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Blowes, Kristen

University of British Columbia

Past earthquakes have shown that seismic damage may lead to lengthy loss of function and tenant displacement, even in modern buildings. A new generation of computational tools has enabled researchers to assess post-earthquake safety, loss of function, and recovery time. With this development, there is an opportunity to develop new recovery-based seismic design provisions that ensure building recovery performance meets societal expectations. In the first half of this dissertation, methods to evaluate functional recovery risk across a broad range of intensity levels are introduced. These methods are then implemented to evaluate the current functional recovery risk and the variability of risk across cities in the United States. The results show that the risk of exceeding short recovery targets is high (e.g., 50% probability in 50 years of the functional recovery time exceeding 1 month) and is driven by nonstructural damage in frequent events. The risk of exceeding long recovery targets, however, is much lower (e.g., 12% probability in 50 years of the functional recovery time exceeding 1 year). Safety-critical structural damage (i.e., structural damage that must be addressed before tenants can safely reoccupy) in rarer earthquakes has a larger impact on the risk of exceeding longer recovery targets. For recovery time targets under one year, current life-safety design practice in the United States also does not ensure uniform recovery risk across high seismicity cities. In the second half of this dissertation, the efficacy of structural and nonstructural design requirements is assessed to support the 2026 National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program’s effort to develop the first generation of recovery-based design provisions in the United States. The results of this dissertation include structural design recommendations, such as response modification coefficients, Rfr, and allowable drift limits, Δafr, for functional recovery, for a wide range of lateral force-resisting systems. Nonstructural design recommendations include a component importance factor for functional recovery, Ipfr, and requirements for seismic qualification of equipment. At this moment of renewed focus on post-earthquake recovery, this work provides crucial methods and data to inform this major advance in building code development.

Text

2025-04-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90909

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/