Search

DBELA is a Displacement-Based Earthquake Loss Assessment methodology for urban areas which relates the displacement capacity of the building stock to the displacement demand from earthquake scenarios. The building stock is modeled as a random population of building classes with varying geometrical and material properties. The period of vibration of each building in the random population is calculated using a simplified equation based on the height of the building and building type, while the displacement capacity at different limit states is predicted using simple equations which are a function of the randomly simulated geometrical and material properties. The displacement capacity of each building is then compared to the displacement demand obtained from an over-damped displacement spectrum, using its period of vibration; the proportion of buildings where damage exceeds each specified threshold value can thus be estimated. DBELA has been applied using the Turkish building stock following the collection of a large database of structural characteristics of buildings from the northern Marmara region. The probabilistic distributions for each of the structural characteristics (e.g., story height, steel properties, etc.) have been defined using the aforementioned database. The methodology has then been applied to predict preliminary damage distributions and social losses for the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality for a Mw 7.5 scenario earthquake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A damage estimation exercise has been carried out using the building stock inventory and population database of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and selected European earthquake loss estimation packages: KOERILOSS, SELENA, ESCENARIS, SIGE, and DBELA. The input ground-motions, common to all models, correspond to a “credible worst case scenario” involving the rupture of the four segments of the Main Marmara Fault closest to Istanbul in a Mw 7.5 earthquake. The aim of the exercise is to assess the applicability of the selected software packages to earthquake loss estimation in the context of rapid post-earthquake response in European urban centers. The results in terms of predicted building damage and social losses are critically compared amongst each other, as well as with the results of previous scenario-based earthquake loss assessments carried out for the study area. The key methodological aspects and data needs for European rapid post-earthquake loss estimation are thus identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]