Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Mandi have developed a method to assess whether buildings in the Himalayan region can withstand earthquakes. The institute says the method is simple and allows decision-makers to prioritize whatever reinforcement and repair work needs to be done to improve the building’s resistance to earthquakes.
The findings of the study have been published in the Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering. The research was led by Dr. Sandip Kumar Saha, Assistant Professor, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, IIT Mandi and co-author of his Ph.D. student Mrs. Yati Aggarwal.
While earthquakes cannot be prevented, damage can certainly be prevented by designing buildings and other infrastructures to withstand seismic events. The first step in ensuring the earthquake safety of existing structures is to assess their current vulnerabilities and strengths. It is neither physically nor economically feasible to conduct a detailed seismic vulnerability assessment of each building. Rapid Visual Screening (RVS) of buildings is often performed to assess building vulnerabilities on a large scale. RVS uses visual information to decide whether a building is safe to occupy, or whether immediate engineering work is needed to improve earthquake safety.
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Existing stainless steel methods are based on data from several countries and are not particularly applicable to the Indian Himalayan region due to some characteristics unique to the buildings in this region. For example, the Himalayan region (like much of India) has many undeveloped structures. There is also chaotic proliferation and growth of infrastructure due to a lack of awareness among local construction workers and poor planning by stakeholders. It is therefore essential to use a region-specific stainless steel guideline that takes into account factors such as local building practices, typology, etc.
Dr. Sandip Kumar Saha, said: “We have devised an effective method to screen reinforced concrete (RC) buildings in India’s Himalayan region so that repair works can be prioritized based on the condition of the buildings and the risk of imminent earthquakes can be be minimized.”
Through extensive field surveys, researchers have collected a large amount of data on the types of buildings present in the Mandi region of the Himalayas and the typical attributes present in these buildings related to their earthquake vulnerability. A numerical study has also been carried out to establish guidelines for counting the number of floors in hilly buildings for their RVs. Furthermore, an improved stainless steel method has been proposed based on the existing vulnerable properties of buildings.
The methodology developed for screening buildings is a simple one-page stainless steel form that does not require much expertise to complete. It takes into account the different vulnerability attributes that are unique to the buildings in the case study region.
Calculations performed on the basis of these observations yield a building seismic vulnerability score, which differentiates vulnerable buildings from more robust ones, and enables better maintenance and repair decision making. The calculation process is designed to minimize the possibility of human bias or assessor subjectivity when scoring a building.
Mrs. Yati Aggarwal, Ph.D. Scholar, IIT Mandi, said: “We have shown that the proposed method is useful for separating reinforced concrete buildings in hilly areas based on the damage they are expected to sustain in the event of an earthquake.”
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