Seismic Risk Screening Tool

Development of a Preliminary Seismic Risk Screening Tool

In 2016, Dr. Motazedian was approached to collaborate with the National Research Council Canada (NRC) to develop a seismic screening manual, called the “Manual for Screening of Buildings for Seismic Investigation.” The purpose for this manual is to create a rapid and inexpensive seismic screening procedure to rank existing Canadian buildings since the NBCC does not apply retroactively to older buildings.

The last NRC screening guideline (1993) was based on the first edition of FEMA 154 (1988) for use in the US. Since 1993, both the NBCC and FEMA 154 have had major revisions; therefore, the guidelines for rapid seismic screening and seismic evaluation of existing buildings needed to be updated and made compatible with NBCC 2015.

Under the agreement between NRC and Carleton University, Dr. Motazedian oversaw the investigation of the current state-of-practice and the development of an evidence-based methodology to define the applicable threshold values for Canadian seismicity for existing buildings.