ASSESSMENT OF SEISMIC VULNERABILITY OF R. C. BUILDINGS

Abstract

Earthquake is one of the most disastrous form of natural calamities in terms of killing a large number of people in short time and causing varrying degree of damage to structures of various types. Earthquakes occur in almost all regions of world, and it is difficult to predict their occurrence. The techniques of earthquake prediction are still elusive. The accurate prediction may, perhaps, save lot of lives, but may not save immovable property like structures. Therefore for earthquake ha zard mitigation, it is necessary to evaluate the seismic capacity of existing buildings and to take necessary remedial measures for its retrofitting, if necessary. Keeping in mind the above objective some basic procedures and guidelines are needed to evaluate existing buildings to identify their proneness to seismic hazards, that is, those ones that could endanger human lives in an earthquake that can reasonably be expected to occur during the useful life of the buildings