Study on Seismic Evaluation of School Buildings Based on Push Over Analysis

Chi- Chi Earthquake was one of the greatest earthquake ever occurred in Taiwan. It happened in the early morning of September 21, 1999 at 1:47 a.m. with Richter scale of 7.4. Thousands of death and almost ten thousand houses damaged were recorded . Among all, 656 school buildings in Nan-Tou were either collapsed or severely damaged during the earthquake. Fortunately, no student death casualties occurred within school building. It’s ironical and immoral that students are requested by laws to receive education in the seismically-insufficient school buildings. Therefore, seismic evaluation and retrofit of existing school buildings are needed to provide a safe enviroment for students. National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) has developed a handbook to demonstrate the relevant technology for detailed evaluation and retrofit design of school buildings. It includes Simple Survey, Preliminary Evaluation, and Detailed Evaluation. The detailed evaluation is to use nonlinear push over analysis to evaluate the seismic ability of school buildings. However, this method has not been fully verified using the existing data bank. This thesis uses simplified push analysis and capacity spectrum method (ATC-40) to obtain the peak ground acceleration (PGA). Analytical results are then verified with the data bank of In-situ tests conducted by NCREE and the data bank of Nan-Tou county. Furthermore, this research also adopts the Post Earthquake Evaluation Standards proposed by Japanese Industrial Standards Committee (JISC) to classify the damage level of each building. Based on the obtained global PGA and damage level, which is determined from each vertical member, this thesis proposes some recommendations for further development of detailed evaluation proposed by NCREE.