Development of building vulnerability functions in subsidence regions from analytical methods

Ore and mineral extraction by underground mining often causes ground subsidence phenomena, and may induce severe damage to buildings. This paper develops vulnerability and fragility functions to assess building damage in the context of mining subsidence hazards, comparable to functions used for other hazards. These functions are based on existing analytical methods for damage assessment. They take into account both the uncertainty of the geometric and mechanical parameters of the building and the soil–structure interaction phenomena that may have a critical influence on the building loading. The present paper discusses the methodology used to determine these functions, and the analytical method for damage evaluation is described. The second part is a detailed application of the methodology for a masonry building with or without reinforcement, for which both vulnerability and fragility functions are calculated. Finally, vulnerability functions are tested and validated with a set of three subsidences that occurred in Lorraine (France) between 1996 and 1999.