An AI Approach to the Management of Uncertainty in Post-Earthquake usability of Buildings Assessment

University of Strathclyde - Glasgow

The present paper provides a description of the last release of a Knowledge Based System, AMADEUS 4.0, appropriately realized in order to support the operators in carrying out a set of procedures related to the postearthquake safety evaluation of buildings.
The System encodes a methodological proposal due to one of the Authors, and validated in occasion of the 1990 South-Eastern Sicily Earthquake. Such a methodology had formerly been translated in a series of written guidelines accompanying a questionnaire, appositely developed so as to perform the various phases leading to the assessment. While these latter conventional tools display a rigid and unfriendly platform to the inspectors’ task, particularly when considering the hard conditions that usually follow an earthquake, AMADEUS 4.0 captures and structures the knowledge of recognized experts in the field of seismic engineering, thus providing a flexible and transparent environment to the transfer of the encoded expertise to the operators.