Seismic risk assessment of industrial plants: A case study from the Emilia 2012 earthquake sequence.

Abstract This paper presents the quantitative seismic loss assessment of an industrial plant and compares it to the real losses observed during the Emilia, 2012 earthquake. The procedure implemented comprises the individual assessment of each component of the seismic risk that is: the seismic hazard at the site, the seismic vulnerability of the structures and the evaluation of the losses corresponding to the onset of specific damage levels. The assessment is performed by means of the FRAME@Risk software suite, an AXA MATRIX Risk Consultants tool developed in collaboration with the University of Naples Federico II, allowing the global computation of seismic risk on probabilistic basis. The case study analysed is a plant for the production of medical devices located in Mirandola (MO), close to the epicentres of the 20th and 29th May 2012 earthquakes. Most of the buildings are precast reinforced concrete structures designed for gravitational loads only, which were heavily damaged during the Emilia earthquake and, in some cases completely destroyed. The comparison between the estimated losses and the observed ones (adjusted losses after the claim process) is performed at both the global plant and the individual buildings levels. This is believed to represent a first validation of the loss assessment procedure employed, encouraging the further development and application of the tool for earthquake induced loss estimations.