HayWired Scenario Study

The HayWired scenario study depicts the impacts of a M7.0 rupture on the Hayward fault on the San Francisco Bay Area. As a portion of that study, the impact on archetype tall buildings in San Francisco and Oakland was investigated, both for older and more modern construction.

The US Geological Survey (USGS) recently released a report entitled “The HayWired earthquake scenario—Engineering implications.” The report describes the HayWired scenario, developed by USGS and its partners. The scenario is a hypothetical yet scientifically realistic earthquake sequence that is being used to better understand hazards for the San Francisco Bay region during and after a M7 earthquake (mainshock) on the Hayward Fault and its aftershocks.

Arup co-authored “Chapter O: Case Studies of Tall-Building Structural Analyses and Downtime and Loss Assessment for the HayWired Scenario Mainshock” in this report. We undertook nonlinear response history analysis of tall reinforced concrete and steel frame archetype buildings and assessed their losses using FEMA P-58 and the REDi downtime methodology