Effect of critical sub-system failures on the post-earthquake functionality of buildings: A case study for Montréal hospitals

Abstract

When an earthquake occurs, hospitals are expected to remain functional as they play a crucial role in emergency care operations. This ability to ensure the continuity of quality operations while ensuring the safety of occupants during and after an earthquake defines the concept of post-earthquake functionality. Hospital functionality relies on the good performance of a large number of critical sub-systems, components and equipment. Although the global seismic performance of building structures and their nonstructural components was extensively observed in several post-disaster reconnaissance surveys, there is limited and incomplete information on the effect of building and nonstructural damage on post-earthquake functionality. The objective of this paper is to present a methodology for the assessment of post-earthquake functionality of existing Montréal hospitals using fault-tree analysis. The study shows that using specific and accurate information on the vulnerability and fragility of structural and critical nonstructural components, a probabilistic index of post-earthquake functionality of the entire facility is computed which informs mitigation action for the critical failure processes through the system.