SEISMIC EVALUATION OF BUILDING

Abstract: Earthquakes are the natural phenomenon that occur at several places of world. Severe
earthquakes, when near inhabited districts, have caused extensive loss of life and property. Although
some progress in the area of seismic prediction has been made, earthquakes cannot be accurately
predicted in time, magnitude or location. Therefore, the main way of decreasing losses is to construct
seismic resisting structures. Recent earthquakes illustrates that the older buildings,which are not desined
to resist earthquakes, have been damaged rather than buildings which have been designed according to
seismic codes. Many existing buildings in Egypt are designed to resist the gravity loads only without
seismic provisions. The need is raised to study the vulnerability of these buildings to avoid a serious risk.
In this paper, the light is shed on the significant contribution in the field of seismic vulnerability
evaluation of building in order to suggest a suitable procedure for seismic evaluation of existing R.C
buildings in Egypt. Seismic evaluation was applied on the selected two case studies, one represent the
GLD buildings and other according to Egyptian code.

Introduction: Seismic Vulnerability evaluation is defined as an approved process or methodology of

evaluating deficiencies in a building that prevents the building from achieving a selected performance
objective. The seismic vulnerability evaluation of the existing buildings is required for the following:
buildings may not have been designed to resist the seismic codes, the condition of buildings is
apparently of poor quality or deteriorated with time and change the use of building and soil has a high
liquefaction potential. Depending on the seismic evaluation, a building can be demolished, retrofitted to
increase its capacity, or modified to increase its seismic demand. The earthquake risk at any location
depends on the seismic hazard as well as the vulnerability of its structures. The seismic hazard
evaluation considers the likelihood of earthquake of a particular magnitude or intensity affecting a site.
The risk Means expected loss due to a particular hazard for a given are and reference period. Based on
mathematics calculation, risk is the product of hazard and vulnerability. The seismic vulnerability of a
structure can be described as its susceptibility to damage by ground shaking, and this includes
foundations, columns, beams and floor slabs. He seismic vulnerability evaluation is a complex process,
which has considered design of building as well as deterioration of the material and damage caused to
building. The vulnerability of a building subjected to earthquake is depended on seismic deficiency of
building. The seismic deficiency is defined as a condition that will prevent a building from meeting the
required performance objective. Thus, a building evaluated to provide full occupancy immediately after
an event may have significantly more deficiencies than the same building evaluated to life safety. Life
safety performance level means the damage to the structure has occurred but some margin against
either partial or total structural collapse remains, while, immediate occupancy performance means very
limited damage to both structural and nonstructural components.
The most categories of seismic deficiencies are as follows: 1 . Discontinuity in the load path which
transferred the inertial forces from the mass to the foundation; 2. Low strength for the lateral load
system elements such as weak stories; 3. Low stiffness of lateral load system elements; 4. Low ductility of
load system elements; 5. Lack of redundancy; 6. Configuration irregularities; 7. Deterioration of
structural materials; 8. The pounding action which occurs when the gap between building is insufficient;
9. Foundation deficiencies.

The seismic vulnerability evaluation of existing building is performed either qualitatively or

quantitatively. The current approaches in seismic vulnerability evaluation method were divided into
three main groups depending on their level of complexity. First the most simplest is called walk down
evaluation such as FEMA 154 procedure. Evaluation is in the first level does not require any analysis and
to find priority levels of buildings where immediate intervention is required. Preliminary assessment
methodology is required when more in- depth analysis is required. The procedure in third tier employ
linear or nonlinear analysis of building under consideration and require the as built dimensions of the
reinforcement details of all structural elements. Rapid screening methods are used where there are large
number of buildings.
SEISMIC ASSESMENT MEATHOD

Abstract: Current detailed seismic evaluation methods are based on numeral approaches. However,
there is a need to improve the reliabilityof such evaluations especially in many situations where detailed
design documentations are not present. 3D-SAM is a Nobel approach used based on in-field ambient
vibration measurementing acceleration/velocity sensors located on building platforms. The proposed
method can be used to access most of building types as it incorporates torsional effects and it does not
need the creation of any finite element model. Applications to four buildings located in montreal are
presented that illustrate and validate the proposed method

Introduction: Evaluation of the seismic performance of the buildings need to be conducted as an

essential first step of the risk mitigation process. The issue of seismic evaluation of existing building has
become increasingly important in recent decades, especially in the context of performance based design.
The purpose of this evaluation is to assess/predict the buildings behavior during an earthquake, identify
whether the structure is n need to preventive retrofit, and provide a reference condition to recognize the
damage in the building after occurrence of a design level earthquake.

Current seismic evaluation methods for building are based on linear and
nonlinear static and dynamic analysis approaches. However, there is both uncertainty and variability in
the predicted results obtained from the numerical models that are developed using different
approaches. According to a survey conducted on phase I of the ATC-55 project about the application of
the assessment methods in structural engineering firms in USA. The paper introduces a novel 3-D
experimental seismic assessment method based on ambient vibration measurements for low to
moderate seismic regions.