A Framework for Evaluation of Seismic Upgrading Through Cost-Benefit Analysis

Abstract eng:
Existing buildings constructed in earthquake prone locations designed prior to 1970s, in general, fail to meet the criteria of modern seismic design codes. This leads in most cases to unsatisfactory performance in case an earthquake strikes and exposes their residents to unacceptably high risk. Seismic upgrading is one of the most effective strategies to mitigate the seismic risk. However, upgrading the seismic performance of existing buildings to the safety level of new building is often criticized as very expensive, lacking cost efficiency. The present study proposes a probabilistic framework that integrates the principal elements of the performance-based seismic design with the standard actuarial “frequency-severity” method to perform cost-benefit analysis of seismic upgrading accounting for the building property service time horizon. The proposed framework enables engineers to identify cost-efficient seismic upgrading strategies and compare them such that the financially optimal upgrade strategy is identified. The proposed framework is applied to existing residential buildings located in Zurich (Switzerland). A sensitivity analysis of the principal input parameters is conducted to examine the robustness of the proposed framework.

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