Fire and Earthquake Fragility Functions in the Context of Community Resilience Analysis

Abstract

Fire following earthquake (FFE) events can pose major threats to regions prone to seismic activity, resulting in significant human, physical and economic losses. In the Pacific Northwest, seismic activity in the Cascadia Subduction Zone subject communities in the region to high risks. FFE resilience analysis for these communities would be a valuable tool for identifying areas of critical damage such that actions can be taken to increase resilience. The goal of this thesis is to go through the process of fire following earthquake resilience analysis for a community in the Pacific Northwest, approaching the problem from the scales of both individual buildings and the physical inventory for the entire community. Fire and earthquake fragility functions are considered in the context of direct application to community resilience analysis. First, this thesis investigates the sensitivity of fire fragility functions for entire steel frame structures to the fire scenario, concluding that the Eurocode fire is the most suitable model. Then, this thesis evaluates SYNER-G fragility functions for reinforced concrete buildings and creates combined fragility functions for a proposed group of building types. An example case study was then performed on a community in the Pacific Northwest using results from the previous studies. To conclude, this thesis provides insights into the current literature and methodologies regarding FFE community resilience analysis, identifies critical limitations and builds a basis for future research.