A Case Study of Performance-Based Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit of an Existing Hospital Building in California, U.S.

Abstract eng:
Performance based design for structures subject to strong ground motion has been gaining major attention in the last few years. A conceptual framework for performance based design of structures has been developed in the NEHRP Prestandard for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings (FEMA 356), and has recently been adopted, with some modifications, as a design standard for Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings (ASCE 41). Performance based design has been used to provide a reasonable and transparent relationship between an earthquake event and the corresponding seismic structural performance of a building. This paper presents a case study of performance based evaluation and retrofit of an existing hospital building in California, U.S. Built in 1955, the subject hospital building is a four-story, plus basement and mechanical penthouse, “T”-shaped perforated concrete shear wall structure. A nonlinear static pushover analysis using the displacement coefficient method, as described in FEMA 356, was used to evaluate the seismic performance of the existing building. A seismic retrofit based on the pushover analysis was proposed and the results showed that the life-safety target performance of the upgraded building was achieved. In addition, this performance based retrofit scheme was compared to a different seismic retrofit scheme based on a traditional force-based procedure. This case study provides a unique and intriguing investigation of seismic retrofit and evaluation of an existing concrete shear wall hospital building using performance based procedure.

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