ENHANCING FUNCTIONAL RECOVERY ESTIMATIONS THROUGH STOREY LOSS FUNCTIONS

The computationally intensive nature of performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE), particularly when implemented through detailed component-based approaches such as FEMA P-58, has limited its use primarily to academic research and specific studies. A more streamlined alternative, favoured by practitioners, employs story loss functions (SLFs) to estimate expected monetary loss per story based on seismic demand. This method significantly reduces the data required for analysis, which is particularly beneficial during the design phase when detailed component information may still be unavailable. This paper presents a customisable, user interface (UI)-based tool for use in the seismic design and assessment of buildings. Unlike the FEMA P-58 methodology, which assumes full recovery, where every damaged component must be repaired before the building is considered functional, recent studies have shown that occupants and building managers exhibit varying degrees of tolerance based on the situation. The proposed tool addresses this by targeting specific recovery states (RSs), including functionality recovery, re-occupancy, and full recovery, allowing for a more detailed disaggregation of losses and the calculation of embodied carbon associated with the replacement of residential, commercial and industrial buildings globally. To make economic loss estimates more reflective of real-world conditions, the concept of RS should be incorporated, and the anticipated RS should be explicitly stated when conducting a loss assessment. This approach provides decision-makers with a more rational and informed strategy for estimating recovery times at different stages of the process.