A tool to assess road interruption due to earthquake-induced collapse of infill walls in RC buildings

Abstract

Roads are essential for both normal transportation and emergency operations, but earthquakes can block them by damaging structures and causing debris to fall onto the pavement. Recent studies show that the debris from both structural and non-structural components can spread beyond a building's footprint, sometimes occupying a significant portion of the adjacent road. When this happens, emergency services may not be able to pass, and evacuation routes can become unusable or much harder to cross. However, much of the literature focuses on broad estimates or on masonry buildings, and there is still a need for tools that more precisely capture the behaviour of reinforced concrete structures with infill walls, especially when looking at different construction periods, building heights, and infill typologies.

This article proposes a new tool for estimating the debris produced by infill wall collapse in reinforced concrete buildings under seismic actions. The tool is based on nonlinear dynamic analyses of buildings with various heights, ages, and infill wall types. It aims to quantify, at increasing levels of seismic intensity, the volumes of collapsed material and the distance this material can project onto nearby roads. This information is crucial for assessing the possible obstructions to emergency vehicles and for improving the resilience of urban areas after an earthquake. By examining buildings of different characteristics, the proposed approach offers a more detailed understanding of how infill walls behave during seismic events and how this can affect traffic flow, rescue operations, and overall accessibility in critical post-earthquake conditions.