SEISMIC VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF MASONARY BUILDINGS

Abstract

The rapid urbanization has led to proliferation of slums and has severely strained the resources in our urban areas. Most recent constructions in the urban areas consist of poorly designed and constructed buildings. The older buildings, even if constructed in compliance with relevant standards at that time, may not comply with more stringent specifications of the latest standards. There is an urgent need to assess the seismic vulnerability of buildings in urban areas of India as an essential component of a comprehensive earthquake disaster risk management policy. Detailed seismic vulnerability evaluation is a technically complex and expensive procedure and can only be performed on a limited number of buildings. It therefore very important to use simpler procedures that can help to rapidly evaluate vulnerability profile of different types of buildings, so that the more complex evaluation procedures can be limited to the most critical buildings. Assessment of one two building...