Performance-Based Engineering Framework for Earthquake and Fire Following Earthquake

The objective for this thesis is to outline a Performance-Based Engineering (PBE) framework to address the multiple hazards of Earthquake (EQ) and subsequent Fire Following Earthquake (FFE). Currently, fire codes for the United States are largely empirical and prescriptive in nature. The reliance on prescriptive requirements makes quantifying sustained damage due to fire difficult. Additionally, the empirical standards have resulted from individual member or individual assembly furnace testing, which have been shown to differ greatly from full structural system behavior. The very nature of fire behavior (ignition, growth, suppression, and spread) is fundamentally difficult to quantify due to the inherent randomness present in each stage of fire development. The study of interactions between earthquake damage and fire behavior is also in its infancy with essentially no available empirical testing results. This thesis will present a literature review, a discussion, and critique of the state-of-the-art, and a summary of software currently being used to estimate loss due to EQ and FFE. A generalized PBE framework for EQ and subsequent FFE is presented along with a combined hazard probability to performance objective matrix and a table of variables necessary to fully implement the proposed framework. Future research requirements and summary are also provided with discussions of the difficulties inherent in adequately describing the multiple hazards of EQ and FFE.