California State University Northridge  College  of  Engineering  &  Computer  Science  * Department  of  Civil  &  Manufacturing  Engineering

Welcome  to  the  HOT TOPIC   in  Earthquake  Engineering  # 2-b2 !

Performance  Summary  of  Base  Isolated  USC  Teaching       Hospital  Building  at  the  1994

Predicted Performance for a 500-year return period earthquake with  PGA=0.5g,  MMI=IX, longitudinal direction

Recorded Performance in longitudinal direction with  PGA=0.37g  at basement and MMI=VII at the building site

Fixed-base building (design)

Base-isolated building  (design)

SDOF fixed-base model, 5% damping

Real base-isolated building

Predicted  MiF = 5.00

Recorded  MiF = 1.07

RESUME: USC Hospital building, in sense of average peak accelerations, performed 7% better   than its non-isolated hypothetical counterpart.  Though the shaking intensity at this building site   was only  MMI VII,  the accelerations happened to be equal to that predicted for the postulated  MMI IX  event, while mitigation factor  MiF  happened to be  5.00 / 1.07 = 4.67 times smaller.

Your questions on this page may be emailed to: valentin.shustov@csun.edu. You may also visit Dr.Shustov's  Home Page  or Research Page  or  "HOT TOPICS". Our address is: CME, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, California 91330-8347

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This page was last updated on 8/16/99