Seismic Assessment of Popular Housing Financed by the European Commission following the El Salvador Earthquakes of 2001

The European Commission, through the Europe-Aid Cooperation Office (AIDCO) established in 2002 a Co-operation Project with a contribution of 25 million Euro to the Government of El Salvador for the construction of approximately 6000 new houses for the recovery of the population affected by the January and February earthquakes of 2001. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission (EC) offered to the EC Delegation in Managua, who is responsible for monitoring the advancement of the project, scientific and technical support to improve the quality of the project, in particular with respect to the quality of the seismic performance of the new houses. Two models were proposed by the Government of El Salvador: a reinforced concrete block masonry house and a prefabricated house. The present report deals with the prefabricated house, as this construction type is not envisioned by the Construction Norms of El Salvador. The JRC performed incremental nonlinear time history dynamic analysis to model the earthquake response of the different typologies proposed by the NGOs and contractors in charge of the construction. The results show that cracking initiates at 10% of the design PGA, while the shear capacity of the column posts is reached at 80% of the design PGA. A new detailing is proposed to improve the response of the structure, reducing displacements by a third and shear forces in the columns by 40%, with no increase in the initial cost. The experience of the seismic assessment shows that it is important to keep record of all modifications and details proposed by the contractors and to adopt clear and reliable details that can guarantee adequate seismic performance.

TAUCER Fabio; 

2008-09-19

Firenze University Press

JRC41722

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC41722,