Sharif Digital Repository

Occurrence of natural disasters such as earthquake could seriously damage most buildings especially those with insufficient resistance located in urban worn-out textures. In order to reduce unpleasant consequences of an earthquake, appropriate policies need to be considered to persuade the beneficiaries to follow retrofitting standards in the process of planning, designing, and construction of buildings. These policies shall be implemented through institutions in arbitrary or obligatory forms, by encouragement or penalty mechanisms. In order to consider these policies, first of all we need to identify the beneficiaries and their particulars. By studying and considering subjects discussed in... 

In the aftermath of earthquakes, hospitals serve the critical role of treating casualties and reducing mortalities and severe injuries. A hospital must be resilient to play its role correctly after the earthquake. A resilient hospital is able to maintain its functionality at an acceptable level and provide service to the injured. In order to enhance the resilience of a hospital, an appropriate framework is needed to evaluate the hospital resilience and determines the impact of modification actions. This framework should characterize the serviceability of a hospital in terms of an appropriate metric. In this framework, the behavior of a given hospital building in the event of an earthquake as... 

Due¬ to the volatile nature of material prices, projecting highway construction costs are proven to be very difficult, leading to many challenges in cost estimation process. Bid preparations as well as project planning and control processes are also negatively affected by the concerns about the inaccuracy of cost projections. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests the use of inaccurate cost estimate can result in bid loss or profit loss for contractors and hidden price contingencies, delayed or cancelled projects, inconsistency in budgets and unsteady flow of projects for owner organizations. Analysis of historical data indicates that a relationship between construction materials... 

This study proposes a probabilistic framework to quantify the seismic resilience of urban natural gas distribution networks. Infrastructure resilience is defined as the ability to maintain performance after a hazard or, in case of a loss of performance, return to the minimum desired level in the optimal time. The framework presented in this research is comprised of multiple interconnected probabilistic models. These models work in harmony to characterize the impact of the earthquake on various infrastructures such as the buildings and urban gas distribution network components, as well as the probable consequences of the earthquake. The post-earthquake recovery of the gas distribution network... 

This study provides a probabilistic framework for assessing and quantifying flood damage to infrastructure. This framework models the state of the community's infrastructure after the occurrence of possible floods in five steps. The first step is to model the hazard using a set of models that determine the characteristics of potential floods. The second step is to model and estimate the damage to community buildings and infrastructure. In the third step, infrastructure serviceability is modeled. The infrastructures that are modeled in this study are water distribution network, power network, transportation networks and industrial facilities for processing agricultural products. In the fourth... 

Optimal use of available resources for construction projects depends on proper decision-making on how to spend resources. Optimization of resource consumption should be done taking into account project revenue. In this regard, investors need a suitable mechanism to predict the selling price of the construction project and the resulting profit. Therefore, investors and stakeholders need a suitable model with the help of which they can make decisions such as choosing materials to guarantee the desired profit from the sale. This research will provide a framework for constructing models for estimating the price of residential units by considering some features of the building and some economic... 

Estimation of indirect economic losses due to natural disasters, especially earthquakes, is one of the essential issues in disaster management. This study presents a framework that uses an economic model of the community under study and calculates the indirect economic losses caused by an earthquake. To this end, first, the earthquake-induced direct economic losses are quantified using appropriate risk analysis models. The direct losses are used to characterize the consequent shock to labor and capital. These shocks are then used as inputs to the regional economic model. In the proposed framework, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model uses various data about the state of the community... 

This study aims to investigate the cost and time uncertainty of the seismic repair process of structural elements in earthquake damaged buildings in Iran. In order to identify the most important type of structural system in the country, using the method of analytic hierarchy process (AHP), 39 activists in the field of construction were interviewed. Based on the results, in buildings with reinforced concrete materials, concrete moment frames and in buildings with steel materials, steel moment frames and braced steel braced frames are the most important structural systems. By selecting the structural component of lateral load-bearing in each of the mentioned structural systems and considering... 

The purpose of study is the modeling and evaluation of the role of authorities in enhancing the effectiveness of seismic vulnerability reduction policies. Seismic vulnerability reduction of infrastructures depends on the measures that must be taken before a disaster occurrence. In addition to increasing disaster preparedness, an important part of the pre-disaster measures is taken to increase the robustness of the infrastructure. In some cases, measures to reduce the vulnerability of infrastructure, such as the resilience of residential buildings, require the coordinated role’s implementation of relevant organizations. Evidence shows that in many cases, policies to reduce the vulnerability... 

