Supervisors

Dr Matthew Mason (QUT), Prof Mahen Mahendran (QUT), Prof. George Walker (Aon Benfield, Adj. Professor QUT)

Building codes are the primary tool used to ensure the structural adequacy of the built environment in the face of natural hazards. When faced with such extreme loading, these codes are generally designed to ensure individual structures satisfactorily maintain the safety of their occupants for a hazard event with a defined annual probability of exceedance. While this philosophical approach is laudable, loss of life is not the only way communities experience the impacts of natural hazards. Impacts such as economic loss, community displacement and disruption and loss of power and communication (to name a few) are rapidly gaining significance and, it could be argued, should also be minimised through engineering design.

Acknowledging and explicitly considering the role building codes can play in mitigating the impact of natural hazards on a community (instead of only a single structure) presents a different approach to the use of building regulations in disaster risk reduction. As such, the aim of this project is to develop a framework by which the community impact of damage to the built environment (not just individual building damage) during natural disasters can be adequately defined, quantified and subsequently modelled so that the role building codes play in minimising said impacts (ie maximising resilience) can be optimised.

A catastrophe risk modelling approach similar to that utilised by the insurance industry will be modified and applied to help quantify and aggregate potential impacts of hazard events. This project will involve:

1. an assessment of current building regulatory frameworks within the Australian building industry and an appraisal of how a “community impact focussed” performance criterion could be incorporated,
2. sourcing and/or development of a catastrophe risk model that allows the potential impacts of tropical cyclones on all facets of communities to be quantified, and
3. a case study/s for a cyclone prone town in Queensland to exemplify the analysis and optimisation approach.

This project would suit a student with an engineering or mathematics background. It will draw on and add to the current CRC project, Using realistic disaster scenario analysis to understand natural hazard impacts and emergency management requirements, and several of the projects within the Hardening Buildings and Infrastructure cluster.