SEISMIC HAZARD ASSESSMENT OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA

Abstract

Peninsular Malaysia is located on the southern edge of the Eurasian Plate. However, it is close to a seismically active plate boundary, the inter-plate boundary between the Indo-Australian and Eurasian Plates. Occasionally, tremors can be felt throughout the region even when active faults are located several hundred kilometers away. Lessons learnt from past events, active earthquakes located far from the existing building can cause potential damage. Thus, fragility curves become an essential tool to estimate probability of building damage caused by seismic ground motions. In this study, the response of low-rise and mid-rise RC school buildings located in various soil conditions within Peninsular Malaysia under earthquake excitation was investigated by performing dynamic response spectrum analysis. These buildings were analysed using DIANA 9.3 structural analysis program and subjected to a range of low to high seismic ground motions to determine the performance damage state of each type of building. All structural elements were modeled using solid brick finite-element. Correspondingly, the fragility curves were developed using the log-normal distribution for structural response. The effects of various soil conditions on the response of the buildings were also investigated. The results indicated that the effect of soil parameters had a significant effect on the outcome of the fragility curves. However, the risk of these existing school buildings at a location in the northern part of Peninsular Malaysia showed the highest probability of exceeding each damage state. On the contrary, the risk of the existing school buildings at a location in the central part of Peninsular Malaysia was the lowest.

Keywords: Interaction, fragility curves, soil-structure