The purpose of this study is to present a suitable model for calculating the costs imposed on society due to deaths and injuries due to infrastructure failure due to earthquakes, which is used in the analysis of community resilience. Much research has been done to date to calculate the economic costs of infrastructure failure. However, no suitable analytical framework has been provided to quantify the costs of deaths and injuries to people due to earthquake failure. Previous research has provided methods such as the value of statistical life to quantify the social costs caused by accidents and environmental pollution. However, the literature review results in the field of seismic resilience... 

Natural disasters can damage the infrastructure of society. Damages to the infrastructure components of society can disrupt their service delivery. Disruption in providing services to society's infrastructure can disrupt social and economic activities and impose various significant costs on society. The cost of repairing the damaged infrastructure and reducing the income of households are among the economic damages of accidents. The decline in the quality of life, as well as the death and injury of people due to the breakdown of the infrastructure or the disruption in their services, are among the social damages caused by accidents. In the same way, natural disasters are considered a... 

Due to the vulnerability of urban fabric and residential buildings to earthquakes and considering its destructive social and economic effects on society, the need to adopt appropriate policies to prevent and reduce vulnerability, has been increasingly considered by policy makers. Despite the laws, regulations, incentives and penalties that policymakers have envisioned to prevent unprincipled and unsafe construction, evidence shows that a significant number of new buildings being built in the country are not earthquake resistant and there are many violations in design, implementation and supervision that is done by the stakeholders. To solve this problem, research has been done on the... 

The objective of this study is development of a probabilistic framework that facilitates the investigation of the post-earthquake performance of a network of hospitals using the Hospital Network Resilience index which quantifies the ability of the hospitals to provide treatment to earthquake victims. Disasters such as earthquakes can damage the infrastructure systems of a community, disrupt the functionality, and lead to various direct and indirect economic, social and socioeconomic consequences. Over a decade, natural disasters such as earthquakes are estimated to have caused $1.3 trillion economic losses. The social and socioeconomic losses of natural disasters are equally significant as... 

Cogeneration technologies such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) have promising features for providing the electrical energy that various industries require while reducing the emissions and other environmental impacts of these industries. Investments in CHP systems require substantial implementation costs followed by a relatively long period of recovering the invested capital through savings in utilities bills. Appropriate timing of CHP system investments can reduce capital expenses and enhance returns on investments. An appropriate investment valuation method is needed to identify the appropriate time to implement a given CHP system and to find the values of properly scheduled investments.... 

The aim of this research is presentation of A framework to select the appropriate combination of retrofit and insurance in order to reduce earthquake losses. The vulnerability of buildings to earthquakes can lead to significant damage to owners and residents of these buildings. It is imperative that appropriate measures be taken to reduce these adverse effects before the risk occurs. Some of these measures, such as seismic retrofit of buildings, can reduce the vulnerability of buildings and, consequently, financial and human losses. Some other measures like insurance, in the event of an earthquake, can reduce the financial losses incurred by owners and residents of vulnerable buildings.... 

Infrastructure systems play a critical role in the economic and social activities of a community. Effective and continuous performance of these infrastructure systems is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the communities. Infrastructure systems comprise networks of interdependent assets that are built through a long and costly process. These assets are subject to a variety of factors that reduce the performance and reliability over time. These factors also increase the vulnerability of infrastructure assets in face of future probable hazards. In order to ensure the continuous and uninterrupted performance of infrastructure assets in post-hazard situations, asset managers should plan... 

FIDIC as a proposed model for a contract and including patterns of regular international contract projects. In Iran, many giant construction projects such as petroleum projects, power plants, roads and water networks was signed based on FIDIC contract pattern and These projects have been faced with many challenges .The main challenges for this contract are not ready. Improper translation of the original, traditional look owners to contractors, FIDIC modern approach depends on the project parties (owner - Consulting - contractors), Iran's judicial laws, lack of private land ownership and the absence of allocated budget that indicates the appropriate use of this model contracts in Iran. To... 

In this study, reform strategies to enhance private sector participation in infrastructure projects is provided. The study is presented in the form of words that government institutions could use in the highest level. the pattern used for this study is based on system thinking in which all components are in causal relationship with each other. It was made effort to policies and upstream objectives of the country be respected. To provide research content, content analysis of successful experiences in the world was done. Finally, obtained strategies was presented to the experts, reformed and important cases was investigated. Lack of information and difficult access to country's infrastructure... 

In earthquake-prone communities, the post-earthquake functionality of hospitals is crucial. Hospitals can dramatically reduce earthquake casualties if they can remain functional and retain service continuity. A variety of earthquake-induced problems such as damage to hospital components, unavailability of medical staff, disruption in medicine supply, and failure of supporting infrastructure systems can negatively affect the functionality of a hospital. Hospital administrators and facility managers require appropriate tools to assess the effect of these problems on hospital functionality. This research presents a probabilistic framework to assess the functionality of hospitals following...