Damage databank and its application to seismic assessment for low-rise RC school buildings

This article introduces a databank of school buildings damaged in the Chi-Chi earthquake. Structural properties, damage records and ground motion intensity data were collected from over 150 buildings. The databank is expected to provide samples and information for seismic research, such as derivation of vulnerability functions and validation of seismic assessment methods. The buildings in the databank show great structural similarity and typical failure behaviour. A clear relationship was also found between the damage state and number of storeys. Therefore, a simple function for assessing the seismic capacity was derived using the databank. The seismic capacity can be estimated from the summation of lateral contribution of the base floor members multiplied by a proportional factor. The function was applied to school buildings from the databank and two street-side buildings for validation. The results were conservative but reasonable. A comparison between the function and detailed seismic analysis methods also showed a good correlation. The function may be suitable for preliminary and fast seismic assessment of similar types of school buildings facing the risk of an earthquake.