by snow avalanches

Abstract. This paper deals with the assessment of phys-ical vulnerability of civil engineering structures to snow avalanche loadings. In this case, the vulnerability of the el-ement at risk is defined by its damage level expressed on a scale from 0 (no damage) to 1 (total destruction). The vul-nerability of a building depends on its structure and flow fea-tures (geometry, mechanical properties, type of avalanche, topography, etc.). This makes it difficult to obtain vulnerabil-ity relations. Most existing vulnerability relations have been built from field observations. This approach suffers from the scarcity of well documented events. Moreover, the back analysis is based on both rough descriptions of the avalanche and the structure. To overcome this problem, numerical sim-ulations of reinforced concrete structures loaded by snow avalanches are carried out. Numerical simulations allow t