The importance of school buildings, among the built heritage of a community, is largely acknowledged. Due to past seismic events, damage or even collapse of schools have had a huge social impact. The safety of children and youth has a fundamental priority and, in addition, the unsafety of schools can aggravate social dispersion phenomena which follow an earthquake. In the aftermath of the Molise earthquake (2002), which caused the collapse of a primary school in San Giuliano di Puglia (Campobasso, Italy) and the consequent death of 27 children and a teacher, the Italian government issued a national plan for the seismic vulnerability assessment of relevant and strategic structures all over the country. The huge number of structures to be evaluated makes this operation extremely complex and, after almost twenty years, it still requires efficient and cost-effective (also in terms of execution time) tools to be effectively planned. More recently, the United Nations adopted, in March 2015, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which is articulated in “priorities”, providing actions to be implemented. Specifically, Priority 1 is focused on “understanding disaster risk”, while Priority 2 sets the goal of “strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk”. Both objectives require to deepen knowledge of risks and of its components (i.e., hazard, exposure and vulnerability) at various territorial scale (e.g., national or urban). This thesis presents the seismic vulnerability and fragility assessment of school buildings in Italy, to address this problem at multiple scales, at municipality level and at national level, also including investigations on case studies for refined modelling. First, a prioritisation procedure to sort school buildings part of an urban stock by their seismic vulnerability is proposed. This procedure has the aim of supporting local administrations and enterprises in charge with built stocks in decision-making for the allocation of limited funds for retrofit. The knowledge process of the building stock is comprised of on-site visual surveys and retrieval of original projects documentations. Then, the priority list is defined based on the combination of a qualitative evaluation and of a quantitative capacity/demand ratio resulting from a simplified mechanics-based model. The former results from the application of a form, counting structural and non-structural deficiencies, which is proposed in this work for masonry, reinforced concrete (r.c.), and mixed masonry-r.c. buildings, by updating an existing form. The priority-ranking procedure was applied to r.c. school buildings managed by the Municipality of Padova, in north-east Italy. Then, in the second part of the thesis, the research focuses on the fragility assessment of macro-classes of buildings, representative of the Italian school taxonomy, aimed at risk evaluation at national scale. Based on the Italian school building census, macro-classes of buildings were identified according to a limited number of parameters (i.e., the construction material, age of construction, number of stories, and plan area). Fragility curves were derived for five damage states (from slight damage to complete collapse), with reference to the European Macroseismic Scale (EMS98). For masonry schools, fragility curves were derived for 265 building types by means of a simplified mechanics-based approach, named Vulnus, which accounts for both in-plane and out-of-plane responses. Fragility assessment was also carried out for a macro-class of r.c. school buildings by selecting two representative schools from the above-mentioned urban stock managed by the Municipality of Padova. A non-linear fibre model was developed for each prototype building, taking into account its specific features, such as the presence of infills and of non-seismic joints. Non-Linear Time History Analyses (NLTHA) were carried out by applying a great number of natural and scaled ground motion records, covering a large range of seismic intensities. Fragility curves were derived by statistically processing the outcomes of NLTHA. Thus, the application of two alternative approaches for fragility estimate are provided in this work. Finally, damage maps at national scale are provided by implementing the obtained fragilities, showing the distribution of expected damage for a selected return period and for observation time windows.

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Seismic isolation systems are widely recognized as beneficial for protecting both acceleration- and displacement-sensitive nonstructural systems and components. Furthermore, adaptive isolation systems have been shown to enable engineers to achieve various performance goals under multiple hazard levels. These systems have been implemented for horizontal excitation, but there has been very limited research on isolation for vertical excitation. Thus, this paper seeks to evaluate the benefit of adaptive vertical isolation systems for component isolation, specifically for nuclear plants. To do this, three vertical isolation systems are designed to achieve multiple goals: a linear spring and a linear damper (LSLD), a linear spring and a nonlinear damper (LSND) and a nonlinear spring and a linear damper (NSLD). To investigate the effectiveness of the proposed systems, a stiff piece of equipment is considered at an elevated floor within a power plant. A set of 30 triaxial ground motions is used to investigate the seismic response of the equipment. The maximum isolation displacement and equipment acceleration are used to assess the effectiveness of the three isolation systems. While all systems significantly reduce the seismic accelerations on the equipment compared to the fixed-base case, a LSND system is shown to exhibit superior seismic performance across multiple hazard levels. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

The aim of the study is to develop new analytical fragility curves for the vulnerability assessment of tunnels based on actual damage data of tunnels obtained from past earthquakes. For this purpose, additional important damage data belonging to Bolu Tunnels, Turkey was utilized as a case study. Bolu Tunnels constitute a very interesting case from the earthquake hazard point of view, since two major earthquakes, 17 August 1999 Marmara and 12 November 1999 D&uuml / zce, occurred during the construction of the tunnels. The August 17, 1999 earthquake was reported to have had minimal impact on the Bolu Tunnels. However, the November 12, 1999 earthquake caused some sections of both tunnels to collapse. The remaining sections of the tunnels survived with various damage states which were subsequently documented in detail. This valuable damage data was thoroughly utilized in this study. To develop analytical fragility curves, the methodology described by Argyroudis et al. (2007) was followed. Seismic response of the Tunnels was assessed using analytical, pseudo-static and full-dynamic approaches. In this way, it was possible to make comparisons regarding the dynamic analysis methods of tunnels to predict the seismically induced damage. Compared to the pseudo-static and full-dynamic methods, the predictive capability of the analytical method is found to be relatively low due to limitations inherent to this method. The pseudo-static and full-dynamic solution results attained appear to be closer to each other and better represented the recorded damage states in general. Still, however, the predictive capability of the pseudo-static approach was observed to be limited for particular cases with reference to the full-dynamic method, especially for the sections with increasingly difficult ground conditions. The final goal of this study is the improvement of damage indexes corresponding to the defined damage states which were proposed by Argyroudis et al. (2005) based on the previous experience of damages in tunnels and engineering judgment. These damage indexes were modified in accordance with the findings from the dynamic analyses and actual damage data documented from Bolu Tunnels following the D&uuml / zce earthquake. Three damage states were utilized to quantify the damage in this study.

Recent devastating earthquakes revealed that bridges are one of the most vulnerable components of the transportation systems. These seismic events have emphasized the need to mitigate the risk resulting from the failure of the bridges. Depending on the seismicity of the bridge local site, seismic vulnerability assessment of the bridges can be done based on the fragility curves. These curves are conditional probability functions which give the probability of a bridge attaining or exceeding a particular damage level for an earthquake of a given intensity level. In this dissertation, analytical fragility curves are developed for the ordinary highway bridges in Turkey constructed after the 1990s to be used in the assessment of their seismic vulnerability. Bridges are first grouped into certain major bridge classes based on their structural attributes and sample bridges are generated to account for the structural variability. Nonlinear response history analyses are conducted for each bridge sample with their detailed 3-D analytical models under different earthquake ground motions having varying seismic intensities. Several engineering demand parameters are employed in the determination of seismic response of the bridge components as well as defining damage limit states in terms of member capacities. Fragility curves are obtained from the probability of exceeding each specified damage limit state for each major bridge class. Skew and single-column bent bridges are found to be the most vulnerable ones in comparison with the other bridge classes. Developed fragility curves can be implemented in the seismic risk assessment packages for mitigation purposes.

This study focuses on the evaluation of seismic safety of masonry buildings in Turkey by using fragility curves. Fragility curves for masonry buildings are generated by two behavior modes for load bearing walls: in-plane and out-of-plane. By considering the previous research and site investigations, four major parameters have been used in order to classify masonry buildings with in-plane behavior mode. These are number of stories, strength of load-bearing wall material, regularity in plan and the arrangement of walls (required length, openings in walls, etc.). In addition to these four parameters, floor type is also taken into account for the generation of fragility curves by considering out-of-plane behavior mode. During generation of fragility curves, a force-based approach has been used. In this study there exist two limit states, or in other words three damage states, in terms of base shear strength for in-plane behavior mode and flexural strength for out-of-plane behavior mode. To assess the seismic vulnerability of unreinforced masonry buildings in Turkey, generated fragility curves in terms of in-plane behavior, which is verified by damage statistics obtained during the 1995 Dinar earthquake, and out-of-plane behavior, which is verified by damage statistics obtained during the 2010 Elazig earthquake, is combined. Throughout the analysis, ground motion uncertainty, material variability and modeling uncertainty have also been considered. In the final part of the study, a single-valued parameter, called as &lsquo / vulnerability score&rdquo / , has been proposed in order to compare the seismic safety of unreinforced masonry buildings in Fatih sub province of Istanbul and to assess the influence of out-of-plane behavior together with the in-plane behavior of these existing masonry buildings.

