Condition assessment of building façades based on hazard to people

Abstract

Abstract To make periodic inspections of the buildings is useful to quantify the extent to which deficiencies are severe or not, in order to facilitate decision making and prioritize interventions. In previous works by the authors is proposed a scale of gravity of damages in buildings, with the aim of being of widespread and of common use among professionals. This scale is applied through the direct assignment (DA) methodology, based on the generic definitions of each degree. It is demonstrated and characterized the existence of certain level of variability among technicians, when assigning gravity values using DA methodology, due to the fuzzy condition of the attribute to be evaluated. The main goal of this paper is to propose a methodology to assign values of gravity, based on hazard for people of detachments from the façade, by using measurable parameters and mathematical functions. The final objective is to reduce the level of variability among inspectors when assessing the condition state of a building façade. The proposed methodology is named system of evaluation of façades (SEF). The methodology can be also extended to the assessment of other building systems as structures or roofs and other type of infrastructures.