SEISMIC VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT OF NONSTRUCTURAL COMPONENTS IN HIGH RISE BUILDINGS (A CASE STUDY)

Seismic behavior of nonstructural components always plays an extremely important role in overall vulnerability and performance level of a building especially when the immediate occupancy performance level is needed for a particular building after an earthquake. Damage caused by nonstructural elements including mechanical, electrical and architectural components can yield significant interruptions in function of a building in addition to economical losses, even though the building has a strong and resistant structural system with minimum structural damages. Importance of this problem is intensified for those groups of administrative buildings which have vital effects on disaster management of mega cities (e.g. Tehran) after earthquakes. Iran located in a seismically active region and experience of major earthquakes in recent years, has created an environment that requires special attention to all major and important structures throughout the country. In order to account for possible interruptions due to earthquake a 15 story high rise administrative building was selected in Tehran, capital of Iran. A study was carried out to evaluate the seismic vulnerability status of nonstructural components of the building. Level one and two assessment methods, namely; visual and detailed evaluations were used. This evaluation is based on the MCEER (Seismic Reliability Assessment of Critical Facilities), ASCE (Guidelines for Seismic Evaluation and Design of Petrochemical Facilities), FEMA-310 and FEMA-356 recommendations. The inventory data and the results obtained, which are classified into three hazard levels namely; vulnerable, adequate and further evaluation required, have been presented in this paper. This study defines that most of non-structural components of the building haven’t been designed for seismic loads and so are vulnerable and even in a moderate earthquake the building will not have the required performance which has been designed for.