Models, Methods, and Decisions in Earthquake Engineering: Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials

Earthquakes pose a challenging decision problem with high stakes and significant uncertainty. To promote design decisions that minimize the total cost of earthquakes, this presentation puts forward a collection of new probabilistic models. The models are implemented in a new computer program, Rt, which is tailored for probabilistic analysis with many interacting and interchangeable models. Reliability methods are also implemented, which serve as an alternative to existing approaches in earthquake engineering. The analysis results include cost-exceedance probabilities and partial descriptors of the probability distribution for the total cost. These results facilitate cost-benefit optimization because they include both the cost of damage and cost of con-struction to prevent damage, and because those costs are formulated in terms of decision va-riables. The minimization of total cost necessitates the definition of risk measures that serve as ob-jective function in the optimization analysis. In this presentation, particular attention is given to the mean cost, and several approaches are explored for computing it accurately and efficiently. Three comprehensive examples that address the Vancouver region in Canada are presented to demon-strate seismic risk analysis for individual buildings, building portfolios, and entire regions.

Speaker: Terje Haukass, Univ. of British Columbia

Room 406