Resumo

LOPEZ, Oscar et al. Seismic evaluation of school buildings in Venezuela. Rev. Fac. Ing. UCV [online]. 2010, vol.25, n.4, pp.81-94. ISSN 0798-4065.

This paper describes the methodology and results obtained to date in a program aiming to evaluate and reduce the risk of existing schools in Venezuela. Seventy percent of the approximately 28,000 Venezuelan schools are in high seismic hazard regions. About 46% of the 18,685 schools identified and incorporated into a geographical information system were built with old codes that do not satisfy the seismic requirements implied in current codes. A building built according to the 1955 code would resist on average a seismic motion that is about three times less intense than one built with modern codes. A total of 586 school buildings belong to three structural types of high vulnerability; 479 of these are similar or equal to the ones that collapsed in Cariaco during the 1997 earthquake. An instrument for the rapid inspection and evaluation of the vulnerability of schools was developed and applied to 131 buildings. Ten schools were selected as pilot projects for seismic retrofitting. Auxiliary structures are proposed to support most of the seismic loads, connected to the existing building by the floor slabs acting as diaphragms and supported by new foundations; drift demands are kept below 0.7% to protect the capacity of the existing structure to support gravity loads. The dynamic properties of the selected schools were determined from environment vibration tests, which will be repeated after retrofitting; four schools in the Sucre State were selected for the permanent installation of sensors to record their response to future earthquakes.

Palavras-chave : Schools; School buildings; Seismic vulnerability; Structural retrofitting; Risk reduction.