Analytical dataset for quantification of direct benefits of functional recovery-based design for seismic resilience, in Economic Drivers for Functional Recovery of Multi-Storey Buildings

Lessons from recent major earthquake events have shown that current life-safety-centred seismic design practice falls short in ensuring a desirable post-hazard recovery. Recovery-based design has emerged as a new paradigm to ensure structural robustness and fast recovery of building function. However, functional recovery-based or low-damage design still requires a firm rational foundation in terms of its expected benefits relative to the additional cost that it incurs. This study aims to quantify the overall economic benefit of adopting functional recovery-based design through a whole-of-economy perspective. This requires four steps of analysis and simulation: 1. Seismic risk assessment to quantify direct losses and robustness, 2. Estimation of the pre-repair timeframe to account for the time that it takes to conduct such pre-requisite actions as financing and mobilization, 3. Estimation of utility infrastructure disruption duration that would inhibit restoration of function to individual buildings, and 4. Economic recovery simulation to quantify the overall economic impact and rapidity of the recovery process. The current literature on post-disaster economic assessment has largely used intensity measures to assess the level of initial disruptions/impacts and thus, has not yet taken advantage of more explicit metrics, such as damage and loss measures. Actual post-disaster environment has also not been properly captured by most economic models that force equilibrium at every time step, whereas the economy might be out-of-equilibrium for a long time. Furthermore, realized capacity of the construction industry to repair incurred damages has not been considered in modelling of the rate of recovery. This study aims to develop a dynamic equilibrium-seeking economic modelling framework that addresses these research gaps and considers expected demand surge phenomena and supply shortages in a post-disaster environment. This research helps to provide quantitative incentives and an evidence-based foundation for the adoption and development of low-damage design to achieve community seismic resilience objectives.