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

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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.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the financial support received from the National Key Technology R&D Program (No. 2013BAJ08B02), the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51308321, 51178249, 51222804), the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (No. 2012THZ02-2) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M530632).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Civil Engineering Safety and Durability of China Education Ministry, Department of Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Xu, Xinzheng Lu, Bo Han & Aizhu Ren

  2. Griffith School of Engineering, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, Gold Coast, QLD, 4222, Australia

    Hong Guan

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  1. Zhen Xu
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  2. Xinzheng Lu
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  3. Hong Guan
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  4. Bo Han
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  5. Aizhu Ren
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Correspondence to Xinzheng Lu.

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Xu, Z., Lu, X., Guan, H. et al. Seismic damage simulation in urban areas based on a high-fidelity structural model and a physics engine. Nat Hazards 71, 1679–1693 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0972-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-013-0972-8

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