EMI2015 - OpenConf Peer Review & Conference Management System

Papers » The value of properties continues to rise in the U.S., especially for coastal regions that are prone to hurricane hazards. The insured value in coastal counties alone now exceeds $10 trillion. Mitigation of homes is an effective way to lessen the loss, but it is difficult to encourage homeowners to mitigate their homes due to the perception that upfront costs are not affordable compared to the future benefits of mitigation. An important research challenge is to accurately assess the expected loss due the wind hazard, which in turn will enable accurate cost-benefit analysis and appropriate mitigation.
Inspired by the advance in earthquake engineering, we will present a new framework to quantify uncertainties in performance of building components subjected to hurricanes. The first part of the framework expresses the performance of a component (such as the roof-to-wall connection) as a combination of an analytical model and error correction terms. The analytical model is calibrated using the data compiled from the literature. The error correction terms are obtained using the Bayes’ rule. Next, the second part of the framework uses the developed performance model to obtain the fragility functions. The fragility is the probability of exceeding the prescribed limit state for the given wind speed. Unlike the conventional fragility functions used in hurricane engineering, the proposed fragility has bounds that reflect the uncertainties of the building component performance.
As an illustration, we will present application of the framework on example building components. We will also discuss the next phase of the research, such as the integration with the database, spatial analysis for certain region, and minimization of expected future loss.

Author(s):

Sungmoon Jung
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
United States

Arda Vanli
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
United States

Bejoy Alduse
FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
United States