Program: Collaborative Research for Common Regional Issues (CRC)

Field: Civil Engineering

Principal Investigator: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Khin Aye Mon

Sending University: Yangon Technological University (YTU)

Japanese Co-Investigator: Prof. Dr. Junji KIYONO

Japanese University: Kyoto University

Year: 2016

Abstract:

Major cities in Myanmar and the Philippines are located near fault lines which might move when an accumulated ground strain exceeds the critical level. Once a fault line moves, it can produce ground motions such as large strains and permanent ground deformations. There are also some uncharted faults in both countries which may provide potential damages to the infrastructures.
On 5th May 1930, the Bago earthquake with the magnitude of 7.3 caused 500 casualties and great destruction in Bago. However, considerable damage and 50 deaths were recorded in Yangon which is located at 50 km far from the epicenter along the Sagaing fault. Among a low concern about future seismic risk by Yangon’s residential people, most RC buildings lower than 8 stories have been constructed without any seismic design consideration in Yangon.
The 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Bohol Island, Philippines in October of 2013 was caused by the movement of an unknown fault which is now bears the name North Bohol fault line. This recent in large magnitude earthquake in a sub-urban caused widespread damage to lives, property infrastructure and heritage structures such as churches, watch towers and bellfries.
Once an earthquake occurs in urban area, many injured people will come out by collapse of buildings and infrastructures as well as fire outbreaks. The injured people must be conveyed to the nearest hospitals, but it might be difficult to obtain appropriate medical care in the damaged hospitals. In this situation, any seismically resilient medical centers which can provide emergent treatment immediately after the earthquake should be strongly expected at the major city area especially in the developing countries.
The medical centers of Yangon and Metro Manila were constructed more than 50 years ago. Both structures are potentially vulnerable for future earthquakes and medical serviceability might be difficult to maintain even in the emergency level immediately after the earthquake. In order to overcome these difficulties, several key medical centers and its related facilities should be selected and upgraded for future disasters.
The medical centers must be structurally resilient but also functionally serviceable in any disastrous situation. For this purpose, structural buildings and their related facilities must have enough strength for expected seismic loads or even for unexpected seismic loads, while the medical centers must maintain the medical function in damaged situation by keeping various life supporting systems.
In this study, currently used seismic design guidelines will be revised, while the present functional performance should be checked and then more resilient functional performance can be established by up-grading the network characteristics of the urban lifeline systems. The discussion on up-grading level of medical system can be possible based on the seismic risk assessment for the existing medical systems in both countries.
Comparison of the seismic design method in both countries must be studied to obtain the optimal solution for the up-grading of seismic design guideline and for the mitigation of uncertain risks in the urban lifeline network systems.
Therefore, “Seismic Risk Analysis for Critical Urban Infrastructure: The Case Study of a Medical Center and its Supporting Systems in Yangon, Myanmar and Metro Manila, Philippines” should be developed. The purposes of this research are as follows.
– Analysis of the medical center from the point of view on the vulnerability of structural and functional systems
– Prediction of damage and failure modes of all the structural elements including the hospital buildings as well as the supporting structural components for urban lifeline systems
– Immediate occupancy or medical serviceability immediately after an earthquake in structural and functional view points
– Medical service preparation for large-scale injured people in the first one month after an earthquake
in structural and functional view points
– Compare the existing seismic design codes of both countries.
– Update the seismic design codes of both countries. (Source: Application to CRC 2016)