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Seismic Performance and Rehabilitation of the Solca Hospital Main Buildings After the 2016 Pedernales Earthquake

Abstract:

The Solca Hospital in Guayaquil is located approximately 160 miles from the epicenter of the Mw 7.8 April 16, 2016 Pedernales Earthquake. The hospital is composed of several moment resistant reinforced concrete frame buildings some of them constructed at the beginning of the 1980s. The medical activities of the Solca Hospital are mainly dedicated to the treatment of cancer. During the shaking, some of the buildings experienced various degrees of damage that forced to close several sections of the hospital. After the earthquake, some buildings of the hospital went through a systematic process that included post-earthquake inspections, evaluations, and structural rehabilitation. This work presents the studies performed by the authors in order to seismically rehabilitate these buildings. First, a general description of the buildings is presented. Second, the seismic damage observed in each structure is reported. Then, the paper describes the field and the analytical studies performed in order to determine the cause of the damages. Finally, the paper includes a description of the seismic rehabilitation strategies proposed for each building. The selected strategies consisted of the addition of a combination of frames with buckling restrained braces (BRBFs) and eccentrically braced frames (EBFs). The analyses performed in the rehabilitated structures showed that these systems incorporate redundancy, stiffness, ductility, strength, and capacity to dissipate energy with controlled structural and nonstructural damage.