Budapest University of Technology and EconomicsFaculty of Civil Engineering - Since 1782

The term resilience in general reflects the capability to adapt and respond to changing conditions while maintaining the functionality. With respect to the built environment, resilience of a structure is often measured in terms of repair time and associated direct as well as indirect costs, given that the structure suffered from certain failure. 

New design concepts based on resilience is being developed worldwide. Resilient design does not address prescriptive design verifications, but focuses on the resilience of structure after failure: how large is the functionality loss, how quick and economical the repair work is and how long it takes to recover the full functionality. The resilience analysis invokes the following steps: a) hazard identification (known and unforeseen impacts); b) evaluate vulnerabilities; c) analyse scenarios and impacts; d) establish performance targets; e) mitigate risk. Resilient design can involve refining designs, stress testing solutions, designing adaptable, flexible redundant structures, redundant infrastructure.

The methodology is relatively new and thus public standards like Eurocodes do not address it.

Aim of the current research is to adapt resilience analysis framework for quantification of technological resilience of building and/or bridge structures, define the proper performance parameter and define performance targets. Aim is to develop conceptual design provisions for resilient design. This will require the resilience analysis of existing – “pre-Eurocode” – structures as well as structures that are designed in accordance to current design provisions.

 

The proposed work phases could be classified as follows: 

    1) Literature review. 

    2) Adaptation of existing or developing new framework for technological resilience analysis of structures.

    3) Evaluation of applicability of deterministic and stochastic assessment methods.

    4) Definition of archetype buildings.

    5) Identification of extreme hazards for selected building archetypes. 

    6) Assessment of vulnerabilities of the archetype structures for the selected scenarios. Risk assessment.

    7) Definition of proper performance parameter and performance targets.

    8) Design concept proposals, design method proposal and recommendations for future works.