Assessing Modeling Complexities on the Seismic Performance of an Instrumented Short-Period Hospital
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 31, Issue 1
Abstract
Low-rise, short-period buildings dominate the construction in the United States including residential, recreational, and critical, including hospital, facilities. Previous analytical studies have indicated that these structures behave poorly under seismic excitation compared to buildings with longer fundamental periods; however, such trend has not been observed in previous earthquake events. In this paper, a case study is considered to better evaluate the dynamic response of short-period light-frame wood buildings and help identify the modeling parameters and level of complexity required to accurately capture their dynamic response. For this purpose, a portion of the Twin Cities Community Hospital, located in Templeton, California (called herein the Templeton Hospital), was considered. This one-story light-frame wood building with a large roof diaphragm layout did not suffer any structural damage during the 2003 San Simeon earthquake despite being subjected to intense ground shaking. The Templeton Hospital was located at a distance of 38 km from the epicenter of the 2003 M6.5 San Simeon earthquake. The hospital structure was instrumented during this earthquake event, and recorded motions at various locations in the building are available in the public domain. Nonlinear numerical models of the selected portion of the Templeton Hospital building were developed in this study. These models incorporated varying levels of complex behaviors, so the influence of these behaviors on the level of correlation between predicted and recorded responses was assessed. Nonlinear response time history analyses were performed for each of the models developed under the ground motions recorded at the Templeton Hospital site during the 2003 San Simeon earthquake. Comparisons between predicted and recorded response time histories at various locations in the building were used to evaluate the effects of different levels of modeling complexity and to determine the minimum level of complexity needed to accurately reproduce the recorded data for this building. The results of this study indicated that the modeling of the in-plane diaphragm flexibility is the most crucial parameter needed to be accounted for in the analyses in order to accurately capture the observed response of this instrumented hospital during the San Simeon earthquake. It should be noted that the peak relative displacement measured for the Templeton Hospital was almost in the elastic range and, therefore, the findings of this study are focused on near-elastic response and not the full range of nonlinear response.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
This pilot study was directed by the Applied Technology Council (ATC) as part of the ATC 116-1 project Solutions to the Issue of Short Period Building Performance. The main objective of this project was to investigate a methodology to assess and verify the seismic capacity of low-rise buildings in the United States. This financial support is gratefully acknowledged. The first author served as a member of Working Group 2—Wood Analytical Studies for the ATC 116-1 project; the second author served as member of the Project Technical Committee and member of Working Group 2—Wood Analytical Studies; and the third author served as the chair of the Technical Committee, member of Working Group 1—Roadmap Revision and Completion, member of Working Group 2—Wood Analytical Studies, and member of Working Group 3—Earthquake Data Collection and Synthesis. The work forming the basis for this publication was conducted pursuant to a contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The substance of such work is dedicated to the public. The authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of statements or interpretations contained in this publication. No warranty is offered with regard to the results, findings, and recommendations contained herein, either by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Applied Technology Council, its directors, members, or employees. These organizations and individuals do not assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any of the information, products, or processes included in this publication. The authors would like to acknowledge Professor John W. Lawson for providing the photograph of the Templeton Hospital. The authors also extend their acknowledgments to the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program for their important program to record earthquake response of facilities in California as well as for providing the drawings of the Templeton Hospital for this study.
References
Carr, A. J. (2007). “RUAUMOKO-Inelastic dynamic analysis program.” Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Charney, F. A., Darling, S., and Eatherton, M. R. (2012). “Seismic performance of very short period buildings.” 15th World Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, International Association of Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo.
CSMIP (California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program). (2015). “CSMIP: Templeton, CA Hospital Grounds.” 〈http://www.strongmotioncenter.org/vdc/scripts/stnpage.plx?stations=3392〉 (Sep. 23, 2015 ).
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency). (2012). “Seismic evaluation and retrofit of multi-unit wood-frame buildings with weak first stories.” FEMA P807, Washington, DC.
Folz, B., and Filiatrault, A. (2000). “CASHEW-Version 1.0: A computer program for cyclic analysis of wood shear walls.”, Dept. of Structural Engineering, Univ. of California, San Diego.
Huang, M., and Tokas, C. (2004). “Recorded response and observed performance of a wood-frame hospital during the 2003 San Simeon earthquake.” SMIP04 Seminar on Utilization of Strong-Motion Data, Sacramento, CA, 125–136.
Isoda, H., Folz, B., and Filiatrault, A. (2001). “Seismic modeling of index woodframe buildings.” Division of Structural Engineering, Univ. of California, San Diego.
Kircher, C A., Whitman, R. V., and Holmes, W. (2006). “HAZUS earthquake loss estimation methods.” Nat. Hazards Rev., 45–59.
Koliou, M. (2014). “Seismic analysis and design of rigid wall–flexible roof diaphragm structures.” Ph.D. thesis, State Univ. of New York, Buffalo, NY.
Koliou, M., Filiatrault, A., Kelly, D. J., and Lawson, J. (2014). “Numerical framework for seismic collapse assessment of rigid wall–flexible diaphragm structures.” 10th U.S. National Conf. on Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Oakland, CA.
Koliou, M., Filiatrault, A., Kelly, D. J., and Lawson, J. (2016). “Distributed yielding concept for improved seismic collapse performance of rigid wall–flexible diaphragm buildings.” J. Struct. Eng., 04015137.
MATLAB version 8.10.1.604 [Computer software]. MathWorks, Natick, MA.
Stewart, W. G. (1987). “The seismic design of plywood sheathed shear walls.” Ph.D. dissertation, Univ. of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 31 • Issue 1 • February 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 30, 2015
Accepted: Apr 14, 2016
Published online: Jul 14, 2016
Discussion open until: Dec 14, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2017
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.