none 10.1193/1.1648335 Wiley Wiley (John Wiley & Sons) 311 10510289 5867 2026012504100300285 10.1002 2026-01-25T14:35:39Z 2004-03-04T18:01:11Z 46 Earthquake Spectra Earthquake Spectra 8755-2930 1944-8201 02 2004 20 1 Kerstin Lang Institute of Structural Engineering ETH Hönggerberg 8093 Zürich Switzerland Hugo Bachmann Institute of Structural Engineering ETH Hönggerberg 8093 Zürich Switzerland In order to assess the seismic risk for Switzerland, and particularly for the city of Basel, the seismic vulnerability of the existing buildings needs to be evaluated. Since no major damaging earthquake has occurred in Switzerland in recent times, vulnerability functions from observed damage patterns are not available. A simple evaluation method based on engineering models of the building structures suitable for the evaluation of a larger number of buildings is therefore proposed. The method is based on a nonlinear static approach acknowledging the importance of the nonlinear deformation capacity of the buildings subjected to seismic action. Eighty‐seven residential buildings in a small target area in Basel were evaluated. The results are vulnerability functions that express the expected damage as a function of the spectral displacement. In order to extrapolate the results to other residential areas of the town, building classes were defined for which the vulnerability is presented in a probabilistic form that can be used directly for earthquake scenario projects. 02 2004 02 2004 43 66 10.1193/1.1648335 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/termsAndConditions#vor http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/tdm_license_1.1 10.1193/1.1648335 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1193/1.1648335 http://sage.cnpereading.com/paragraph/article/?doi=10.1193/1.1648335 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1193/1.1648335 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1193/1.1648335 https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/earthquake-spectra/article/20/1/43/584977/on-the-seismic-vulnerability-of-existing-buildings