damage

-7.80

0.60

-8.25

0.60

-6.30

0.42

Light damage

-7.15

0.40

-7.82

0.60

-5.76

0.34

Moderate damage

-5.78

0.21

-6.32

0.20

-4.51

0.22

Extensive damage

-4.44

0.21

-4.92

0.21

-3.12

0.22

Partial collapse

-3.49

0.22

-3.98

0.22

-2.12

0.27

Collapse

-2.99

0.22

-3.50

0.22

-1.67

0.24

2.4.3 Monte Carlo-based Simulation Method

A method to develop DPM and fragility curve based on Monte Carlo simulation was
proposed by Singhal and Kiremedjian (1996). This method was applied on RC frame
structures of low-rise (1-3 stories), medium-rise (4-7 stories) and high-rise (8 stories and
more).
This method involves three major components, namely characterisation of structure
when subjected to extreme dynamic load, characterisation of the potential ground motion and
quantification of the structural response that includes the variability in the ground motion and
the uncertainty in the structural parameters. Figure 10 shows the abovementioned
components in the form of a flowchart.

33

Structural system
modeling

Ground motion
modeling
Autoregressive moving
average models

Artificial ground
motion simulation

Simulation of
structural system
Monte Carlo simulation
(Latin Hypercube)

Nonlinear time history analysis

Synthetic Fragility Curves

Relationship between MMI

and
spectral acceleration in the
relevant period band

Damage Probability
Matrices

Figure 10: Steps for development of fragility curved and DPM (Singhal and
Kiremedjian, 1996)
The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as follows:
1. Earthquake ground motions are selected or generated based on amplitude, frequency
content and duration of ground motion. All such ground motion should be able to
simulated all possible variations due to distance to the fault, site soil parameters and
spectral characteristics. Artificial earthquake time histories were generated using nonstationary autoregressive moving average (ARMA) models for this study. Total 100
artificial time histories were generated and scaled to match the average spectral
acceleration over the period band corresponding to a particular class of RC frame
building.
2. Damage of the building is measured using an equivalent form of Park and Ang index
(Park and Ang, 1985a, 1985b) defined as follows:

dE
u M yu

(14)

Where:
m= maximum positive or negative plastic hinge rotation
u= plastic hinge rotation capacity under monolithic loading
= model parameter (0.15 for this study)
My = calculated yield strength

34

dE = incremental dissipated hysteretic energy

The global damage index is defined as a weighted average of the local damage indices
of each element. The weighting function for each element is proportional to the energy
dissipated in the element. The relationship between range of damage index and structural
damage state is given in Table 15.
Table 15: Ranges of park and Ang damage index for different damage states (Singhal
and Kiremedjian, 1996)
Damage state

Range of Park and Ang index

Minor

0.1-0.2

Moderate

0.2-0.5

Severe

0.5-1.0

Collapse

>1.0

3. The parameters of RC structures which are considered as random variable are

concrete compressive strength and steel yield strength, as per following table.
Table 16: random variable to model structural uncertainties (Singhal and Kiremedjian,
1996)
Random variable

Distribution type

Mean

Coefficient of
variation

Concrete compressive
strength

Normal

1.14fck

0.14

Steel yield strength

Lognormal

1.05fy

0.11

The average spectral acceleration ordinate in the period range corresponding

to the three classes of reinforced concrete frames (low-, mid- and high-rise) was used
to characterize the ground motion for fragility curves. The three period bands used in
this paper were 0.1-0.5s, 0.5-0.9 s, and 0.9-2.5 s.
The Generic structure of each type of RC frame had 2-story, 5-story and 12story building as shown in Figures 11 and 12.

Figure 11: Building plan of generic structure (Singhal and Kiremedjian, 1996)

35

Figure 12: Building elevation of generic structure for three classes (a) Low-rise
frame, (b) mid-rise frame and (c) high-rise frame (Singhal and Kiremedjian, 1996)
Non-linear dynamic analysis of the models was performed. Non-linearity was
introduced in terms of non-linear moment-rotation relationship and a hysteretic
relationship in terms of the restoring force and the member deformation. For details of
the method Singhal and Kiremedjian (1996) should be referred.
4. Building models as created in Step 3 were analysed for all the 100 artificial
earthquake time histories generated at each value of spectral acceleration. Results of
these analyses were used to generate the fragility curve for each class of structure.
5. Fragility curves were used to construct damage probability matrices (DPM) by
establishing the relationship between MMI and average spectral acceleration in each
period band. This was done using the average spectral acceleration values for ground
motion recorded on firm sites and the MMI values from these earthquakes at the
recording station. Once relationship between MMI and spectral values is established,
following equation is used to find out the different values in DPM.

PD|MMI [d | MMI ]

D |S a

[d | Sa ] f Sa |MMI [ Sa | MMI ]dSa

Sa

(15)

where:
[ |
] = probability of reaching or exceeding given damage state at
specified MMI;
|

36

PD|Sa [ d | Sa ]

= probability of reaching or exceeding given damage state at specified

spectral acceleration;
f Sa |MMI [ Sa | MMI ]

= conditional probability density function of spectral acceleration at

specified MMI

2.4.4 Fragility curves for RC buildings in Skopje (Macedonia) region

Dumova-Jovanoska (2000) presented a method for preparing fragility curves of RC
buildings in Skopje (Macedonia) region. Following are the main steps in analytical
procedure:
1. Earthquake intensity indicator was selected as Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale
(MMI). Although this scale has limitation of subjectivity of scale, it is widely used
and easy to correlate with other scales used in other parts of the world.
2. Representative earthquake time histories were synthetically generated because of
limited actual ground records for the region. These synthetic earthquakes were
generated using method proposed by Trifunac (1971). This methodology defines
accelerogram as:
N

a(t ) n Anm
n 1

n 1

*
sin n (t tnm
)
cos(n t n )
*
(t tnm )

