Seismic Fragility and Vulnerability of Partially Grouted Flexural‐Controlled Reinforced Masonry Buildings in Colombia

This paper presents the development of analytical fragility and vulnerability functions for flexure‐controlled partially grouted reinforced masonry (RM) buildings that are representative of Colombian urban areas, with the goal of enhancing national seismic risk assessments. An inventory was compiled from the 2019 national census, and 36 representative RM buildings were identified to capture regional variations in height, wall density, and reinforcement ratios. Fourteen archetype buildings from the inventory were modeled using three‐dimensional macro‐element approaches implemented in the OpenSees platform. Each archetype model was subjected to at least 600 ground motion records that were representatives of Colombian seismic sources, and this resulted in a large dataset of engineering demand parameters. Fragility functions were derived for multiple damage states within the PEER performance‐based earthquake engineering (PEER‐PBEE) probabilistic framework, and corresponding vulnerability functions were established in terms of expected economic losses. The derived curves showed reasonable agreement with results from the literature, including post‐earthquake empirical fragility functions and published functions for RM. The analyses indicate that taller RM buildings tend to sustain damage at lower ground motion intensities compared to shorter ones, and that RM buildings in Colombia exhibit higher loss estimates than those reported in previous regional studies. The results provide validated fragility and vulnerability functions for Colombian RM construction, contributing to the ongoing development of the country's national seismic risk model and to the development of targeted mitigation strategies.