Seismic Assessment and Retrofit of Engineering Systems in Wellington Hospitals – A Case Study

摘要

Engineering systems in a building provide services to maintain functionality within the building. In hospital buildings, these systems are required to support critical lifesaving functions and continue to function during and after an earthquake and hence they are to be carefully designed and constructed to maintain their operational continuity. To understand the potential problems and inadequacies with existing engineering systems within critical facilities, three hospitals in Wellington region were surveyed. The survey focused on ‘essential’ systems required to sustain the operational continuity of hospitals. The study revealed that most of the components have been provided with some degree of restraint. The ‘adequacy’ of the mode of supporting systems has been examined against the latest New Zealand standards, NZS 4219:2009 (SNZ, 2009). The paper highlights the observations in terms of the vulnerability of the components, the existing scenario of their restraints and their impact on seismic safety. Finally, a brief note is made on the current practice within consultancy firms towards the seismic design and installation of engineering systems.