Seismic Reliability of Infrastructure in Metropolitan Lima: Case Studies of Elevated Water Tanks and Bridges

Abstract

Critical infrastructure such as water tanks, bridges, and similar structures must remain operational after a major earthquake to support emergency response efforts and facilitate the recovery of social and economic activities. With its high population density and significant seismic risk, Metropolitan Lima contains a large proportion of such vulnerable infrastructure. However, the seismic vulnerability of these structures has not been extensively examined due to limited data availability, accessibility challenges, and other constraints. Developing methodologies tailored to Peruvian infrastructure to assess seismic reliability is therefore essential to address this gap. This study proposes a methodology for deriving fragility functions for elevated water tanks and vehicular bridges. Although the fragility functions are based on empirical models, the parameters and applications are adapted to Peruvian conditions. The research was conducted as part of the SATREPS project, Development of Integrated Expert System for Estimation and Observation of Damage Level of Infrastructure in Lima Metropolitan Area, led by the Japan–Peru Center for Earthquake Engineering Research and Disaster Mitigation at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, National University of Engineering.