Experimental vulnerability curves for the residential buildings of Iran

Iran is one of the most seismically active countries of the world located on the Alpine-Himalayan earthquake belt. More than 180,000 people were killed due to earthquakes in Iran during the last five decades. Considering the fact that most Iranians live in masonry and non-engineered houses, having a comprehensive program for decreasing the vulnerability of society holds considerable importance. For this reason, loss estimation should be done before an earthquake strikes to prepare proper information for designing and selection of emergency plans and the retrofitting strategies prior to occurrence of earthquake. The loss estimation process consists of two principal steps of hazard analysis and vulnerability assessment. After identifying the earthquake hazard, the first step is to evaluate the vulnerability of residential buildings and lifelines and also the social and economic impacts of the earthquake scenarios. Among these, residential buildings have specific importance, because their destruction will disturb the daily life and result in casualties. Consequently, the vulnerability assessment of the buildings in Iran is important to identify the weak points in the built environment structure. The aim of this research is to prepare vulnerability curves for the residential buildings of Iran to provide a proper base for estimating probable damage features by future earthquakes. The estimation may contribute fundamentally for better seismic performance of Iranian societies. After a brief review of the vulnerability assessment methods in Iran and other countries, through the use of the European Macroseismic method, a model for evaluating the vulnerability of the Iranian buildings is proposed. This method allows the vulnerability assessment for numerous sets of buildings by defining the vulnerability curves for each building type based on the damage observations of previous earthquakes. For defining the vulnerability curves, a building typology classification is presented in this article, which is representative of Iranian building characteristics. The hazard is described in terms of the macroseismic intensity and the EMS-98 damage grades have been considered for classifying the physical damage to the buildings. The calculated vulnerability indexes and vulnerability curves show that for engineered houses there is not any notable difference between the vulnerability of Iranian and Risk-UE building types. For the non-engineered houses, the vulnerability index of brick and steel structures is less than the corresponding values of the other unreinforced masonry buildings of Iran. The vulnerability index of unreinforced and masonry buildings of Iran are larger than the values of the similar types in Risk-UE and so the Iranian buildings are more vulnerable in this regard.