A New Hazard-Agnostic Finite Element Model for Community Resilience Assessment

Abstract

Mitigating the impact of disasters on communities requires not only a deep understanding of the essential features of infrastructure, social, and economical components that make a community resilient, but also the development of mathematical models that can seamlessly integrate these features. In this study, we present a new and novel theoretical dynamic model for quantifying community resilience. The model is founded on mathematically integrating infrastructural, social, and economic sectors of the community of interest. The underlying fundamentals of the proposed theory hinges on assuming the behavior of a community in response to a hazard is equivalent to the response of a vibrating mass of finite stiffness and damping. The dynamic model is implemented through the development of a finite element formulation capable of quantifying resilience both temporally and spatially. The finite element model is further utilized to devise a new hazard-agnostic definition of community resilience, which is demonstrated through logical verification tests conducted on a testbed city. Through various analysis and sensitivity studies, it is observed that the model can be used to identify vulnerable areas in a community as well as provide a spatial and temporal measure of community resilience for various types of hazards such as physical disruptions and even social disorder.