D. Sotiriadis¹, PhD, N. Klimis¹, PhD, B. Margaris², PhD, E.-I. Koutsoupaki¹, E. Petala¹, PhD and I. Dokas¹, PhD
¹Department of Civil Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece
²Institute of Engineering Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, Thessaloniki, Greece

Part of the book: The Challenges of Disaster Planning, Management, and Resilience

Abstract

The natural ground relief in mountainous areas is usually modified by creating cuts and embankments to facilitate road construction. Risk is defined as the convolution between exposure, hazard and vulnerability of assets. The purpose of this study is the assessment of the seismic risk of road networks in mountainous areas in Northern Greece. Vulnerability is defined in terms of fragility curves, which express the probability that a structure will reach a damage state as a function of the intensity of the considered hazard. Risk assessment is performed along a vertical road axis connecting the city of Komotini and the Hellenic-Bulgarian borders. Fragility curves are developed for cuts, using material properties probabilistically defined for relevant geologic formations, incorporating the infinite slope sliding model. The sliding safety factor (Fs) and permanent ground deformations (PGD) are considered as damage indices and specific thresholds are assigned to express multiple damage states. The verification of the proposed fragility curves is made against local slope stability analyses for static loading conditions, as well as information from in-situ inspection. Combining the probabilistic seismic hazard, fragility and exposure input, probabilistic seismic damage distributions for 10, 50 and 100 years are derived. Results reveal possible minor to moderate disruption of traffic due to earthquake occurrence, even for limited investigation times.

Keywords: seismic risk, fragility curves, seismic hazard, cut slopes

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