LAUSR

Abstract Since 2008, an increase in human-induced seismic activity related to natural gas production and petroleum activities has resulted in millions of dollars of damage in the Central United States, primarily to residential buildings including chimneys and masonry veneers. This study aims to better understand and evaluate the impacts of such seismic hazards on masonry veneers. To do so, a probabilistic framework is proposed in which fragility curves representing the probability of cracking and collapse damage states for masonry veneers are developed. In the proposed framework, Artificial Neural Networks are adopted to develop probabilistic seismic demand models from experimentally-validated finite element analyses of non-seismically detailed masonry veneers. The framework utilizes a suite of 200 ground motions largely believed to be from human-induced earthquakes with magnitudes of 3.6–5.8 recorded in the Central U.S. since 2008. Fragility curves are produced for masonry veneers with code compliant corrugated brick ties and those with thinner brick ties that are commonly employed in residential construction in the Central U.S. Additionally, the proposed fragilities developed for human-induced earthquakes are compared to those from the literature, which were developed for the New Madrid seismic hazard and are commonly used for seismic vulnerability assessments of infrastructure in the Central U.S. The results indicate that for a given PGA level, induced earthquakes may be more likely to produce damage compared to earthquakes representing the New Madrid hazard. Finally, the regional extents of damage from a recent induced seismic event are estimated using the newly developed and existing fragility functions to evaluate the implications of using these models for regional vulnerability assessments.