Abstract Database :: STUDY ON A DEVELOPING METHODOLOGY OF REAL-TIME BUILDING RESIDUAL SEISMIC CAPACITY EVALUATION SYSTEM AFTER AN EARTHQUAKE

Disasters are natural phenomena which cannot be prevented. However, their negative effects on living creatures can be reduced. After a destructive earthquake, the situation in the disaster-affected area should be defined as soon as possible. The later it is defined, the more the number of victims and economical losses can be increased. One of the most important defining processes is the damage evaluation of earthquake affected buildings. After a destructive earthquake, in many cases, some residents who continue to live in damaged houses are under high risk. Many victims can be injured or lost their lives in damaged buildings because of aftershocks. On the other hand, some residents who live in seismically safe enough buildings from an engineering point of view abandon their buildings. Nowadays, some post-earthquake damage assessment methodologies are used all over the world. These methodologies still have some problems in terms of time, objectiveness, methodological problems, reliability, etc. In last twenty years some important applications of post-earthquake damage assessment were experienced especially in the aftermath of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji and the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquakes, in Japan. These experiences clearly revealed that the more reliable, objective and faster methodology is needed for post-earthquake damage assessment. In order to solve these problems mentioned above, the researches on the real-time post-earthquake residual seismic capacity evaluation system have started to develop a new methodology in recent fifteen years. In this thesis, the author studied to determine the damage on a target building because of the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake by applying the commonly used system identification methods and a part of the new methodology being developed in the limited time.