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Application of Hirosawa Method to Compare Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Buildings during the Earthquake of 2010 in Chile

Camila Parodi and Viviana Letelier
Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile

Abstract—The Hirosawa Method is used by the Pan American Health Organization to evaluate the structural vulnerability of Health Facilities in Latin America and the Caribbean. In this study, this method has been addressed to evaluate the structural vulnerability of reinforced concrete buildings in Chile during the 2010 Earthquake. A sample of 116 buildings of medium height (between four and ten floor height) were analyzed to compare their real behaviour during the earthquake with the seismic performance given by the Modified Hirosawa Method, in order to determinate if this method can be used to evaluate the structural vulnerability of these type of structures in Chile. According to the results of this investigation, the Hirosawa Method is useful to establish trends in seismic behavior for the analyzed buildings, since of the 26 buildings defined with a safe performance against a seismic event by the Hirosawa Method, only one suffered severe damage and none suffered serious damage during the 2010 Earthquake.

Index Terms—structural vulnerability, Hirosawa method, seismic performance, Chilean earthquake

Cite: Camila Parodi and Viviana Letelier, "Application of Hirosawa Method to Compare Seismic Performance of Reinforced Concrete Buildings during the Earthquake of 2010 in Chile," International Journal of Structural and Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 46-52, February 2020. doi: 10.18178/ijscer.9.1.46-52

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.