A proposed methodology for seismic risk evaluation of existing reinforced school buildings

AbstractIn the last few decades, there was a noticeable increase in earthquakes activities that cause great losses related with human and structures. The losses have a negative effect on the economy especially in developing countries that should follow all possible scientific methods to minimize that bad effect. School buildings have an important role in the educational process and they may serve as emergency shelters after earthquake events. So, school buildings need a complete strategy for evaluating their capability to face the probable earthquakes. This paper is concerned with an important step for that required strategy to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of existing reinforced concrete school buildings on the national level. A proposed methodology is presented for that purpose by developing qualitative norms for factors that supposed to have a major effect on the seismic behavior of the school buildings. This methodology is based mainly on questionnaire forms and a computer program in order to execute this methodology quickly and with reasonable accuracy based on scientific fundamentals. The proposed methodology is calibrated using some affected school buildings by various earthquake events in different countries. The results showed good agreement with the state of damage of the school buildings, so it can be applied by the official authorities for preparing a prioritization plan of the structural safety of all existing reinforced concrete school buildings in Egypt