RAPID SEISMIC VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS

Disaster is an event of natural or manmade causes that leads to sudden disruption of normalcy within society, causing damage to life and property to such an extent that is beyond the capacity of normal social and economic mechanism to cope up with. India is a developing country. Old buildings cover a large portion of building inventory. Such buildings cannot be wiped out for new constructions. Optimal and safe use of the old buildings cannot be overlooked. These old and vintage buildings require rehabilitation other than the regular maintenance. For safety, a prioritization strategy needs to be evolved for such inventory. This paper emphasizes on this requirement. There is always deterioration in a structure with time due to several reasons including environmental impact. The paper attempts to trace possible reasons, which make the condition assessment necessary. Assessment of the present status and suggestion for possible intervention depends on several factors. These factors have been discussed as they affect selection of the assessment scheme itself. Rehabilitation requirements and its selection have been studied to gain insight in the rehabilitation economics. Socio-economic reasons are also important apart from structural considerations, especially in the rehabilitation of old buildings. A rational assessment is the first requirement to suggest economical and safe rehabilitation to meet the desired upgradation objectives. In the case of uncertain environment, a strategy has been laid out to carry the required condition assessment. A simplified rapid assessment scheme has been used in this paper for assessing the present condition of existing 2 storey RC MRF school building falling in seismic zone V.