Buildings Vulnerability Assessment and Damage Seismic Scenarios at Urban Scale: Application to Chlef City (Algeria)

Zohra Boutaraa , Caterina Negulescu (1) , Ahmed Arab (2) , Olivier Sedan (1)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)
2 UHBC - Université Hassiba Ben Bouali de Chlef

Seismic scenarios are tools used to assess seismic risk at the city level. This allows the assessment of the vulnerability of exposed elements to risk (buildings, bridges, etc.). In the case of Chlef city (formerly El Asnam), this evaluation type proves to be useful given the seismic hazard to which it is exposed and the building park size. This city has been shaken in the past by several earthquakes including that of the El Asnam 1980 (Ms = 7.3), which caused hundreds of casualties and destroyed 70% of the city. In this paper, a seismic vulnerability assessment at urban scale and three seismic damage scenarios are simulated using the "RISK-UE" methodology. First, a recreation of the El Asnam 1980 earthquake, considering the urban conditions of the 1980s, is done. A difference of about 12% between observed and simulated damage is observed. Secondly, two senarios considering the current urban conditions are simulated then, vulnerabilty curves are developed. The simulations purpose is to detect the most vulnerable typologies and districts in the event of a similar earthquake and to provide decision support elements to the local seismic risk manager. The results show a structural damage decrease compared to the 1980 urban conditions.

Keywords: El Asnam earthquake; building seismic vulnerability; LM1 method; damage scenarios; Chlef city

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Environmental Sciences

Zohra Boutaraa, Caterina Negulescu, Ahmed Arab, Olivier Sedan. Buildings Vulnerability Assessment and Damage Seismic Scenarios at Urban Scale: Application to Chlef City (Algeria). KSCE Journal of Civil Engineering, 2018, 22 (10), pp.3948-3960. ⟨10.1007/s12205-018-0961-2⟩. ⟨hal-02734388⟩