Though the idea of pre-impact recovery preparedness planning has recently been promoted by federal and state governments, very little research has been done to evaluate how it affects the process of disaster recovery. This research attempts to understand how pre-impact recovery planning affects housing reconstruction by examining the relationship of pre-impact recovery planning with housing reconstruction speed and the use of mitigation techniques during housing reconstruction. This study was conducted by comparing two cases, the City of Los Angeles, California and Taichung County in Taiwan. This study finds that having a pre-impact preparedness recovery plan increases the speed of housing reconstruction. The relationship between having a pre-impact recovery preparedness plan and the extent to which hazard mitigation is integrated into the recovery process is not very clear, but the experience of the City of Los Angeles suggests that having a pre-impact recovery plan allows local officials to make more effective use of the “window of opportunity” after disaster.

The rigid sliding-block analysis introduced by Newmark in 1965 has become a popular method for assessing the stability of slopes during earthquakes. Estimates of sliding displacement calculated using this methodology serve as an index of seismic performance and are used for mapping seismic landslide hazard potential. The original approach of rigorously integrating ground acceleration time-histories to compute estimates of sliding displacement has been replaced by the use of simple, empirical models that predict displacement as a function of a slope's yield acceleration and one or more measures of ground shaking. To be useful the results of these models must be compared with observations of landslides from previous earthquakes. Seven different empirical models were evaluated by comparing predicted displacements with an inventory of observed landslides from the 1994 Northridge, California earthquake. Using a comprehensive set of ground motion data and shear strength properties from the Northridge earthquake, sliding displacements were calculated within a geographic information system (GIS) and the accuracy of each model was computed. The influence of factors such as landslide size, geologic unit, slope angle, and material strength on the prediction of landslides was also evaluated. The results were used to show that the accuracy of the predictive models depends less on the model used and more on the uncertainty in the model parameters, specifically the assigned shear strength values. Because current approaches do not take into account the spatial variability of strength within individual geologic units, the accuracy of the predictive models is controlled by the distribution of slope angles within observed and predicted landslide cells. Assigning overly conservative (low) shear strength values results in a higher percentage of landslides accurately identified, but also results in a large over-estimation of the seismic landslide hazard. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 476-484). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Une méthode d'inversion des accélerogrammes de champs proche dans le domaine des fréquences est tout d'abord décrite. Cette méthode permet de trouver le glissement, la vitesse du front de rupture et la durée de la rupture en chaque point de la faille. Cette méthode a été appliquée à trois séismes: le séisme californien de Landers (1992), le séisme d'Uttarkashi (1991) situé au nord de l'Inde et le séisme de Northridge en Californie (1994). La répartition spatiale du glissement montre la présence de plusieurs sous-évènements. Leur largeur semble contrôlée par la segmentation de la faille. La durée de la rupture en chaque point est compatible avec un mécanisme de type fracture où la radiation d'un point de la faille se termine à l'arrivée d'une phase d'arrêt émise à partir des bords de chaque sous-évènement. Dans une deuxième partie, nous nous sommes interessés aux variations de contraintes assoclees aux seismes. Notre étude de la cinématique du séisme de Landers montre que le glissement a gardé une direction constante pendant la rupture alors que celle-ci est hétérogène. Nous interprétons ce résultat par une chute de contrainte partielle pendant le séisme. Une méthode de calcul du champ de contrainte dynamique est ensuite décrite. Cette méthode est appliquée au séisme de Landers. Il est montré que la résistance des failles est une fonction dépendante du temps. De faibles variations "statiques" des contraintes peuvent être corrélées avec le déclenchement des séismes alors que des variations "dynamiques" plus importantes mais de faibles durées n'ont eu aucun effet immédiat.

A number of recent research studies have investigated the performance of panel zones in seismic-resistant steel Special Moment Resisting Frames (SMF). These recent studies investigated various options for attaching doubler plates to the column at beam-column joints in SMF for purpose of increasing the shear strength of the panel zone. This previous work was primarily focused on doubler plates that extend beyond the top and bottom of the attached beams, and considered cases both with and without continuity plates. As an extension to this previous research, this thesis explores the situation when a doubler plate is fitted between the continuity plates. The objective of this research was to evaluate various options for welding fitted doubler plates to the column and continuity plates through the use of finite element analysis, and to provide recommendations for design. The development and validation of the finite element model are described, along with the results of an extensive series of parametric studies on various panel zone configurations and attachment details for fitted doubler plates. Based on the results of these analyses, recommendations are provided for design of welds used for attaching fitted doubler plates in the panel zone of SMF systems. / text