Census-based typological usability fragility curves for Italian unreinforced masonry buildings

The main vulnerability models available in the literature aim to develop damage fragility curves to estimate the damage level suffered by a building after a seismic event. However, recent earthquakes have highlighted the great importance of predicting the usability of residential buildings, i.e. the condition of a building being habitable or occupiable after a seismic event. The building usability performance can be used as an indicator for allocating economic funding after a seismic event because recent researches have demonstrated a stronger correlation between repair costs and usability assessment rather than between repair costs and structural damage. Therefore, this work focused on the development of census-based fragility curves for the preventive forecast of the usability of Italian unreinforced-masonry buildings. The proposed usability model was calibrated based on the 2009 L'Aquila earthquake database, including almost 60,000 unreinforced-masonry buildings, and this database was increased by adding data from the Italian census to account for uninspected constructions. Six typological classes were defined considering two parameters available both in the post-earthquake and Italian census databases: construction timespan and state of repair. Additionally, it was highlighted in which cases the number of stories was also relevant. The usability fragility curves were defined as a function of peak ground acceleration for two building usability states: partially unusable and unusable. The results confirmed that older buildings are more vulnerable and clearly pointed out the crucial role of the state of repair as a parameter influencing the building usability.

Automated summary

The main vulnerability models in literature aim to estimate the damage level caused by earthquakes, but recent earthquakes have emphasized the importance of predicting the usability of residential buildings. This study developed census-based fragility curves for Italian unreinforced-masonry buildings and found that older buildings are more vulnerable and the state of repair is a critical factor affecting building usability.