(16)

Where:
Anm = relative amplitudes of different surface wave modes
2n FS (n )

= scale factor for determining the final

*
n M
i (( n ) t nm
n )
d
Anm e
2 n m 1
amplitude through overall Fourier amplitude spectrum FS( n)

n = center frequency of the band

t*nm = arrival time of mth mode at n
Above formula is based on assumption that earthquake, as felt on surface, is sum total
of waves of different velocities and frequencies that disperse through the base. Base is
composition of parallel layers of various thickness and material and mechanical
property.
3. Synthetic earthquakes were generated using available geological profile of the region
and following parameters

Earthquake intensity: MMI VII to XI

Base characteristic (s and S): depending upon geological condition and soil
type
Distance from epicentre: two values of 10km and 100km were considered

37

Using above parameters 240 synthetic earthquakes with both the orthogonal
components of earthquake were obtained. These time histories ranged from 30 to 80
seconds.
4. Most of the RC buildings in the region were from 4 to 18 stories. Hence two
representative building of 6 story and 16 story were chosen to represent buildings of
4-10 story and 11-18 story respectively. 6 story building was a frame structure
composed of columns and beams which 16 story structure also had shear wall in
addition to column and beam. Variations in the material strength within or among the
building were not taken into study because of lack of data. This was also avoided due
to high variation in earthquake characteristic incorporating 240 ground motions.
5. Nonlinearity in the model was introduced through tri-linear moment-curvature (M-)
relationship. The three parametric model proposed by Park was used in IDARC-2D
programme.
6. Damage to the building was defined by modified Park and Angs model, which is
linear combination of maximum deformations and absorbed hysteretic energy. Global
damage index was calculated by averaging the damage indices of individual members.
Damage state of building is defined as following table:
Table 17: Damage States (Dumova-Jovanoska, 2000)
S. No.

Damage State

Damage Index

None

< 0.05

Minor

0.05-0.1

Moderate

0.1-0.25

Severe

0.25-0.5

5
Collapse
> 0.5
7. Non-linear time history analysis was performed for all the 240 earthquake time
histories with time interval of 0.0001 seconds and 0.00001 seconds (for extremely
high maximum acceleration Amax > 1.0g)

2.4.5 Simplified pushover based earthquake loss assessment (SP-BELA)

Vulnerability curves for random population of buildings in Italy were generated using
simplified pushover based analysis. Borzi et al. (2008) analysed bare frame RC structures of
2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6- and 8- stories to generate vulnerability curve. Following are the main steps in
analytical procedure:
1. A prototype structure for existing Italian RC frames was selected based on previous
work. This building was designed as per pre-earthquake codes. Random variables in
the buildings were beam length, beam depth, column depth, yield strain of rebar and
cubic characteristic concrete strength. Following table lists the variable parameters:

38

Table 18: Random variable for representative buildings (Borzi et al., 2008)
Structural Parameter

Distribution

Rebar yield strain

0.0021

0.00021

Normal

Beam length

5.0m

1.0m

Normal

Beam depth

0.34m

0.07m

Lognormal

Column depth

0.38m

0.11m

Lognormal

Story height

3.0m

Deterministic value
2

Gravity load

3 kN/m
(2.5 for roof)

0.5 kN/m

Normal

Wind load

0.9 kN/m2

0.2 kN/m2

Normal

2.

2.4.6 Study of material and ground motion uncertainty on 3 story RC structures

Three story RC structures were analysed for material and ground motion uncertainty
using nonlinear time-history analysis. Building models and earthquakes were probabilistic
associated with each other. This analysis was performed by Kwon and Elnashai (2006) for
mid-rise RC frame structures in Mid-American region, which were not designed for
earthquake loads. Following are the main steps in analytical procedure:
1. Reference structure: Three-story ordinary moment resisting concrete frame
(OMRCF) was selected as a prototype structure. This structure was previously used
for experimental study and had three and four bays in E-W and N-S directions
respectively. One frame in N-S direction was used for analysis in this study.
Analytical computer model was verified by the shake table test conducted previously
by Bracci et al. (1992). Analytical results of structural periods of first three modes and
displacement time history for three earthquake excitation (corresponding to PGA of
0.05g, 0.20g and 0.30g) shows good agreement with experimental results.
2. Input motion uncertainty: ground motion uncertainty was modelled using the
combination of natural and synthetic time history. Natural time histories were selected
based on ratio of peak ground acceleration to peak ground velocity (a/v ratio).
Selection was based on the low (a/v < 0.8g /m s-1 ), intermediate (0.8g /m s-1 < a/v <
1.2g /m s-1) and high (1.2g /m s-1 < a/v) values of ratio.
Artificial ground motion was generated based on bedrock motion for the Mississippi
Embayment in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (Drosos, 2003). This bedrock motion
was used to generate six time history sets depending on soil profile and epicentre
distance. Each set contained ten time histories. Of these six, three sets (L-1, L-2 and
L-3) were based on Lowlands soil profile in the Memphis area and other three sets
(U-1, U-2 and U-3) were based on Uplands soil profile of the same area.
Effective duration for ground motion was considered as time interval between 0.5%
and 95% of Arias intensity. Above mentioned ground motions were scaled to suite

