Real-Time Safety Assessment of Disaster Management Facilities Against Earthquakes

One of the most crucial issues in times of earthquake disaster is securing the functions of disaster management facilities such as city halls, hospitals and fire stations. However, in the case of past earthquake damage, there are many problems that important structures cannot be used after the earthquake. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to predict earthquake damage beforehand and take countermeasures such as seismic retrofitting. Also, when an earthquake actually occurs, it is necessary to analyse the degree of damage of the building as soon as possible and diagnose whether it is safe or not by aftershocks. In this paper, seismic simulations are conducted on the east and the west buildings of Toyohashi City Hall using the earthquake ground motion waveform for the future Nankai Trough earthquake. As the result, it was found that the buildings have sufficient earthquake resistance. Additionally, IT strong-motion seismometers were installed in the city hall to continuously monitor vibrations. If an earthquake strikes, the vibration data obtained by the seismometers are sent to the computer through the Internet to simulate the building. Then, the results of simulation are sent to the building owner to assess whether the building is safe for aftershock. By automating this process, real-time safety assessment is possible.