I-Corps: Creation of State-of-the-Art Software for Seismic Building Damage and Monetary Loss Analysis

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United States building codes have been very successful in protecting life safety during earthquakes, but they do not aim to protect against damage and high repair costs. Despite societal concerns over economic disruption after a future earthquake, a building's susceptibility to damage is almost never analyzed during the structural design process. This leaves us with a building stock that is vulnerable to damage, monetary loss, and possible closure after an earthquake. This I-Corps team's research activities and long-term vision focus on enabling engineers to consider damage/loss reduction in the building design process. The team's plan is to create a commercial software tool that enables engineers to predict seismic damage and loss as part of the design process. This design approach will be new to many engineers, so the tool will be created to also provide Probable Maximum Loss (PML) analyses results (which engineers are accustomed to doing for the mortgage industry). If successful, this new design approach and the enabling software tool could revolutionize the way that buildings are designed in seismic areas. Specifically, this software tool (and the theory implemented in the tool) will give engineers a clearer understanding of the extent to which buildings will be damaged in earthquakes and provide an estimate of the cost to repair the buildings; this will enable engineers to design buildings in such a way as to reduce the seismic damage and repair costs, instead of using the current approach of only designing buildings to protect the life safety of building occupants.