Exploring the Concept of Seismic Resilience for Acute Care Facilities

Abstract

This paper explores the operational and physical resilience of acute care facilities, recognizing that the key dimension of acute care facilities is not a simple engineering unit. Quantification of resilience is first approached from the broader societal context, from which the engineering subproblem is formulated, recognizing that, to operate, hospitals depend intricately on the performance of their physical infrastructure (from the integrity of structural systems and nonstructural systems, lifelines, components, and equipment). Quantification relates the probability of exceeding floor accelerations and interstory drifts within a specified limit space, for the structural and nonstructural performance. Linear and nonlinear structural responses are considered, as well as the impact of retrofit or repair. Impact on time to recovery is considered in all cases. The proposed framework makes it possible to relate probability functions, fragilities, and resilience in a single integrated approach, and to further develop general tools to quantify resilience for sociopolitical-engineering decisions.

Seismic Resilience of a Bridge Based on Fuzzy-Probabilistic Approach

“…Also, the reduced functionality of transportation network caused economic lossess. In recent years, a lot of attention is paid to build resilient infrastructure systems that show reduced failure probabilities, reduced consequences from failure and reduced recovery time [2]. Although in this paper, the focus is on the bridges, since these highway infrastructure components are the most vulnerable and fragile elements of the transportation network in case of seismic event [3].…”

Resilience quantification and its application to a residential building subject to hurricane winds

“…The service is assumed to be fully recovered when functionality resumes at 100 percent after a recovery time. Thus, resilience is expressed as an integral of functionality (Bruneau et al 2003;Bruneau and Reinhorn 2007). Cimellaro, Reinhorn, and Bruneau (2010) also claimed that it was possible to describe various types of functionality for different disasters.…”

“…They implemented this approach for a hospital in the San Fernando Valley, California with outputs from the HAZUS earthquake module and applied the same approach to six hospitals in Memphis, Tennessee to calculate their resilience in an earthquake scenario. Bruneau and Reinhorn (2007) tried to quantify seismic resilience of acute care facilities. They focused on seismic resilience, but their goal was to develop general concepts and formulations for other hazards.…”

“…Bruneau et al (2003) and Bruneau and Reinhorn (2007) established a framework to conceptualize, define, and enhance seismic resilience of communities using engineering perspectives. They emphasized that a clear definition and identification of its dimensions are necessary in order to quantify resilience.…”

Identification of resilience factors, variables and indicators for sustainable management of urban drainage systems

“…Capacity to change, evolve and adopt alternative strategies (in the short or long term) in response to changing conditions; implies recognizing when it is not possible to return to the previous condition and searching for new solutions and strategies (evolution) [15,39].…”