Seismic Vulnerability and Damage Assessment of an Existing URM Building

This study evaluates the seismic vulnerability of an existing URM building which is currently used as a city hall of one of the biggest cities in the east part of Algeria called Constantine. In order to avoid serious damages, in the future, a seismic vulnerability and damage investigation of this kind of buildings are must. A seismic vulnerability study has been considered. Structural analysis is performed based on the site investigation (including inspection of the building and materials characteristics). An analytical procedure for the derivation of fragility curves is proposed. Different tools regarding the determination of capacity curves of the structural system by using a nonlinear analysis are implemented and four damage states are defined. The earthquake action is expressed in terms of spectral values; the probabilities of the damage states are obtained considering a lognormal probability distribution.