Masonry structures are complex systems that require a thorough and detailed knowledge and information regarding their behaviour under seismic excitations. Appropriate modelling of a masonry structure is a prerequisite for a reliable earthquake resistant design or assessment. However, modelling a real structure to a robust quantitative (mathematical) representation is a very difficult, complex a...

Seismic risk scenarios are obtained for an informal settlement in Mérida (Venezuela), which is representative of an important number of urban areas in earthquake-prone regions of the developing world. The vulnerability indices of the buildings range between 0.64 and 0.80 on a scale of 0 to 1. In an intensity IX earthquake scenario, more than 32% of the buildings would suffer damage of grade 4 (...

Vulnerability of Pipelines Subjected to Permanent Deformation Due to Geotechnical Co-seismic Effects Giovanni Lanzano, Ernesto Salzano, Filippo Santucci de Magistris, Giovanni Fabbrocino University of Molise, Di.B.T. Department, StreGa Laboratory, Via Duca degli Abruzzi s.n.c.,Termoli (CB), Italy Istituto di Ricerca sulla Combustione, Consiglio Nazionale delle Richerche, Via Diocleziano 328, Na...

introduction vulnerability is a term used to show the amount and extent of damage and the losses caused by natural disasters in different communities (social, formal-physical, etc.). vulnerabilities is identified as the sensitivity of the environment against the hazards. from among natural disasters, earthquakes can have a vast scope of losses for desert regions. therefore, in order to reduce a...

Adobe construction represents 5.3% of the total Portuguese building stock according to latest National Housing Census. The distribution these adobe buildings is scattered across country, with higher density in central region and Algarve south, where seismic hazard highest. A large proportion are still use for residential commercial purposes historical significance, contributing cultural heritag...

The paper is focused on the assessment of seismic fragility curves for circular tunnels under moderate to severe earthquakes with aim improving reliability risk underground infrastructural networks. Non-linear two-dimensional dynamic analyses were performed different tunnel and soil configurations by using finite-difference method implemented in Flac2D software. applied input motions selected c...

In this paper, a general methodology for the seismic protection of historical structures and monuments is presented. The proposed methodology is applied to one historical and monumental structure, in Cyprus, within the frame of the European Project for the Conservation of Historical Mediterranean Sites by Innovative Seismic-Protection Techniques. According to the proposed method, the structure ...

Lifelines are essential to urban life as they include all kinds of facilities and systems as water, gas, fuel, power, communication and transportation. The scope of this paper is to evaluate the influence of the uncertainties of seismic load and damage state definition in system’s reliability. At first, a rapid pre-estimation of the reliability of the system just after the earthquake is conduct...

A simplified method for the seismic design of low-rise, base-isolated shear wall structures is proposed in MOC-2012. This simplified method is basically a hybrid method, where the design of the isolation system is a simpler version for the static method available in US guidelines for the design of base-isolated structures and the design of the superstructure essentially is an improved version o...

Models capable of estimating losses in future earthquakes are of fundamental importance for emergency planners and for the insurance and reinsurance industries. One of the main ingredients in a loss model is an accurate, transparent and conceptually sound algorithm to assess the seismic vulnerability of the building stock and indeed many tools and methodologies have been proposed over the past ...