CONDITION ASSESSMENT OF BUILDING USING RAPID VISUAL SCREENING PROCEDURE

Abstract

With the occurrence of a number of earthquakes in the past and chances of many more in the future, seismic risk assessment has become a key factor in the seismic risk mitigation and management. Seismic design for structures has evolved with the passage of time and so has the complexities in design and construction. But Seismic design has its own limitations. Every type of structure deteriorates with time and becomes seismically vulnerable. Seismic vulnerability also depends a lot on the quality of construction and use of the structure. Also with the rapid rate of construction fulfilling the need of exploding population in developing countries like India, the number of buildings is increasing exponentially with small regard to seismic safety. Therefore a very rapid, reliable and economic method is required to roughly judge the seismic safety of buildings and Rapid Visual Screening of building structures appropriately serves the purpose. In the present work, various aspects of Rapid Visual Screening (R.V.S.) 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 Lucknow (U.P.). Then finally the outcomes and results are stated, comparisons are made and utility and suitability of new developed RVS system is explained.