The Assessment of Residential Buildings' Physical Vulnerability against Earthquake (A Case Study of Sari, Mazandaran, Iran)

Earthquake damage assessment of residential buildings of Sari is the main goal of the present research. Through a descriptive-analytic method, first, building information such as structure type, year of construction, and number of stories are taken from the Urban Comprehensive Plan of Sari. Using these data, damage degree of each building class is computed for all zones of Sari’s regions using results obtained by the seismic hazard analysis of Sari along with taking into account the proper vulnerability curves. The obtained results showed that the percentages of the adobe and cinder block types of Sari residential buildings were 63, 66, 72, and 67 percent for Sari districts 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, which would be totally destroyed.  Moreover, the least damage degrees were predicted for steel structures along with concrete ones with more than five stories.