Vulnerability assessment of reinforced concrete structures for fire and earthquake risk - Seismic Risk Analysis and Management of Civil Infrastructure Systems - page 360

However, there is a lack of guidelines and tools for assessment, design
and protection of structures for scenarios when a combination of both fi re
and earthquake are considered as potential threats to the structures. For
instance, buildings are not designed explicitly for a fi re following an earth-
quake. There are few reliable post-fi re inspection tools to evaluate residual
seismic resistance of a structure after a fi re incidence (Mostafaei et al. 2009).
Previous major seismic events have caused devastating damage to struc-
tures. The 1755 Lisbon, Portugal, earthquake of a magnitude of 8.5-9.0
triggered both fi re and tsunami, and caused 100 000 deaths; the 1906 San

Francisco, United States, earthquake of a magnitude of 7.9 also resulted in
widespread fi re damage and produced 3000 deaths; the 1995 Kobe, Japan,
earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2, followed by fi re, caused

∼

6500 deaths;
the 2004 Sumatra, Indian Ocean, earthquake with a magnitude of 9.2 led
to catastrophic tsunami damage (more than 300 000 casualties); and the
2011 T ¯ hoku, Japan, earthquake of a magnitude of 9.0 was accompanied by
both fi re and tsunami, causing

∼

20 000 deaths and large economic loss. All
of these events signify the importance of considering the impact of the
consequent events on the structural performance of buildings.
On the other hand, in the United States, the average annual fi re occur-
rence in moderate and high-rise buildings exceeds 10 000 incidents (Hall,
2001). More than 50 000 fi re incidents in Canada have been reported annu-
ally (CCFMFC, 2002); approximately 3500 of which were fi re incidents that
occurred in apartments, hotels and dormitories. These mid- to high-rise
structures experienced minor to major damage due to fi re exposure, such
as column and fl oor damage due to thermal expansion and degradation of
mechanical properties of the material. Therefore, there is also a need to
develop reliable tools to assess structural damage after a fi re, to measure
whether or not the residual seismic load capacities, after the fi re damage,
are suffi cient and if they can satisfy the required seismic load capacity (i.e.
original seismic design load).
This chapter provides information about recent studies on the perfor-
mance evaluation of structures in fi re following an earthquake and meth-
odologies for analysis and testing of structures to assess their residual
seismic load capacity after they are damaged by a fi re. It will focus on pro-
viding a summary of research carried out at the National Research Council
Canada on vulnerability assessment of structures in fi re and earthquake.
The main purpose of this research was not to develop design tools or solu-
tions for such threats to structures, but to explore the need for further
research and to develop an understanding of how vulnerable structures
could be to scenarios of fi re and earthquakes. Two case studies were carried
out by considering scenarios of structural columns in fi re and earthquake.
One study simulates a scenario of fi re following an earthquake while the
other investigates a scenario of an earthquake after fi re damage. In the

∼