A consensus-based approach for structural resilience to earthquakes using machine learning techniques

Seismic hazards represent a constant threat for both the built environment but mainly for human lives. Past approaches to seismic engineering considered the building deformability as limited to the elastic behaviour. Following to the introduction of performance-based approaches a whole new methodology for seismic design and assessment was proposed, relying on the ability of a building to extend its deformability in the plastic domain. This links to the ability of the building to undergo large deformations but still withstand it and therefore safeguard human lives. This allowed to distinguish between transient and permanent deformations when undergoing dynamic (e.g., seismic) stresses. In parallel, a whole new discipline is flourishing, which sees traditional structural analysis methods coupled to Artificial Intelligence (AI) strategies. In parallel, the emerging discipline of resilience has been widely implemented in the domain of disaster management and also in structural engineering. However, grounding on an extensive literature review, current approaches to disaster management at the building and district level exhibit a significant fragmentation in terms of strategies of objectives, highlighting the urge for a more holistic conceptualization. The proposed methodology therefore aims at addressing both the building and district levels, by the adoption of scale-specific methodologies suitable for the scale of analysis. At the building level, an analytical three-stage methodology is proposed to enhance traditional investigation and structural optimization strategies by the utilization of object-oriented programming, evolutionary computing and deep learning techniques. This is validated throughout the application of the proposed methodology on a real building in Old Beichuan, which underwent seismically-triggered damages as a result of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake. At the district scale, a so-called qualitative methodology is proposed to attain a resilience evaluation in face of geo-environmental hazards and specifically targeting the built environment. A Delphi expert consultation is adopted and a framework is presented. To combine the two scales, a high-level strategy is ultimately proposed in order to interlace the building and district-scale simulations to make them organically interlinked. To this respect, a multi-dimensional mapping of the area of Old-Beichuan is presented to aid the identification of some key indicators of the district-level framework. The research has been conducted in the context of the REACH project, `vi investigating the built environment’s resilience in face of seismically-triggered geo-environmental hazards in the context of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake in China. Results show that an optimized performance-based approach would significantly enhance traditional analysis and investigation strategies, providing an approximate damage reduction of 25% with a cost increase of 20%. In addition, the utilization of deep learning techniques to replace traditional simulation engine proved to attain a result precision up to 98%, making it reliable to conduct investigation campaign in relation to specific building features when traditional methods fail due to the impossibility of either accessing the building or tracing pertinent documentation. It is therefore demonstrated how sometimes challenging regulatory frameworks is a necessary step to enhance the resilience of buildings in face of seismic hazards

Multi-objective consideration of earthquake resilience in the built environment: the case of Wenchuan earthquake

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is one of the largest and deadliest events of the last century, both in terms of victims and seismically-triggered geo-environmental hazards. The combined effects resulting from the seismic activity of 2008 led to major damages in several domains of the local society, including the built environment and the social component, highlighting the extensive gap related to resilience measures aimed at both prevention and recovery in case of a disruption. Thus, it is imperative for the development of a multi-objective and comprehensive formulation for resilience combining holistically all the diverse facets of a local community. To this regard, this paper presents a wide-spectrum analysis and preliminary findings, being structured in working threads specifically addressed in the context of an ongoing project (REACH). The focus is on the built environment damage analysis following the field work which took place in December 2016 in the Wenchuan territory, involving 3D laser scanning activity of 7 high-risk areas and the related audit and preliminary structural analysis of the damage. As a result, a set of external and internal factors have been identified as possible key causes of the surveyed damages. Of these, external factors mainly relate to environmental and hazardous properties, whereas internal indicators involve structural features as well as building regulations

Urban-scale framework for assessing the resilience of buildings informed by a delphi expert consultation

The integration of resilience in disaster management is an emerging field as evidenced by an abundant literature. While resilience has been widely explored in several domains, its application demands the consideration of the entire ecosystem and its lifecycle, including disaster stressors and consequences, recovery process, and ultimately the prevention phase. In this paper, a qualitative characterization of resilience for buildings on an urban scale of analysis is achieved throughout the conduct of a Delphi-based expert consultation. The aim is to elicit and validate relevant criteria to characterize the resilience of our built-environment in face of geo-environmental hazards through two phases of consultation involving 23 and 21 respondents, respectively. The initial set of criteria consisted of 40 indicators, increasing to 48 at the end of the survey. The different criteria are clustered into seven categories, ranging from environmental to socio-organizational and technical. The results from both rounds of consultation were then analysed by means of statistical analysis with MATLAB and discussed for each category. The preliminary version of the framework for buildings’ resilience assessment on an urban scale is presented with a final set of 43 validated criteria

Multi-objective consideration of earthquake resilience in the built environment: The case of Wenchuan earthquake

The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake is one of the largest and deadliest events of the last century, both in terms of victims and seismically-triggered geo-environmental hazards. The combined effects resulting from the seismic activity of 2008 led to major damages in several domains of the local society, including the built environment and the social component, highlighting the extensive gap related to resilience measures aimed at both prevention and recovery in case of a disruption. Thus, it is imperative for the development of a multi-objective and comprehensive formulation for resilience combining holistically all the diverse facets of a local community. To this regard, this paper presents a wide-spectrum analysis and preliminary findings, being structured in working threads specifically addressed in the context of an ongoing project (REACH). The focus is on the built environment damage analysis following the field work which took place in December 2016 in the Wenchuan territory, involving 3D laser scanning activity of 7 high-risk areas and the related audit and preliminary structural analysis of the damage. As a result, a set of external and internal factors have been identified as possible key causes of the surveyed damages. Of these, external factors mainly relate to environmental and hazardous properties, whereas internal indicators involve structural features as well as building regulation