Regional Risk Assessment of Existing Buildings

This paper describes current research underway at Stanford University designed to develop a methodology for determining high risk buildings in a region. The work involves developing a method to identify the high risk subareas. Once done, the buildings within those areas would be evaluated using an expert knowledge base to identify a preliminary list of high risk structures. Stanford researchers have developed two knowledge bases, along with a survey questionnaire designed to extract knowledge from experts to aid in creating a working knowledge base synthesized from the opinions of multiple experts. Two proprietary expert system 'shell' programs have been used to implement such knowledge bases on a personal microcomputer. The research described herein represents a new method of identifying high risk buildings in a region using an expert knowledge base. It is being validated in part with the cooperation of a local building department to ensure its practical relevance.