On the vulnerability assessment of modern low technology engineered residential construction

In the past five years, modern low technology engineered residential construction, typically represented by medium height reinforced concrete infilled frames in developing countries, have been responsible for very high death tolls during seismic events. It is therefore apparent that there is a pressing need to evaluate and improve the seismic performance of these buildings in order to reduce society's existing earthquake risk. However, any mitigation measure should be arrived at without adopting methods which are either too simplistic, thus running the risk of being overtly conservative, nor too taxing on the information required and therefore difficult to implement. Thus a major concern is how to estimate the realistic performance of these structures and consequently be able to determine any possible weaknesses. From data collected following post earthquake surveys a database of typical structures and damage patterns has been identified. It is apparent that current procedures for seismic assessment do not adequately account for the majority of the constructions observed. The need therefore exists for a tool that closely predicts the damage mechanisms to be expected in such buildings, hence the concepts of a tool being developed for the analysis of such structures is presented.