Dynamic Modeling of In-Event Interdependencies in Community Resilience

Abstract

A simulation-based model designed to conduct in-event simulation for the assessment and quantification of seismic resilience of communities is presented. The proposed simulation approach employs a dynamic analysis that models the behavior of the community at each time step as the seismic event occurs (time step in seconds) and as the community recovers after the event (time step in days). The dynamic nature of the analysis permits explicit consideration of in-event interdependencies that can arise between the physical (i.e., buildings-related) and social (i.e., injured people-related) systems of the community and provides detailed information about the temporal and spatial distribution of injuries/fatalities during the seismic hazard. The proposed model is modularized into independent simulators that model different aspects of the studied scenario, including the city layout, seismic hazard, community losses, and physical and social recovery trajectories. The capability of the proposed simulation model to support hazard mitigation planning was demonstrated through a case study that showed the trade-off between physical and social costs of various feasible mitigation strategies.