Order Out of Chaos: Application of Earthquake Damage Assessment and Repair Guidelines

Abstract eng:
Assessment and repair of earthquake damage in buildings has, in the past, been fraught with a very high degree of variability primarily because of lack of appropriate guidelines that could consistently be applied by engineers, adjusters, and property owners. This variability was readily apparent in the aftermath of the Northridge Earthquake wherein similar adjacent woodframe buildings had claimed damage and associated repair costs ranging from a few percent to 100 percent of the replacement value of the building. In response to the lack of clear appropriate guidelines, since the Northridge Earthquake guidelines have been developed for post-earthquake damage assessment of steel moment frame connections, masonry and concrete shearwalls, and residential woodframe buildings. While the specific intent of guidelines developed to date has been to improve the practice of post-earthquake damage assessment, the ultimate effect of the proper application of these guidelines could be much broader: a better and more consistent estimation of actual incurred earthquake losses and consequently improved earthquake loss estimation models that rely on loss data from earthquake events. This paper briefly summarizes results of the CUREE Earthquake Damage Assessment project and illustrates the improvement that application of these guidelines could bring to the loss estimation process.

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