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

Advances on risk-targeted hazard estimation within the European context Silva, Vítor; Crowley, Helen; Bazzurro, Paolo

Abstract

The design of new structures according to modern seismic regulations requires the definition of a ground motion for a given return period, for which the structure is designed. The implicit assumption is that the resulting annual collapse probability is equally uniform for all structures, regardless of their structural properties or location. However, the uncertainty in the collapse capacity and discrepancies in the slope of the seismic hazard curves at different sites lead to a level of risk that is site- and structure-specific, and thus not uniform for all structures across a region. The estimation of risk-targeted hazard maps allows for the definition of a design ground motion that would lead to a nominal uniform level of risk nationally, compliant with a transparent and pre-specified risk threshold. In this paper, the seismic hazard results recently released under the FP7 European project SHARE are employed to compute risk-targeted hazard maps for Europe, according to a fixed annual probability of collapse that is in agreement with current levels of safety. The preliminary results shown here expose large areas of Europe where the design ground motion could be significantly lowered without compromising the current level of accepted risk.

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