39

various peak ground acceleration values. Estimation of PGA scales was calculated
using elastic damped spectra and inelastic capacity spectra.
3. Material uncertainty: Concrete and steel strengths were introduced as random
variable based on previous studies of Barlett and MacGregor (1996) and Mirza and
MacGregor(1979), respectively. In-place concrete strength was assumed as normally
distributed with average value of 33.6MPa and coefficient of variation 18.6%. Steel
yield strength was also assumed as normally distributed with mean value of 337 MPa
and 10.7% coefficient of variation.
4. Combination of random variables: Ground motion set of low, moderate and high
a/v ratio were combined with ten ultimate concrete strengths, fc, and ten steel yield
strength, Fy, generating total 100 frames. Artificial ground motion sets for Lowlands
soil profile were combined with 50 concrete and steel strengths and similarly timehistories for Uplands soil profile were combined with 100 concrete and steel
strengths.
5. Limit state definition: Three limit states were defined in this study as serviceability,
damage control and collapse prevention. These limit states were defined based on 1st
story drift, which is equal to 0.57%, 1.2% and 2.3% respectively for limit states.
6. Analysis and result presentation: Simulation of time history analysis also
incorporated geometrical nonlinearity and material inelasticity. Based on 23,000
analysis for natural building time history and similar number of analysis for artificial
time history vulnerability curves were plotted for three limit states. It was observed
that effect of variability of ground motion on the vulnerability curve was much bigger
than the material variation of concrete or steel, especially at low PGA levels.

2.5 Hybrid Methods

2.5.1 Introduction
Hybrid methods combine expert opinion and/or post-earthquake damage data with
analytically derived damage from a mathematical model of a building typology. These
methods fulfil the gap between purely empirical and purely analytical methods. On the one
hand, they provide damage data for empirical methods where no data is available for
particular intensity levels for the geographical area under consideration, and on the other
hand they provide calibration for analytical models.

2.5.2 Hybrid Method for RC Buildings in Greece

A hybrid vulnerability assessment methodology was proposed by Kappos et al. (1998)
comprising empirical and analytical method for RC buildings in Thessaloniki, Greece. These
buildings were constructed before 1984 (i.e. before the Greek seismic code was revised) and
were predominantly low ductility frames and dual systems (walls coupled with frame). This
study focuses on development of construction of DPM and subsequent loss assessment based
on empirical data of 1978 Thessaloniki earthquake. However, only the construction of DPM
is covered in this report. The main procedural steps of this method can be summarized as
follows:

40

1. Buildings were categorised into six typologies for the purpose of study:

Low-rise non-ductile frames (1-3 stories)

Medium-rise non-ductile frames (4-7 stories)
High-rise non-ductile frames (8 stories and above)
Low-rise non-ductile dual systems (1-3 stories)
Medium-rise non-ductile dual systems (4-7 stories)
High-rise non-ductile dual systems (8 stories and above)

2. Empirical DPMs were constructed on the basis of damage scale suggested by Whitman et
al. (1973), i.e. by dividing the cost of repair by the replacement cost. Based on the
damage data of 3707 buildings only a part of DPM could be created. This database could
provide damage value only for the column of intensity VII (MMI scale) in DPM, because
all the surveyed building belonged to the intensity VII area.
3. The analytical method was applied to construct the DPMs column for intensity VIII. This
was achieved through generic four-story and nine-story buildings designed as per 1959
seismic code of Greece. The computer models of these buildings were created as bareframe as well as dual systems. Additionally two different sets of analyses were performed
for model with and without infill wall (Figure 13).

Figure 13: Analytical models for structures analysed: (a) four-story building; (b)
nine-story building. (Kappos et al., 1998)
The building models were analysed for 10 sets of input motions, each one
corresponding to a typical soil profile in the area under consideration derived from the
input motion at bedrock, corresponding to the 1978 earthquake. Another set of 10 input
motions was derived for a 7.0 magnitude earthquake which was estimated to be the

41

design earthquake for the city and corresponded to intensity of approximately VIII when
the M-I correlation equations for the area under consideration was used. Each of six
generic structures were analysed for 20 ground motions. The results of ductilities and
interstory drift from the analysis were used to arrive at the building damage using
available empirical damage data. This helped in creating DPM column corresponding to
intensity VIII.
A similar procedure was used to evaluate the DPM column for intensity VI. In
order to complete the DPM for higher intensities from XI to XII, the values suggested by
ATC 13 were adopted. This was required to be done because neither statistical nor
empirical data was available for higher intensity earthquakes.
This study is a good example of using the best of empirical and analytical
methods. With the help of available damage data for intensity VII, damage data for other
intensities (VI & VIII) were estimated using the analytical models. These types of
applications are very useful especially if there is limited damage data is available from
past earthquakes, that too only for some intensities. This use of analytical method and
calibrating it with available damage data may provide better results than using empirical
damage data from other regions.
A sample damage probability matrix for medium-rise (4-7story) non-ductile RC
frame buildings is shown in Table 17.
Table 19: DPM for medium-rise (4-7 story) non-ductile RC frame building (Kappos et
al., 1998)
Modified Mercalli Intensity

Central damage
ratio (%)

