A novel method based on maximum likelihood estimation for the construction of seismic fragility curves using numerical simulations

Seismic fragility curves presenting some probability of failure or of a damage state exceedance versus seismic intensity can be established by engineering judgment, empirical or numerical approaches. This paper focuses on the latter issue. In recent studies, three popular methods based on numerical simulations, comprising scaled seismic intensity, maximum likelihood estimation and probabilistic seismic demand/capacity models, have been studied and compared. The results obtained show that the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method is in general better than other ones. However, previous publications also indicated the dependence of the MLE method on the ground excitation input. The objective of this paper is thus to propose a novel method improving the existing MLE one. Improvements are based on probabilistic ground motion information, which is taken into account in the proposed procedure. The validity of this new approach is verified by analytical tests and numerical examples.