Hospitals play a key role in the healthcare system, especially during the emergency response to seismic disasters. Experiences from past earthquakes have clearly showed the importance they have in reducing the number of fatalities by providing adequate assistance to injured persons. Unfortunately, past events have also demonstrated that hospitals may be particularly vulnerable to earthquakes due to their high susceptibility to non-structural damage. Loss of functionality in a hospital may be experienced, in fact, even in the case of minor structural damage because of utility service interruptions, dislodgment of medical equipment, and overturning of cabinets for chemical or hazardous materials. The objective of this project is to develop analysis tools for the seismic assessment of hospitals that allow estimation of the functionality loss caused by non-structural damage. In particular, the research aims to: (1) identify those non-structural components that are vulnerable to earthquakes and critical for the functionality of the hospitals; (2) develop models for predicting the seismic capacity of these components; (3) proposing new equations for their seismic demand estimation; (4) define a performance measure to estimate functionality loss as a consequence of non-structural damage; (5) analyze a case study consisting in a real hospital building of Sapienza. The products of the research will be finally used to produce a guideline for assessing the seismic risk of functionality loss. The general motivation for this research stems from the belief that, especially in areas of low-to-moderate seismicity, a better response of hospitals to earthquakes can be achieved at a relatively low cost if the risk of non-structural damage is reduced. It is evident that in order to pursue this goal reliable analysis tools for predicting the effects of non-structural damage, which unfortunately are still lacking, are required.