VI

VII

VIII

IX

XI

XII

0.0

29.1

26.5

23.7

0.5

45.0

40.9

34.8

5.0

15.3

19.3

24.3

1.9

0.2

20.0

10.0

10.9

11.5

65.1

30.8

3.6

0.5

45.0

0.6

1.2

4.3

33

67.7

70

27.9

80.0

1.2

1.4

1.3

26.4

71.2

100.0

0.4

Mean damage ratio

3.2

4.8

6.7

27.9

37.7

53.3

70

42

43

Chapter 3 Components of Seismic

Vulnerability Assessment
3.1 Introduction
The approaches for various earthquake vulnerability assessments vary significantly
depending upon time-frame, technical skill, resources, building inventory and previous
earthquake data, etc. These have been described in detail in previous chapter. However, there
are some essential components of vulnerability assessment that are common for different
types and approaches. Any assessment is aimed to find out the condition of various buildings
in the aftermath of a predefined seismic activity. Hence, the first necessary part of assessment
is to identify building typologies of the region. The area of interest may be having thousands
of buildings but it is essential for a reliable vulnerability assessment to identify manageable
number of building types depending upon lateral load resisting system of buildings. Secondly
the damage scale should be decided, which defines effects of earthquake in terms of
structural and non-structural damage. Another important part is the definition of earthquake
intensity. This is done using various available quantitative and/or qualitative scales. Finally
the presentation of assessment results has been essentially done in two formats
predominantly: Damage Probability Matrix (DPM) and Fragility Curves. Both the forms are
interconnected and inter-convertible in most cases.

3.2 Building Typology

Buildings are designed to resist vertical and lateral load. Buildings built during
different time period have different lateral load resisting which not only depend upon the
contemporary design codes but also on prevailing construction practices, building
maintenance, past repairs, structural/non-structural modifications etc. Different materials
show differential decay over period. Hence it is important to identify the building typologies
of the area. This is usually based on a number of factors and is covered in another report.

3.3 Damage Scale

The earthquake damage suffered by a building is usually defined in terms of structural
and non-structural damage. This scale helps to predict monetary losses in the event of
predefined earthquake. Usually damage scales are based on Damage Factor (DF), which can
be defined as the ratio of monetary loss of building divided by its replacement value. One of
the earliest damage scale was defined by Whitman et al. (1973) (Table 4) and ATC-13 (1985)

44

methodology (Table 3). In the recent times Homogenised Reinforced Concrete Damage scale
was proposed by Rossetto and Elnashai (2003) (Tables 10 & 11) for low-rise infilled
European-type RC buildings.
In order for vulnerability assessment to be used in a performance-based framework, it
is desirable that the selected damage scale is defined in terms of at least three damage limit
states, corresponding to serviceability, damage control and collapse prevention. The damage
scale limit states must also be clearly defined in terms of the damage expected in the
structural and non-structural elements of buildings with different lateral load resisting
systems. For analytical curve derivation, the damage scale should further be calibrated to a
measurable structural response parameter. The choice of response parameter for the
calibration and its values are important in determining the reliability of the vulnerability
relationships. (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2003)

3.4 Earthquake Intensity Scale

The effect of earthquake is recorded at a distant location in terms of intensity scale.
Various intensity scales have been defined and used for the purpose of vulnerability
assessment. They are defined both qualitatively and quantitatively. Some of the most
common intensity scales have been: Rossi and Forel Intensity scale (1878), Mercalli Intensity
scale (1902) Modified Mercalli Intensity (MMI) scale (1931), Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik
(MSK scale, 1964), Japan Meteorological Agency (first introduced in 1884 and latest
modified in 1995), European Macroseismic scale (introduced in 1998). Quantitative intensity
is often defined in terms of peak ground acceleration.
Earthquake ground motion parameters which affect the performance of the structure
are: amplitude, frequency content, periodicity and duration. Any intensity scale that
incorporates all or maximum of these parameters is likely to represent earthquake damage in
most widely manner.

3.5 Damage Probability Matrix

Whitman et al. (1973) first proposed the use of damage probability matrix (DPM) for
probabilistic prediction of building damage due to earthquake. It is based on concept that
similar type of structures (structural typology) will have same probability of a given damage
state for given earthquake intensity.
Whitman et al. (1973) compiled DPMs for various structural typologies after the 1971
San Fernando earthquake by damage status of over 1600 buildings. Later, Braga et al. (1982)
created DPMs for Italian buildings after 1980 Irpinia earthquake. They introduced binomial
distribution to describe the damage distributions of any typology for different seismic
intensities.
DPMs are also developed based on expert judgments. ATC-13 first introduced it in
1985 based on the expert opinion of more than 70 senior earthquake engineers (Calvi et al.,
2006). They were asked to provide low, best and high estimate of damage factor (ratio of loss
to replacement cost, in percent) for Modified Mercalli Intensities (MMI) VI to XII for 36
45

different building classes. Based on expert opinion DPMs were developed for each building
classes for each intensity level.
Table 20: Format of DPM proposed by Whitman et. Al. (1973)
Damage
State

Structural
Damage

Nonstructural
Damage

None

Intensity of Earthquake

Damage
Ratio
(%)

VI

VII

VIII

IX

None

0-0.05

10.4

None

Minor

0.05-0.3

16.4

0.5

None

Localised

0.3-1.25

40.0

22.5

Not Noticeable

Widespread

1.25-3.5

20.0

30.3

2.7

Minor

Substantial

3.5-4.5

13.2

47.1

92.3

58.8

14.7

Substantial

Extensive

7.5-20

0.2

5.0

41.2

83.0

Major

Nearly total

20-65

2.3

Building Condemned

100

Collapse

100

Giovinazzi and Lagomarsino (2004) developed a macroseismic method for

vulnerability assessment of buildings. This method is based on probability and fuzzy set
theory. Damage probability matrices (DPM) are evaluated for six vulnerability classes
considered by the European Macroseismic Scale 98 (EMS98). Vulnerability classes are a
way to group together buildings characterized by a similar seismic behaviour. The DPM
contains the probability for the building belonging to a certain vulnerability class, to suffer
certain damage level for a given intensity. Table 19 gives the damage model provided by
EMS98 for vulnerability class-B buildings.

