Seismic assessment of an existing hospital

Abstract

The study is focused on the seismic performance of an existing hospital built in Tirana-Albania in 1970 and the retrofitting of this building.The hospital is a six floor building, with a frame system, designed with Albanianearthquake code of that time KTP-78. The ground acceleration of this area is 0.2m/s2The building is designed with SAP-2000 computer program according to the Albanianearthquake code of that time KTP-89. The data collected from the program are compared withthe Euro Code performance level. The program results show that all the data that are analyzed donot provide sufficient performance level. Therefore is an emergency need for retrofitting to bringit at the required level.There are varieties of ways where we can build up our strategies for buildingrehabilitation, especially for a specific institution, such as a hospital which requires a highperformance level.The first way of retrofitting the frame system building is to add shear walls. After addingshear walls at the specific positions of the building, the hospital is reanalyzed and theperformance level is not close enough to the EC performance level.Since the building is very particular, we can not add shear walls everywhere, because thismight reduce the functionality of the frame system building, so to increase the performance levelwe add steel bracing in the facade.After putting steel bracing the hospital provide sufficient performance level.The rehabilitation makes the hospital a safer place for everyone.