Disaster risk-informed optimization using buffered failure probability for regional-scale building retrofit strategy

Abstract

Regional retrofit planning of buildings is critical to address the increasing threat of natural disasters exacerbated by urban growth and climate change. To identify an optimal plan, this paper introduces a novel optimization framework. By integrating performance-based engineering (PBE) and reliability-based optimization (RBO), we propose buffered optimization and reliability method based mixed integer linear programming (BORM-MILP). The proposed formulation can identify optimal solutions using general optimization solvers, while handling a large number of PBE samples and buildings. Furthermore, the formulation introduces a modified active-set strategy tailored to regional-scale building retrofit optimization problems, further reducing computational memory. The proposed optimization framework is validated by a benchmark example of Seaside, Oregon. The optimization results are presented along in a map, offering visual support for decision-making processes. The application results are further investigated to analyze computational efficiency of the proposed active-set strategy, study convergence to the normal distribution, and identify a dominant factor for the building retrofit selection.