Identification of earthquake damaged operational and functional components in hospital buildings

In the Chi-Chi (Taiwan) Earthquake, medical capacity in the most stricken area was greatly reduced because several general hospitals in the region were forced to evacuate their buildings. These buildings suffered only minor structural damage, but had extensive nonstructural damage to the degree that the administration considered the building unfit for continuous use. This indicated that the current building practice is insufficient in providing adequate capacity for hospitals against earthquakes. This paper presents investigation results from four evacuated hospitals to identify key nonstructural elements that prevented the normal operation of these hospitals. Four groups of functional impacts, caused by important components that failed in the earthquake, are identified and discussed. It is concluded that seismic consideration should be given to these components in designing new hospitals. Also suggested is to establish a Logic-tree diagram of all the essential functions in every hospital so that seismic engineering can be applied to all the important components of these essential functions.