Rapid visual screening for seismic evaluation of RC hospital buildings

Hospitals must be fully operational in the event of an emergency after an earthquake to protect the lives of patients and health workers as well as to provide emergency care and medical treatment to the subsequently increased number of patients who will be driven to healthcare facilities. Surveys performed in the aftermath of recent earthquakes have shown that the performance of hospitals and their functionality after an earthquake are related not only to structural damage but also to damage that occurs to nonstructural elements and medical equipment. For a large-scale mapping of the seismic risk to hospitals, it is impossible to proceed with advanced methodologies; simplified methodologies are thus required. These methodologies must consider the performance of nonstructural elements and equipment. In this work, a rapid visual screening method is proposed to determine a Safety Index for hospital buildings. The newly developed procedure provides a risk index by evaluating the main parameters that affect the vulnerability of buildings during a systematic sidewalk survey. The procedure has been applied to two Italian hospitals located in different seismic areas, and the results are compared with a similar index obtained from a push-over analysis. Finally, the proposed RVS method has also been applied to two hospitals damaged by the 2009 L'Aquila Earthquake and the 2012 Emilia Earthquake. (C) 2015 The Institution of Structural Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.