After an earthquake occurred in the Gyeongju, 2016, many low-story buildings have been questioned in terms of the seismic performance since mostly they have been exempted from the seismic design requirement since 1988. In this study, a 3-story moment resisting frame (MRF) building was analyzed and evaluated the seismic performance. Due to the insufficient seismic performance required for the seismic performance levels, three different seismic retrofit schemes were proposed and their seismic performances were re-evaluated. While steel brace and open shear wall retrofit systems mainly focused on the strength retrofit, the VES damper retrofit system is mainly to enhance the energy dissipation capacity of the system and resultes in the increased ductility. The original building and 3 retrofitted buildings were evaluated using the nonlinear static and nonlinear dynamic analyses and suggestions were proposed. Through the analysis of nonlinear time history and push-over using MIDAS/Gen program, damages of the building in terms of top story and average story drift and effect of reinforcement were analyzed.

This paper investigates seismic performance of a small-sized single story building in Korea. Nonlinear pushover anlaysis is performed to verify shear failure of　RC　short columns eventually led to performance degradation. Also, nonlinear time history analysis is performed using the same earthquakes from Gyeongju. Similar failure mode was obtained as in the report where a sudden rupture of the RC columns happened.

In this paper, some popular intensity measures of earthquakes including magnitude, MMI, and PGA as well as their empirical relationships are briefly reviewed since they have been widely used without prudence by mass media, the public, and even the government when asking or expressing the seismic capacity of buildings. The basic concept of current seismic design is also presented in order to facilitate relevant discussions. It is emphasized that expressing the building seismic capacity simplistically in terms of seismological quantities or terminologies like magnitude and MMI is inherently irrational, may be misleading the stakeholders, and should be avoided. Alternative expressions, more rational and consistent with current seismic design philosophy and practice, are recommended.

Secure operation of hospitals during and right after earthquake is essential. Past lessons from earthquake damages have shown that most of the injured and the death occurred within 30 minutes after earthquake and the portion of nonstructural damage has become significant. However, hospital buildings in Korea have not prepared fully to address such rising issues. This paper is to study what type of damage patterns are related to hospital buildings and how to develop a preparedness plan to keep hospitals operational at all earthquakes if possible. This paper first reviews on past earthquake damages reported as critical to hospital buildings while classifying them into four groups: (1) structural element; (2) architectural-nostructural element; (3) medical equipments and contents; and (4) utility facility. Upon such classification, some detailed concerns can be specified under each group explicitly. Then a hierarchy for hospital building is also developed for the classified groups, which enables us to identify required things for the enhancement of seismic performance of hospital building that consists of heterogeneous elements. To upgrade the level of seismic performance for existing hospital buildings, the concept of performance-based approach can be adopted to address the heterogeneous problems in a systematic and stepwise manner. Finally a conceptual framework for the seismic risk assessment for hospital building is proposed toward the seismic enhancement of hospital buildings using performance-based approach.