Exploring the Concept of Seismic Resilience for Acute Care Facilities

TLDR

This paper explores the operational and physical resilience of acute care facilities, noting that their key dimension is not merely engineering but depends on the performance of structural, nonstructural, lifeline, component, and equipment systems within a broader societal context. The framework quantifies resilience by modeling the probability of exceeding floor‑acceleration and interstory‑drift limits for structural and nonstructural systems, incorporating linear and nonlinear responses, retrofit or repair effects, and time‑to‑recovery impacts within a broader societal context. The proposed framework integrates probability functions, fragilities, and resilience into a single approach, enabling the development of general tools for sociopolitical‑engineering decision making.

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.