Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of the Educational System of Bucharest

Abstract eng:
Considering that Bucharest has been rated as the 10th capital city worldwide in the terms of higher seismic risk, altogether with the general functional inadequacy and lack of building conservation in educational buildings, EIB - European Investment Bank – has requested an integrated school building survey, whose seismic risk assessment stages are presented herein. This study was intended to support a School Rehabilitation Strategy to all pre-university public educational buildings in the municipality of Bucharest. The importance of the study can be stressed by the fact that a non-negligible number of educational facilities was built prior to 1940, with no earthquake-resistance regulatory codes, and that these schools have to be upgraded to minimum EU standards. The study focuses in a group of 470 schools of the following types: Kindergarten (up to 6 years old); Primary, I-IV (6 to 10 years old); Gymnasium, V-VIII (11 to 14 years old); College, IX – XII (15 to 18 years old) and Professional, IX-XIII. In the 2006/07 school year the corresponding school population was of nearly 180,000 students. To know the existing schools in Bucharest, where they are located, their general features, type of structure and number of students and other relevant information, a survey was launched in the project internet site. A detached section of the survey – technical form - was prepared for specialized answer by local university team technicians for assessing structural conditions and seismic vulnerability of the existing school buildings. This technical form comprised general information on the building structure, with explicit recognition of aggravating factors, pre-existing damage and non-structural hazards. This information allowed the assessment of building vulnerability which was implemented in GIS environment creating damage scenarios. The knowledge of soil properties as the definition of the intensity was necessary to derive the expected damage of structures (MDG), as defined in EMS-98.

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