Improving Business Continuity for Uae Buildings Using Shm and Pbee-Based Rapid Evaluation

Abstract eng:
Hundreds, if not thousands, of buildings worldwide have been instrumented with strong-motion sensors for the sole purpose of cataloging structural response to damaging and potentially damaging earthquakes. Engineers and seismologists use these data to further our understanding of actual building dynamic behavior, ultimately leading to advancements in research and building code improvements. Over time, the cost-bearing public (owners and residents) indirectly benefit from this work by owning and residing in safer structures. However, there is also opportunity for the public to benefit directly from earthquake monitoring technology. Recent (and not so-recent) advances in client-based information-driven services has led to a new application; business continuity. Although the concept of using strong-motion data to the benefit of building owners has been considered by engineers and seismologists, in the opinion of the authors, it has only recently been implemented as a holistic, commercially viable, business continuity solution. We attribute this to a combination of strategic academic and industrial partnerships, advantageous commercial opportunities, and a growing body of knowledge and experience on the topic. Therefore, this paper presents a real business continuity solution based on strong-motion monitoring, performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) principles, and standard-of-care for post-disaster safety assessments. Occupants in essential facilities such as hospitals, strategic military installations, financial institutions, and ultra-tall buildings, cannot easily evacuate immediately after an earthquake or wait for a detailed safety assessment to reoccupy and resume operations. The decisions to evacuate and reoccupy are difficult, especially under a state of distress, and can have dire consequences if made incorrectly or too slowly (e.g. panic related injuries, significant loss due to unnecessary downtime, etc.). Examples of avoidable financial loss and injury ultimately due to uninformed decision making are easily found in across areas of low and high seismicity. In UAE, for example, occupants in very tall buildings have endured long-duration swaying due to large distant earthquakes originating in southern Iran. Consequently, several UAE critical buildings were selected for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) systems to alert on exceedance of structural safety performance thresholds, and implementation of rapid earthquake response planning, aimed to avoid unnecessary evacuation and shutdown and/or minimize expensive downtime. The realtime SHM systems provide intuitive onsite display, alerting, and remote notifications on exceedance of demand/design parameters such as interstory drift, absolute acceleration, and response spectra. This information, which is continuously, immediately and remotely available to building personnel, is useful throughout all phases of the post-earthquake response, including immediate evacuation decisions, emergency response, inspection procedures, and the damage rehabilitation and retrofit process. On an individual building level, this program improves safety and increases business continuity; however, on a public/societal level, these tools can increase the earthquake resiliency of our communities. Presented here is an overview of the rapid post-event assessment solution along with several cases studies.

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