Potential hazards of nonstructural systems damage in hospitals under earthquakes in Egypt

Abstract EN

Buildings in the contemporary world have a lot of nonstructural components within their interior details.

Such components include plumbing pipes, air conditioning ducts, firefighting systems, etc.

Because earthquakes happen, the reliability of such nonstructural details inside seismically excited structures should be a matter of concern.

However, it has always been difficult to develop a single set of seismic design guidelines for all the nonstructural components due to the diversity of types and configurations.

This is the fact despite that damages to nonstructural components during earthquakes represents a significant portion of the resulting imposed damage in structures.

Moreover, though design codes may allow for some nonstructural damage under moderate earthquakes yet some buildings such as hospitals cannot tolerate such damage in order to remain functional.

This is the case as hospitals need to be continuously functional especially when catastrophic events as earthquakes take place.

An analysis that shows one of the forms of the nonstructural damage in hospitals under seismic loading is studied.

A main firefighting piping system fixed to the ceilings of a hospital building is the case study.

The study focuses on the dynamic response of the fixation system of the firefighting piping network during earthquakes.

Results obtained from the numerical example indicate the necessity to include the dynamic structural parameters of the buildings in defining the equivalent lateral seismic forces on nonstructural components fixations.