Earthquake Damage Assessment of Buried Pipeline Networks in the Lima Metropolitan Area

Abstract

Lifelines such as drinking water and sewage systems provide the means and conveyance for daily critical services, and they are essential systems for recovery operations after a damaging earthquake. Therefore, earthquake damage to lifeline components needs to be reliably assessed for a possible future seismic scenario. This study presents an earthquake damage assessment of buried pipeline networks in the Lima Metropolitan Area (LMA). It includes seismic hazard analysis, a review of pipeline network datasets, and the selection of empirical fragility functions. Deterministic seismic hazard analysis was performed for an inter-plate earthquake scenario using ground motion prediction equations and site conditions to compute the distribution of the peak ground velocity (PGV). Recommendations are offered for an adequate selection of fragility functions developed in other regions, and a logic tree of fragility functions is proposed to be used in pipelines of LMA according to the data of pipeline damage after the 2007 Pisco Earthquake. Finally, the pipeline repair ratios and the total number of repairs are estimated for the earthquake scenario, and the results are geographically presented for each pipeline network.