Life-cycle Cost Analysis on Determining Seismic Design and Seismic Retrofit Criteria of Reinforced Concrete Fire Department Buildings
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chen, Wei-Cheng
Abstract
Earthquakes are unpredictable, causing not only human casualties but also tremendous economic impact on the affected area. To reduce any loss by earthquakes, most countries in high-seismicity regions have proposed their disaster mitigation strategies and emergency counter-measures. In these countries, the seismic design codes were revised several times according to the state of the art in earthquake engineering, in order to prevent buildings from severe damage during earthquakes. Programs of strengthening or replacing old buildings have been created and carried out, notably for pre-earthquake code buildings.
For buildings, different seismic design criterions or seismic retrofit criterions could induce different building construction cost, retrofit cost, and earthquake loss. Life-cycle cost analysis could be employed to evaluate the trade-offs between construction cost, retrofit cost, and earthquake loss, helping engineers make an optimal decision. With the support of life-cycle cost analysis, this study determines a seismic design criterion, the importance factor I, and seismic retrofit criterions of a reinforced concrete fire department building.
The framework of such life-cycle cost analysis comprises the estimates of building service period and costs data, seismic hazard curve, and structure fragility curves. The costs are considered to be composed of the initial construction cost, retrofit cost, and the earthquake loss. The earthquake loss includes the building repair cost, contents loss, loss from fire truck damages, wage loss from casualties, debris disposal cost, relocation expenses, and loss caused by interruption of building functions.
The study shows the earthquake loss and the life-cycle cost may be reduced by raising the seismic design or seismic retrofit criterions of buildings. For a new fire department building, the life-cycle cost reaches its minimum when the importance factor I is 2.1, which is considered an optimal criterion of seismic design. But while the difference between the life-cycle cost of I = 1.5 (suggested by the current seismic design code) and that of I = 2.1 is quite small, one may select I = 1.5 to design the fire department building; especially when the building construction budget is the planners’ concern.
For a 30-year-old fire department building whose seismic capacity is half what the code suggests, the optimal seismic retrofit criterions are 1.1 to 1.5 times what the code suggests if the service life of the building remains 10 to 40 years. There is also quite small difference between the life-cycle cost with the optimal seismic retrofit criterions and that with the criterions the code suggests. The latter appears acceptable for the planners, especially for those who concern about the retrofit budget.
Subjects
fire department building
life-cycle cost analysis
seismic design criterion
seismic retrofit criterion
importance factor
earthquake loss
SDGs
Type
thesis
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