Course description
The assessment of seismic risk is fundamental for civil protection and insurance of buildings, states and private entities. The course is targeted to students with a civil engineering background and it builds strong understanding of technical seismology, seismic hazard, probability and risk, using hands-on practical sessions to develop a working experience with leading hazard assessment software. After a successful completion, the student should be able to
a) Build a simple seismic source model
b) Assess the seismic hazard for a site or region
c) Perform classical probabilistic seismic hazard analysis
d) Estimate the risk in terms of losses or casualties for a region or a portfolio of buildings
| Sect | Title | Subject | Hours |
| 1 | Introduction to Engineering Seismology | Fault types, Moment magnitude, Epicenter, Distance, MMI, Soil effects, directivity | 1Χ3=6 |
| 2 | Special topics of Engineering Seismology | Ground motion prediction equations, near fault directivity, incidence angle and rotation of ground motion components, | 3Χ3=9 |
| 3 | Seismic hazard assessment - Theory | Deterministic versus probabilistic approaches, Gutenberg-Richter recurrence model, distance estimation, disaggregation, uniform hazard spectra and hazard curves, joint distributions of intensity measures | 2Χ3=6 |
| 4 | Seismic hazard assessment - Practice | Introduction into OpenQuake and QGIS. Examples of application in California and Greece. Hazard maps, hazard curves and uniform hazard spectra | 4Χ3=12 |
| 5 | Seismic risk - Theory | Fragility versus vulnerability. Consequence functions, damage probability matrices. Single building loss, Portfolio risk. Insurance | 2Χ3=6 |
| 6 | Seismic risk - Practice | Estimation of single building risk for a given location. Estimation of regional/portfolio losses via OpenQuake | 1Χ3=3 |
1. Kramer S.L. (1996). Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey
2. Baker J.W. (2008). An introduction to probabilistic seismic hazard analysis. Version 1.3, https://web.stanford.edu/~bakerjw/Publications/Baker_(2008)_Intro_to_PSHA_v1_3.pdf .
3. GEM (2019). The OpenQuake-engine User Manual. Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Open-Quake Manual for Engine version 3.4.0. https://docs.openquake.org/manuals/OpenQuake%20Manual%20%28latest%29.pdf
Grading is based on the final exam (50%) and the mandatory semester project (50%). The latter involves the seismic hazard and risk assessment of a small town in Greece via OpenQuake. Presentation of the semester project takes place after the final exam, and it is a requirement for all students.
Dimitrios Vamvatsikos, divamva@mail.ntua.gr
Olga-Joan Ktenidou, olga.ktenidou@noa.gr
Aggeliki Gerontati, agerontati@mail.ntua.gr
Konstantina Mastrodimou, nantia_63@hotmail.com
Akrivi Chatzidaki, c.akrivi@hotmail.gr