46

Table 21: Damage model provided by EMS-98 for Class-B

Damage Level

Intensity
V

Few

VI

Many

VII

Few
Many

Few

VIII

Many

IX

Few
Many

Few

Many

XI

Most

XII
The EMS98 DPMs are meant to be used after an earthquake, but with little
modification same methodology can also be used to calculate vulnerability for buildings.
These modification comes in the form of defining damage distribution functions, which are
based on past earthquake damage observations, and introducing fuzzy set theory to put
numerical values of probabilities in place of few, many and most terms.
This method can be used for already existing statistical data and properly surveyed
data. Additionally it can be applied on a single building or on multiple buildings. A sound
analytical background allows this method to be adopted for large scale GIS environment.
Thus economic losses and life safety of people can be predicted and it can become a powerful
risk assessment tool for a larger region.
Following the introduction of DPMs based on intensity, the assessment of seismic risk
on a large scale was made possible in both an efficient and cost effective manner because in
the past seismic hazard maps were also defined in terms of macroseismic intensity. Examples
of the use of DPMs based on the ATC-13 approach for the assessment of risk and loss
include the city of Basel (Fah et al., 2001) and Bogot (Cardona and Yamin, 1997).
The limitations of DPM methods (Calvi et al., 2006) include the following:

Macroseismic intensity scale is defined by considering damage during past

earthquakes.

47

Most of current damage data is available for low damage/ low ground motion
earthquakes. Hence higher damage end of DPM may not give accurate picture of
damage.
Seismic hazard maps are now defined in terms of PGA and thus PGA needs to be
related to intensity.
When PGA is used in the derivation of empirically defined vulnerability, the
relationship between the frequency content of the ground motions and the period of
vibration of the buildings is not taken into account.

3.6 Fragility Curve

A fragility curve, also known as vulnerability curve, is a continuous curve graphically
representing the relationship between probability of exceeding a particular level of damage
versus earthquake intensity. It is based on the same concept of DPM that similar type of
structures (structural typology) will have same probability of a given damage state for given
earthquake intensity. A fragility curve can be said to be a continuous function while values in
DPM are discrete points on a fragility curve.
A fragility curve, similar to DPM, can also be developed in four ways: empirical,
analytical, judgmental, and hybrid depending upon the damage data used for their generation.
The empirical curves are derived using actual data of past earthquakes. Analytical curves are
obtained from analytical simulation. Judgmental curves are developed based on expert
opinion and hybrid curves are based on combination of these (Rossetto and Elnashai, 2003).
The continuous vulnerability functions directly based on damage of buildings from
past earthquakes were introduced slightly later than DPMs. Spence et al. (1992) used
Parameterless Scale of Intensity (PSI) to derive vulnerability functions based on the observed
damage of buildings using MSK damage scale.
Alternate empirical vulnerability functions have also been proposed with normal or
lognormal distributions, which do not use macroseismic intensity or PGA to characterize the
ground motion. Instead it is related to spectral acceleration or spectral displacement at
fundamental elastic period of vibration. This method takes into account the frequency content
of ground motion and fundamental period of vibration of building. It has been found that this
approach shows greater correlation between ground motion input and damage.

48

Figure 14: Vulnerability curves produced by Spence et al. (1992) for bare
moment-resisting frames using the parameterless scale of intensity (PSI); D1 to D5
relate to damage states in the MSK scale.

49

Chapter 4 Vulnerability Assessment in the

Indian Context
4.1 Introduction
Seismic vulnerability assessment is a gigantic task in Indian context. Because of vast
geography and climatic diversity there are several types of structural configurations that are
being built since many decades before the advent of modern construction techniques and
materials. Even after RCC structures became common and popular, at least in major urban
areas, these have variations depending upon construction quality, design practice,
understanding and application of code specifications, structural maintenance, etc. So far there
have been very few attempts to address the issue of seismic vulnerability assessment at
national level. This report tries to set guideline for national seismic vulnerability assessment
framework.
It is evident from the previous chapters that lot of options are available to assess the
vulnerability of various types of buildings. This chapter lists the assessment procedure for
Indian building typologies. A step-by-step procedure is listed for each building type defined
in the draft report on Building Typology.
Vulnerability assessment method depends upon building typology. Table 20 shows
the proposed approach for various building types
Table 22: Proposed vulnerability assessment methods for Indian building typologies
Material

Sub- Types

Rubble stone (field stone) in

mud/lime mortar or without mortar
(usually with timber roof) (A)

Load Resisting
System
(Lateral/Vertical)

Empirical, expert opinion

Stone Masonry
Walls (ST)

Massive stone masonry (in

lime/cement mortar) (B)
Masonry
(M)

Empirical, expert opinion

Mud walls (C)

Mud walls with horizontal wood
elements (D)

Proposed methods

Empirical, expert opinion

Earthen/Mud/
Adobe/Rammed
Earthen Walls
(EW)

Adobe block walls (E)

Empirical, expert opinion

Empirical, expert opinion

50

Material

Sub- Types

Empirical, expert opinion

Unreinforced brick masonry in mud

mortar (G)

Empirical, expert opinion

Unreinforced brick masonry in mud

mortar with vertical posts (H)

Empirical, expert opinion

Unreinforced brick masonry in lime

mortar (I)

