Seismic Risk Assessment of a Masonry Building Due to the Geothermal Power Plant Earthquakes

Due to a lack of available energy resources, the development of geothermal power plants (GPPs) as a renewable and green energy source has risen globally, notably in Germany, in recent decades. However, several aspects of this new technology are still unclear and need further investigation to be understood. This study focused on one of the important side effects of geothermal power plant activities. According to available reports, the operation of GPPs in various sites throughout the world coincided with low-to-moderate earthquakes. The population of the surrounding region may experience disruptions in their everyday lives as a result of these earthquakes. Even in the past, these earthquakes caused the entire plant to be shut down due to the induced damage to the neighboring buildings and their people. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate the seismic risk imposed on masonry buildings, as a vulnerable type of building, due to the GPP operation. In this regard, the earthquake phenomenon itself is studied statistically in the first phase to generate a model capable of probabilistically simulating the key characteristics of the induced earthquakes by the GPP operation. In the next step, the ground motions recorded as a result of GPP operations in various regions of the world are statistically analyzed. This analysis serves as the basis for the development of probabilistic ground motion prediction equations for simulating the main intensity measurements of GPP-induced ground motions.