The large losses occurred in the past due to earthquakes, even in highly developed countries, as well as the ensuing prolonged inactivity of the stricken societies, imparted momentum to research into regional seismic impact and community resilience to earthquakes. Need for comprehensive and consistent modeling is apparent, and this work presents a contribution in this direction. The extension of a recently developed civil infrastructure simulation framework to the evaluation of resilience, as well as the introduction of a new infrastructure network-based resilience metric represent the novelties of the article and allow one to explore the effect that sources of uncertainty and key vulnerability factors have on the probability distribution of resilience

This study investigates the seismic response of reinforced concrete buildings designed according to the current Italian building code. Number of stories, site hazard, presence and distribution of masonry infill panels, and type of lateral resisting system are the key investigated parameters. The main issues related to design and modeling are discussed. Two Limit States are considered, namely Global Collapse and Usability-Preventing Damage. The main aim of the study is a comparison between the seismic response of the buildings, investigated through nonlinear static and dynamic analyses. Irregularity in the distribution of infill panels and site hazard emerge as the most influential parameters.

Electric power networks are spatially distributed systems, subject to different magnitude and recurrence of earthquakes, that play a fundamental role in the well-being and safety of communities. Therefore, identification of critical components is of paramount importance in retrofit prioritization. This article presents a comparison of five seismic performance assessment models (M1 to M5) of increasing complexity. The first two models (M1 and M2) approach the problem from a connectivity perspective, whereas the last three (M3 to M5) consider also power flow analysis. To illustrate the utility of the five models, the well-known IEEE-118 test case, assumed to be located in the central United States, is considered. Performances of the five models are compared using both system-level and component-level measures. Spearman rank correlation ρ is computed between results of each model. Highest ρ values, at both system- and component-level, are obtained, as expected, between M1 and M2, and within models M3 to M5. The ρ values between component-level measures are relatively high across all models, indicating that simpler ones (M1 and M2) are appropriate for vulnerability assessment and retrofit prioritization. The complex flow-based models (M3 to M5) are suitable if actual performance of the systems is desired, as it is the case when the power network is considered within a larger set of interconnected infrastructural systems. © 2014 Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering