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Evaluation of non-structural earthquake damage to buildings in southwestern B.C.

University of British Columbia

The damage to non-structural building components and contents can constitute a significant portion of the total damage and risk to life due to an earthquake. Despite this, structural effects have been the measure of risk in the majority of regional damage assessment studies. It is the purpose of this thesis to develop a methodology for the evaluation of damages to non-structural building components and contents, that is applicable to southwestern British Columbia, and apply this methodology to a case study region. Existing methodologies that have been developed for use in other regions are reviewed and the methodology to be used in this study is outlined. A classification scheme for non-structural components and building contents is presented as well as damage functions for each nonstructural component class. The damage functions used to perform the assessment are Damage Probability Matrices that relate non-structural damages to earthquake intensities. The nonstructural damages are presented as percentages replacement costs and ground motion intensities are measured in the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. Lastly, a case study is performed on a building inventory consisting of over 8000 buildings located in the City of New Westminster.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-06-15

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/9136

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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