Interfacing Building Response with Human Behavior Under Seismic Events

The goal of this paper is to model the interaction of humans with their built environment during and immediately following a natural disaster. The study uses finite element simulations to evaluate the response of buildings under input ground motions and agent-based dynamic modeling to model the subsequent evacuation of building occupants in the study area immediately following the seismic event. The structural model directly captures building damage and collapse, as well as floor accelerations and displacements to determine nonstructural damage, injuries and fatalities. The goal of this research is to make connections between building damage and occupant injuries, with geographic automata as the information handler for the agent-based platform. This research demonstrates that human behavior and evacuation patterns can be evaluated in the context of realistic structural and nonstructural damage assessments, and that prior knowledge of evacuation patterns is critical for adequate preparedness of cities to severe earthquakes.