Seismic damage simulation in urban areas based on a high-fidelity structural model and a physics engine

Zhen Xu, Xinzheng Lu (), Hong Guan, Bo Han and Aizhu Ren

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2014, vol. 71, issue 3, 1679-1693

Abstract: Effective seismic damage simulation is an important task in improving earthquake resistance and safety of dense urban areas. There exist two significant technical challenges for realizing such a simulation: accurate prediction and realistic display. A high-fidelity structural model is proposed herein to accurately predict the seismic damage that was inflicted on a large number of buildings in an urban area via time-history analysis, with which the local damage to different building stories is also explicitly obtained. The accuracy and efficiency of the proposed model are validated by a refined finite element analysis of a typical building. A physics engine-based algorithm is also proposed that realistically displays building collapse, thus overcoming the limitations of the high-fidelity structural model. Furthermore, a visualization system integrating the proposed model and collapse simulation is developed so as to completely display the seismic damage in detail. Finally, the simulated seismic damage of a real medium-sized Chinese city is evaluated to demonstrate the advantages of the proposed techniques, which can provide critically important reference information for urban disaster prevention and mitigation. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Seismic damage; Urban areas; High-fidelity structural model; Collapse simulation; Physics engine; Realistic visualization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1007/s11069-013-0972-8

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