The Modified Post-earthquake Damage Assessment Methodology for TCIP (TCIP-DAM-2020)

Post-Earthquake damage assessment has always been one of the major challenges that both engineers and authorities face after disastrous earthquakes all around the world. Considering the number of buildings in need of inspection and the insufficient number of qualified inspectors, the availability of a thorough, quantitative and rapidly applicable damage assessment methodology is vitally important after such events. At the beginning of the new millennia, an assessment system satisfying these needs was developed for the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP, known as DASK in Turkey) to evaluate the damages in reinforced concrete (RC) and masonry structures. Since its enforcement, this assessment method has been successfully used after several earthquakes that took place in Turkey, such as 2011 Van Earthquake, 2011 Kutahya Earthquake, 2019 Istanbul Earthquake and 2020 Elazig Earthquake to decide the future of damaged structures to be either ‘repaired’ or ‘demolished’. Throughout the years, the number of research activities focusing on the reparability of earthquake-damaged structures has increased, which is a purposeful parameter in the determination of buildings’ future after earthquakes. Accordingly, TCIP initiated a research project with a sole aim to regulate and reevaluate the damage assessment algorithm based on the results of state-of-the-art scientific research. This chapter presents the new version of the damage assessment methodology for reinforced concrete structures which was developed for TCIP (TCIP-DAM-2020). In addition, an application of the developed damage assessment algorithm on an earthquake-damaged reinforced concrete building which was struck by Kocaeli (1999) earthquake is presented.