The seismic design maps on ASCE 7-05, International Building Code- 2006/2009, assumed uniform hazard ground motion with 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years for the entire conterminous U.S. But, Luco et al in 2007 pointed out that as uncertainties in collapse capacity exists in structures, an adjustment on uniform hazard ground motion was proposed to develop new seismic design maps. Thus, risk-targeted ground motion with 1% probability collapse in 50 years is adopted on ASCE 7-10. Even though these seismic design maps are developed for buildings, performance-based bridge design is done using same maps. Because significance difference lies on design procedure of buildings and bridges this thesis suggests some adjustment should be made on uncertainty in the collapse capacity(β) when using for bridge design. This research is done in 3 cities of U.S— San Francisco, New Madrid and New York. Hazard curve is drawn using 2008 version of USGS hazard maps and risk- targeted ground motion is calculated using equation given by Luco et al adjusting the uncertainty in collapse capacity(β) to be 0.9 for bridge design instead of 0.8 as used for buildings. The result is compared with existing result from ASCE 7-10, which uses β=0.6. The sample design response spectrum for site classes A, B, C and D is computed for all 3 cities using equations given in ASCE 7-10 for all β. The design response spectrum curves are analyzed to concluded that adjustment on uncertainty in collapse capacity should be done on ASCE 7-10 seismic design maps to be used for performance-based bridge design.

Tunnels, culverts, and subway stations are the main parts of an integrated infrastructure system. Most of them are constructed by the cut-and-cover method at shallow depths (mainly lower than 30 m) of soil deposits, where large-scale seismic ground deformation can occur with lower stiffness and strength of the soil. Therefore, the transverse racking deformation (one of the major seismic ground deformation) due to soil shear deformations should be included in the seismic design of underground structures using cost- and time-efficient methods that can achieve robustness of design and are easily understood by engineers. This paper aims to develop a simplified but comprehensive approach relating to vulnerability assessment in the form of fragility curves on a shallow two-story reinforced concrete underground box structure constructed in a highly-weathered soil. In addition, a comparison of the results of earthquakes per peak ground acceleration (PGA) is conducted to determine the effective and appropriate number for cost- and time-benefit analysis. The ground response acceleration method for buried structures (GRAMBS) is used to analyze the behavior of the structure subjected to transverse seismic loading under quasi-static conditions. Furthermore, the damage states that indicate the exceedance level of the structural strength capacity are described by the results of nonlinear static analyses (or so-called pushover analyses). The Latin hypercube sampling technique is employed to consider the uncertainties associated with the material properties and concrete cover owing to the variation in construction conditions. Finally, a large number of artificial ground shakings satisfying the design spectrum are generated in order to develop the seismic fragility curves based on the defined damage states. It is worth noting that the number of ground motions per PGA, which is equal to or larger than 20, is a reasonable value to perform a structural analysis that produces satisfactory fragility curves.

Unreinforced masonry (URM) structures have shown tobe susceptible to significant damage during strong earthquakes. Vulnerability assessment of URM buildings is needed so that appropriate mitigation strategies can be implemented. The existing Canadian practice consists of rapid seismic screening of buildings to assign priorities for further and more refined assessments, followed by refined analysis of individual critical buildings. The current seismic screening procedure, from 1992, is based on qualitative observations of seismic vulnerability, enabling the assignment of seismic priority indices, quantified on the basis of expert opinion and experience. More refined tools are needed for seismic vulnerability assessment of URM buildings in Canada, based on the current Canadian seismic hazard values. The objective of the research project is to fulfill these needs by developing fragility curves that provide a probabilistic assessment of different levels of building performance under different intensities ofeastern and western seismicity. Using an inventory of over 50,000 structures, a seismic assessment of typical low-rise and mid-rise URM structures located in eastern and western Canada was carried out. The required analyses were done using applied element method software which effectively modeled the in-plane and out-of-plane behaviour of masonry walls. Using incremental dynamic analysis, fragility curves were developed to reflect the capacity of URM structures with a wide variety of selected structural and ground motion parameters. The results were verified against available fragility information in the literature. They show the significance of selected parameters, while providing effective tools for seismic vulnerability assessment of URM buildings in eastern and western Canada.