APPLICATION OF RVS PROCEDURE FOR CONDITION ASSESSMENT OF STRUCTURES

Abstract

With the occurrence of a number of earthquakes in the past and chances of many more in the future, seismic risk assessment by condition assessment of structures has become an important factor in the seismic risk mitigation and management.Structures deteriorate with time and become seismically vulnerable. Seismic vulnerability depends on many factors including the quality of construction and occupancy type. Our country has a huge inventory of old structures which may require different types of retrofitting measures to become seismically safe.Detailed condition assessment of these structures would require a long time. Therefore a very rapid, reliable and economic method is required to roughly judge the condition and seismic safety of such buildings and Rapid Visual Screening (R.V.S.) method for condition assessment of building structures appropriately serves the purpose. In the present work, various aspects of Rapid Visual Screening are considered. Rapid visual screening practices in US as per FEMA 154 and those in India are studied and an overview of the topic is developed. Later on, efforts are made to devise a new, more accurate and quicker RVS system for Indian conditions. This new modified system of RVS is proposed and explained in sufficient detail. Separate MS excel programs are developed for this new developed system and for RVS system specified by Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) and using them screening of a certain number of buildings is carried out in the city of Ahmedabad (Gujarat). Then finally the outcomes and results are stated, comparisons are made and utility and suitability of new developed RVS system is explained.