Earthquake resilience of healthcare facilities in Kocaeli region, Turkey

Dr Abdullah Can Zulfikar
Ali Ikbal Tutar
Wilfrid G. DJIMA
Gebze Technical University, Turkey

Research problem: Healthcare facilities must be resilient during earthquakes to maintain their functions. Kocaeli province of Turkey experienced devastating earthquakes of Mw7.6 and Mw7.2 in 1999. The improvements in earthquake resilience are ongoing on a country scale. However, there is still a need to improve the earthquake resilience of healthcare facilities.

Innovation/novelty: The innovation will combine FEMA-P58 with structural monitoring of typical Turkish healthcare facilities to develop a real-time decision mechanism by considering the Turkish Earthquake Building Code 2018. The novelty will be the inventory gathered in the region and the implementing of the developed methodology to the gathered inventory.

Proposed solution: The proposed solution is to develop a real-time algorithm for the decision mechanism of resilience of a typical healthcare facility. The FEMA-P58 performance assessment methodology, Turkish Earthquake Building Code 2018 criteria, and real-time monitoring data will be part of the study.

Research Methodology: The research principle will follow and detail the Turkish Earthquake Building Code (TEBC-2018) for Reinforced Concrete Buildings analysis required for each of the three types of proposed FEMAP58 performance assessment methods, and some tools will be generated useful for performance-based decision-making in Turkey and worldwide.

Practical application and implications: Three typical healthcare buildings will be selected for the monitoring and for the real-time decision mechanism implementation. These outputs will be presented as a guide through training seminars for civil engineers, consulting companies, insurance agencies and academicians.

Assumptions: The full extent of our research will be to develop a guideline methodology, tools, curriculum, resources, training, workshops, meetings, and seminars and assess, facilitate, partner with stakeholders and work with media. This will link us with civil engineers, consulting companies, insurance agencies, private and public sectors, academicians, and decision-makers.

Scope and limitations: This research focusing on seismic risk assessment of healthcare facilities using FEMAP58 and Turkish Earthquake Building Code (TEBC-2018) can be applied to other type of non-isolated reinforced concrete structural buildings in Turkey and countries where TEBC 2018 or similarly EC8/IBC/UBC are applied.