International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering (ICASP) (12th : 2015)

A clustering approach to identification of seismic building damage patterns for concrete structures Elwood, Emily D.; Corotis, Ross B.

Abstract

Within the field of earthquake engineering, there is a desire to identify observed trends of building damage in response to seismic events. Regional loss models, post-earthquake safety evaluations, and rapid screening of structures for potential seismic hazards all utilize “patterns” of expected building behavior in some form. Due to the intrinsic uncertainties in the prediction of earthquake events and building response to these events, the identification of building damage patterns is a complex problem. Further, virtually every building is unique in configuration and characterized by varying site conditions. This research paper presents a unique application of fuzzy set theory within the domain of fuzzy classification (fuzzy clustering) to investigate whether seismic building damage patterns, often expressed linguistically, can be identified from empirical data. Information used in the classification analysis consists of building damage data from the 1994 Northridge Earthquake for concrete structures.

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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Canada