Faculty Awards for Women: An Integrated Approach to Seismic Hazard and Vulnerability Assessment

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The overall objective of the proposed research is to develop a unified approach to seismic hazard and risk evaluation. This objective will be achieved through the following tasks: 1) Advances on segmentation models of faults will provide the basis for developing spatially dependent earthquake occurrence models which have not been previously considered. Additional information of the state of stress and strain release rates along faults will aid in the development of key parameters for such a model. 2) A geophysical ground motion simulation model will be combined with the earthquake occurrence model for site hazard estimates. The normal mode method was successfully used in a previous NSF- supported research project. Other methods such the ray tracing, elasto-dynamic Green's functions, and empirical Green's functions will be reviewed to determine their suitability for implementation. 3) Ground motions simulated under task 2 will be for firm ground conditions. To reflect the effect of local soil conditions on the simulated ground motions, a one-dimensional linear soil will be sued to predict motions at the ground surface. 4) The damage potential of structures will be represented through a global damage index which reflects the overall structural behavior. However, a damage index for structural components or subassemblies will be developed in terms of the ratio of the maximum response parameter to a cumulative response parameter. A measure of the energy dissipation of the structure through stiffness degradation will be used to define this index.