Development of internet based seismic vulnerability assessment tools

Seismic assessment methods are commonly divided into three phases: a) quick assessment b) detailed analysis and c) advanced methods. The dilemma between the large number of buildings to be assessed and low number of technical personnel and funding to assess buildings makes large cities wait on halt. Internet Earthquake Project (InEP) initiated as a Middle East Technical University BAP project in full conjunction with NATO-SfP977231 project, targets internet users to process the buildings in which they reside to carry out the time consuming process of collecting building data. Furthermore, the internet site has a target to disseminate knowledge about basic civil engineering principles and build earthquake vulnerability awareness. Projection of about 5 million internet users in Turkey by the year 2005 builds a good potential for processing the existing building stock. The Internet Earthquake Project's web site is currently fully functional except for ongoing studies of improvement. "Simplistic" and "Complicated" evaluation options are expected to fulfill the beginner and advanced level internet user's level of competency. Concerns about the reliability of entered data and legal (reliability) issues are still under discussion. This study can be viewed as a "first attempt" to carry seismic assessment of existing buildings to the internet, rather than as a final product