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Probabilistic model for predicting instantaneous structural deterioration due to earthquakes

Iannacone, Leandro LU orcid and Gardoni, Paolo (2025) In Structure and Infrastructure Engineering
Abstract
Due to the relatively short duration of earthquakes, most studies simplify their impact on structures by considering the total effect of each event rather than modelling the instantaneous accumulation of damage during the event itself. This approach may underestimate performance degradation, as incremental damage occurring during the shock can lead to an immediate reduction in capacity. Furthermore, most structures experience multiple earthquakes throughout their service life, and aftershocks can significantly compromise structures already weakened by prior seismic events. A framework that directly incorporates time history effects into system performance predictions would enable a more accurate assessment of structural response to future... (More)
Due to the relatively short duration of earthquakes, most studies simplify their impact on structures by considering the total effect of each event rather than modelling the instantaneous accumulation of damage during the event itself. This approach may underestimate performance degradation, as incremental damage occurring during the shock can lead to an immediate reduction in capacity. Furthermore, most structures experience multiple earthquakes throughout their service life, and aftershocks can significantly compromise structures already weakened by prior seismic events. A framework that directly incorporates time history effects into system performance predictions would enable a more accurate assessment of structural response to future seismic events and would synergize with available methods to generate realistic mainshock-aftershock sequences. This work uses recently proposed formulations based on Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) to analyse the instantaneous damage accumulation within sequences of earthquakes. Models are calibrated based on Finite Element Analyses, resulting in physics-based, probabilistic surrogate models, which can reproduce similar results and associated uncertainties) in a fraction of the time. Finally, the proposed method is integrated within a reliability-based formulation to obtain time-varying fragility curves for an example structure before a shock, during a shock, and after a realistic aftershock sequence. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Deterioration, earthquake, fragility analysis, life-cycle analysis, reliability, seismic engineering, spectral analysis, stochastic calculus
in
Structure and Infrastructure Engineering
publisher
Taylor & Francis
external identifiers
  • scopus:105016665653
ISSN
1573-2479
DOI
10.1080/15732479.2025.2560043
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a49fdb3f-d7d4-4583-88ec-74640d33e4f7
date added to LUP
2025-12-09 13:41:44
date last changed
2025-12-09 13:43:04
@article{a49fdb3f-d7d4-4583-88ec-74640d33e4f7,
  abstract     = {{Due to the relatively short duration of earthquakes, most studies simplify their impact on structures by considering the total effect of each event rather than modelling the instantaneous accumulation of damage during the event itself. This approach may underestimate performance degradation, as incremental damage occurring during the shock can lead to an immediate reduction in capacity. Furthermore, most structures experience multiple earthquakes throughout their service life, and aftershocks can significantly compromise structures already weakened by prior seismic events. A framework that directly incorporates time history effects into system performance predictions would enable a more accurate assessment of structural response to future seismic events and would synergize with available methods to generate realistic mainshock-aftershock sequences. This work uses recently proposed formulations based on Stochastic Differential Equations (SDEs) to analyse the instantaneous damage accumulation within sequences of earthquakes. Models are calibrated based on Finite Element Analyses, resulting in physics-based, probabilistic surrogate models, which can reproduce similar results and associated uncertainties) in a fraction of the time. Finally, the proposed method is integrated within a reliability-based formulation to obtain time-varying fragility curves for an example structure before a shock, during a shock, and after a realistic aftershock sequence.}},
  author       = {{Iannacone, Leandro and Gardoni, Paolo}},
  issn         = {{1573-2479}},
  keywords     = {{Deterioration; earthquake; fragility analysis; life-cycle analysis; reliability; seismic engineering; spectral analysis; stochastic calculus}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{01}},
  publisher    = {{Taylor & Francis}},
  series       = {{Structure and Infrastructure Engineering}},
  title        = {{Probabilistic model for predicting instantaneous structural deterioration due to earthquakes}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15732479.2025.2560043}},
  doi          = {{10.1080/15732479.2025.2560043}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}