Empirical, expert opinion

Burnt clay
brick/block
masonry walls
(BW)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Unreinforced brick masonry in

cement mortar with lintel bands
(various floor/roof systems) (K)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Confined brick/block masonry with

concrete posts/tie columns and
beams (L)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Unreinforced, in lime/cement mortar

(various floor/roof systems) (M)
Reinforced, in cement mortar
(various floor/roof systems) (N)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Concrete block
masonry (CB)
Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Designed for gravity loads only

(predating seismic codes i.e. no
seismic features) (A)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Designed with seismic features

(various ages) (B)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Frame with unreinforced masonry

infill walls (C)

Moment Resisting
Frame (MF)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Flat slab structure (D)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Precast frame structure (E)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Frame with concrete shear walls

(dual system) (F)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Walls cast in-situ (G)

Precast wall panel structure (H)
Steel
(S)

Proposed methods

Rammed earth/Pise construction (F)

Unreinforced brick masonry in

cement mortar with reinforced
concrete floor/roof slabs (J)

Structural
Concrete
(C)

Load Resisting
System
(Lateral/Vertical)

With brick masonry partitions (A)

With cast in-situ concrete walls (B)

Shear Wall
Structure (SW)

Moment Resisting
Frame (MF)

51

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical
Empirical, expert opinion, analytical
Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Material

Load Resisting
System
(Lateral/Vertical)

Sub- Types

With lightweight partitions (C)

Wooden
Structures
(W)

Proposed methods

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

With various floor/roof systems (D)

Braced Frame (BF)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Single storey LM frame structure (E)

Light Metal Frame

(LF)

Empirical, expert opinion, analytical

Thatch roof (A)

Empirical, expert opinion

Post and beam frame (B)

Empirical, expert opinion

Walls with bamboo/reed mesh and

post (Wattle and Daub) (C)

Empirical, expert opinion

Frame with (stone/brick) masonry

infill (D)

Load Bearing
Timber Frame (TF)

Empirical, expert opinion

Frame with plywood/gypsum board

sheathing (E)

Empirical, expert opinion

Frame with stud walls (F)

Empirical, expert opinion

4.2 Damage Scale

Damage scale for this study is defined on the basis of damage factor, which is the
ratio of repair cost and building replacement cost. Here it should be noted that repairing or
replacement cost is defined as amount of money need to restore the structure to its original
strength, irrespective of current code provisions and whether structure was built as per
prevailing codes. Damage scale used in this study was defined for post damage earthquake
survey of Gujarat Disaster Management Authority (GSDMA, 2006). (Table 21).

52

Table 23: Damage scale of GSDMA (2006) and its comparison with other international
methods
DIHRC
0

HAZUS
1999

FEMA273

EMS98/
MSK-64

ATC-13

Grade 1

Slight

ATC-20

GSDMA

No damage limit state

S0

10
20
30

Slight
damage

40

Grade 2

Light

Moderate
damage

S1

Moderate

S2

Grade 3
Yellow
tag

Life safety (D3)

70
80

Limited safety
(D4)

90

Extensive Collapse
Grade 4
damage
prevention (D5)

100

Green
tag

Damage control
(D2)

50
60

Immediate
occupancy (D1)

S3

Heavy
S4
Red tag

Partial Collapse

Major

S5

Collapse limit state

4.3 Seismic Intensity Scale

The MSK-64 seismic intensity scale has been adopted in this study. This scale is
divided into 12 categories, and has been described in IS:1893-2002.

53

Table 24: MSK-64 earthquake intensity scale adopted in India (IS:1893-2002)

Intensity Grade

Description

Not noticeable

II

Scarcely noticeable

III

Weak, partially observed

only

IV

Largely observed

Awakening

VI

Frightening

VII

Damage of buildings

VIII

Destruction of buildings

IX

General damage of buildings

General destruction of
buildings

XI

Destruction

XII

Landscape changes

4.4 Common Structural Material

4.4.1 Masonry
Masonry buildings are very common in our country, especially in rural area. Most of
these buildings are non-engineered and without adequate lateral load resisting system (Table
20). Most sub-categories of masonry construction are not fit for computer based analysis
because of broad variation in material strength and non uniform degradation of construction
material. These construction types must be dealt with either empirical, expert-based or hybrid
methods. Few sub-categories of buildings, such as Confined brick/block masonry with
concrete posts/tie columns and beams, can be analysed using computer-based analytical
techniques. For such typologies even analytical techniques can be used. The following
sections give step-by-step procedure for vulnerability assessment of masonry structures.

4.4.2 Wood
Wood construction was very popular till recent times and there are large numbers of
wood building in countrys building stock. A quality construction of wood tends to last for
decades. For the purpose of vulnerability assessment empirical method or expert-opinion
method is more suitable.

4.4.3 Concrete
Concrete structures are becoming increasing popular in the country. They are
considered to be long lasting and better as compared to wood or masonry construction.
Computer based analysis is also possible for these buildings because of relative homogeneity
of material strength across the building and monolithic behaviour at joints at quality

54

construction. However, the major challenge for vulnerability assessment is to incorporate the
effects of poor code compliance, unreliable construction quality and varied construction
practices at different parts of nation.

4.4.4 Steel
Steel is more popular construction material for industrial buildings as compared to
residential buildings. Steel buildings can be easily analysed using computer based analytical
techniques. This material is more reliable than concrete because of quality control at the
production stage. All the four types of vulnerability assessment methods can be used for steel
buildings.

4.4.5 Mixed Construction

A vast majority of buildings in India are of mixed construction. Buildings have been
constructed using some or all of above listed materials as structural materials. These types of
buildings are very difficult to judge for earthquake vulnerability because the material
behaviour is quiet different during lateral load. Overall response of building to seismic
loading depends upon interaction between various materials. Computer modeling of these
kinds of buildings are very difficult and requires lot of approximations to be made.

4.5 Assessment Procedure

This section presents broad outline for various type of vulnerability assessment
procedures applicable in Indian scenario. A brief step-by-step description of methods is given
in the following sections.

4.5.1 Expert-Opinion Method

The main steps of procedure are as given in following steps:
1. The main goal of seeking experts opinion is to assess the vulnerability of existing
construction typologies in India.
2. Decide the building typologies from Table 20, which can be covered in a single
questionnaire. Out of total 14 sub-types of masonry structure some of them can be
grouped and assessed for their vulnerability.
3. Use earthquake intensity indicator MSK-64 scale for vulnerability assessment.
4. Define the damage states of structure based on MSK-64 given in Table 21.
5. Identify the experts in the field. Each expert can be ask to rate his/her experience and a
weight factor can be assigned to give due weighting for more experienced expert. This
method can be applied using two techniques:
a. Delphi Method: Experts are asked to give their opinion about probable
damage in case of a probable seismic event. They are not supposed to consult
with each other and give their opinion purely based on their experience.
Project coordinator group statistically analyses the opinion of experts and
comes out with mean opinion along with scatter. This aggregate result is sent

55

back to experts and asked to revise their opinion if they wish after considering
the average opinion of group. This iteration procedure is repeated for a predecided number of times or till acceptable consensus is achieved.
b. Consensus Method: In this method experts work as a team and arrive at an
opinion. Combined efforts are put and issues are settled through discussions.
This method is less time consuming than Delphi method. However, there is
greater chance of bias in results since more vocal experts may be given
disproportionate weightage.
In the Indian scenario it is recommended to use consensus method, because Delphi
method is required to have certain minimum number of experts (10 to 18), which is not
feasible in Indian scenario. Hence method of consensus is the way forward for expert
opinion-based methods in the initial phase.
6. Design the questionnaire clearly stating the objectives, limitations, building
classifications, earthquake intensity scale, damage scale and any other information which
may be required.
7. A revised questionnaire can be developed if required and to streamline the variation in
expert opinion. This can be considered as an iterative step till the desired uniformity
among experts is achieved or pre-decided number of iterations is performed.
8. Response of all the experts should be processed by statistical operations to arrive at final
conclusion.
The step-by-step method given above is shown in flowchart in Figure 15.
Decide the objectives of expert opinion survey

Choose the
building typology

Define building damage

scale as per Table-18

Define earthquake
intensity as per MSK-64

Choose the
experts

Decide the questionnaire

Construct the DPM or fragility curve based on expert
opinion along with upper and lower bound

Is consensus
reached?

Y
Use the DPM or fragility curve

Figure 15: Flowchart for vulnerability assessment based on expert opinion for
masonry buildings.

56

4.5.2 Empirical Method

This method can be used if information on behaviour of buildings after a damaging
earthquake is available. This method is thus commonly employed using post-earthquake
damage survey results provided the required technical information has been captured in the
damage survey. The main steps of procedure are as given in following steps:
1. The main goal of using empirical method is to assess the vulnerability of existing
construction typologies in India.
2. Decide the building typologies from Table 20, which can be covered in a single
questionnaire. Out of 14 sub-types of masonry structure some of them can be grouped and
jointly assessed for their vulnerability.
3. Use earthquake intensity indicator MSK-64 scale for vulnerability assessment.
4. Define the damage states of structure based on MSK-64 given in Table 21.
5. Decide the survey forms based on the building typology. This form should be able to
capture key lateral load resisting structural features like frame structure, lintel band, shear
wall, etc.
6. Provide weighting to all the features and calculate vulnerability index of building.
7. Use survey reports or carry out survey of damaged buildings belonging to same typology
that gives the status of vulnerability of the area. With the help of survey of representative
buildings DPM and fragility curves can be constructed.
The step-by-step method given above is shown in flowchart in Figure 16.
Decide the objectives of empirical method

Choose the
building typology

Define building damage

scale as per Table-18

Define earthquake
intensity as per MSK-64

Develop the survey forms

Survey the selected buildings and find out

vulnerability index of those buildings

Construct the DPM or fragility curve based on sample

survey results along with upper and lower bound

Figure 16: Flowchart for empirical vulnerability assessment for masonry

buildings.

57

4.5.3 Analytical Method

The main steps of procedure are as given in following steps:
1. The main goal of using analytical method is to assess the vulnerability of existing
construction typologies in India.
2. Decide the building typologies from Table 20, which can be covered in a single
questionnaire. Out of 14 sub-types of masonry structures, some of them can be grouped
and assessed for their vulnerability jointly.
3. Use earthquake intensity indicator MSK-64 scale for vulnerability assessment.
4. Define the damage states of structure based on MSK-64 given in Table 21.
5. Decide the analytical approach to be used. There are two broad approaches: capacity
spectrum analysis and time-history analysis. (Analytical methods based on these two
approaches are shown in flowchart in Figures 17 & 18, respectively)
6. For the selected building type decide the typical building dimensions, material strength
and structural element configuration. A computer model of this representative building
will be analysed to check the vulnerability of selected building typology
7. Using the survey data of the buildings of area of interest random variables and their
distributions should be decided for the typical building, e.g. concrete strength, beam size,
wall thickness. Using the mathematical tools several buildings models can be generated
which are similar in some aspects with some aspects having random variable.
Collectively all the buildings represent an average building of area.
8. Decide the analysis method. Structural performance can be judged using four primary
types of models: linear static, linear dynamic, non- linear static and non-linear dynamic.
Choose the analysis approach based on available building data, technical manpower,
resources and time frame.
9. Select the various intensity natural/synthetic earthquakes, which are likely to hit the
region.
10. Perform the analysis of building models.
11. Decide the performance criteria of the analysed building. It could be inter-story drift, top
story drift, ductility or any other chosen parameter.
12. By finding the performance of several buildings, generated in step 7, for various natural
or synthetic earthquakes probability of damage can be find out for predefined earthquake
intensity. Later this data can be combined to generate DPM or fragility curve.
The step-by-step method given above is shown in flowchart in Figures 17 & 18.

