Development of expert system for the seismic vulnerability of existing masonry structures

Abstract

The collapse of unreinforced masonry structures, that are distributed around the earthquake prone areas of the world, is one of the main causes of death in earthquake disasters. Due to improper methods, lack of knowledge for the construction and maintenance, every year thousands of casualties and collapsing masonry houses are reported. Most of the masonry building structures in Sri Lanka are designed only to bare the gravity loads, as there have no severe earthquake events frequently been affected. Even though, Sri Lanka was believed to have no seismic threats, it is now realized that Sri Lanka can no longer be considered as a country safe from seismic threats following the recent events that occurred in and around the island. Hence the need for evaluating the seismic adequacy of the existing masonry structures has come into focus. For this purpose, an expert system which contains specific knowledge for masonry structures was developed with the collected data from visual inspection survey, numerical calculations and field experiment.