Seismic Monitoring of Two Isolated Hospitals Subjected To the Illapel 2015 Earthquake

Abstract eng:
Critical buildings must be able to operate immediately after an earthquake and structural information must be readily available to evaluate its status. Seismic monitoring systems are very valuable in that respect as they can provide information such as: (i) actual seismic demand; and (ii) information on the response of critical components of the structure. This information can be used to give instructions immediately after an earthquake; indications of potential damage and/or allow for detailed post-event analysis of the buildings to assess the structural status of the building and its components. In this article, records from monitoring systems are presented for two seismically isolated projects. The monitoring system is composed of accelerometers and scratch plates. The sensors are positioned at key locations to extract valuable information, such as: (i) accelerations at the foundation of the structure representing the seismic input to the building that can be later used to compute response spectra and compare it with the design spectrum; (ii) accelerations below and above the seismic isolation system in order to validate its mechanical behavior during the earthquake and obtain the real response reductions obtained by the system for this input; and (iii) maximum displacement of the seismic isolation system which can be compared with the maximum allowable design displacement. Responses of the seismic monitoring systems are presented for the Sept. 16th, Illapel earthquake (Chile, 2015). The measured results show that the isolation system reduced the acceleration on the superstructure by 70% in the El Carmen Hospital and by 35% in the La Florida Hospital.

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