58

Decide the objectives of analytical method

Choose the
building typology

Define building damage

scale as per Table-18

Choose building configuration

Generate appropriate number of buildings
based on selected random variables and their
probability distribution

Define earthquake
intensity as per MSK-64

Select appropriate
natural/synthetic earthquakes
depending upon geology and
past seismic activity

Create the computer model for all the

buildings, which could be
1. Linear static model
2. Non-linear static model
Obtain the earthquake spectra of
selected earthquakes

Perform pushover analysis

Compare structural performance

of all buildings with earthquake
demand of all possible seismic
activities
Construct DPM or fragility curve
based on comparison of
earthquake demand and
structural capacity

Figure 17: Flowchart for analytical vulnerability assessment for capacity

spectrum based method.

59

Decide the objectives of analytical method

Choose the
building typology

Define building damage

scale as per Table-18

Define earthquake
intensity as per MSK-64

Select appropriate
natural/synthetic earthquakes
depending upon geology and
past seismic activity
Choose building configuration
Generate appropriate number of buildings
based on selected random variables and their
probability distribution
Create the computer model for all the
buildings, which could be
1. Linear dynamic model
2. Non-linear dynamic model
Perform time-history analysis of all buildings
for all earthquakes
Compare structural performance
of all buildings with earthquake
demand of all possible seismic
activities
Construct DPM or fragility curve
based on comparison of
earthquake demand and
structural capacity

Figure 18: Flowchart for analytical vulnerability assessment for time-history

analysis based method.

4.5.4 Hybrid Method

Hybrid methods are used to cross check and verify the damage predicted using any
method with any alternate available methods. For example, a fragility curve prepared using
analytical method can be verified/cross-checked/calibrated with the help of expert-opinion
method and/or empirical method. In India hybrid method can be applied using either
analytical method or expert-opinion method. Lack of past earthquake damage data in required
format makes empirical less useful for most parts of country. Main steps of procedure are as
given in following steps:

60

1. The main goal of using hybrid method is to assess the vulnerability of existing
construction typologies in India.
2. Decide the building typologies from Table 20, which can be covered in a single
questionnaire. Out of 14 sub-types of masonry structure some of them can be grouped and
assessed for their vulnerability jointly.
3. Use earthquake intensity indicator MSK-64 scale for vulnerability assessment.
4. Define the damage states of structure based on MSK-64 given in Table 21.
5. Prepare the DPM or fragility curve for selected building typology using analytical
method.
6. Present the results to an expert panel and ask them to give recommendations on it.
7. If expert group is not in agreement with analytical results, revise analytical model based
on expert recommendations.
The step-by-step method given above is shown in flowchart in Figure 19.
Decide the objectives of hybrid method

Choose the
building typology

Define building damage

scale as per Table-18

Define earthquake
intensity as per MSK-64

Obtain analytical DPM and

fragility curves

Present results to an expert panel

Are results
satisfactory?

N
Make appropriate changes in the
result as per suggestions of expert
panel

Revise analytical model as per

suggestions of expert panel

Finalise the DPM and fragility

curve after consensus

Figure 19: Flowchart for hybrid method.

61

62

Chapter 5 Conclusions
Study of some of the important vulnerability methods clearly shows that there is no
unique or best solution for assessing vulnerability of selected building stock. Various
methods have been evolved in the different parts of world to address different issues of
seismic risk assessment. A clear trend can be seen that with the advent of faster
computational facilities researchers are applying advance mathematical tools for vulnerability
assessment. Probability based assessment is being tried out by many in recent past and
current advancement is the introduction of fuzzy logic to assess vulnerability. It is also
evident that with increased awareness about earthquake risk there are more attempts to collect
field data of existing buildings stock.
A clear definition of chosen earthquake intensity scale and damage scale should be
decided for chosen vulnerability assessment method. Empirical methods are not
recommended for Indian scenario because of lack of quality post earthquake damage data.
Analytical method has limited applicability for only RCC or steel buildings, and masonry
building up to some extent. Expert opinion procedure is an iterative procedure, where greater
consensus is tried to be built up with each iteration. Hence the criteria to terminate iterations
should be decided beforehand. Valid criteria can be pre-decided range of expert opinions or
number of iterations. A separate tech-doc is submitted for details of expert-opinion method.
Study of vulnerability assessment methods shows that it needs careful application of
mathematical models to ground reality. Extrapolation of data from few chosen building to
entire city or region is a task that requires great care, structural understanding, judgment and
experience. Conclusively it can be said that vulnerability assessment methods are ample and
one needs to choose carefully depending on its need, building type, available technical skill,
time frame and resources.
Currently the main challenge seems to be the verification and calibration of results
obtained from various probabilistic models using available data. Post earthquake data
collection could be only tool to verify various probability density functions.
Finally, it can be said that there is still a long way to go before we can reach the
appropriate level of confidence in vulnerability assessment.

63

64

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