Verification and Implementation of Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit for Primary and Secondary School Buildings

Verification and Implementation of Seismic Evaluation and Retrofit for Primary and Secondary School Buildings

Lack of seismic performance is a common problem for the existing buildings in primary and secondary schools in Taiwan. Serious casualties and losses may be resulted from the collapse of school buildings under strong earthquake. Furthermore, school buildings are usually assigned as emergency shelter soon after earthquake. Therefore, cost-effective methods of simple survey and preliminary evaluation for the seismic performance of typical school buildings are proposed. Since simple survey can be conducted by school administration, all typical school buildings in the country can be assessed efficiently. Before implementation, the feasibility of the simple survey method and the preliminary evaluation method is verified. Moreover, retrofit methods are suggested and verified experimentally. Review process the retrofit design of school buildings is also proposed.