Nuclear

Engineeri.ng
and Design
ELSEVIER Nuclear Engineeringand Design 148 (1994) 509-513

Technical Engineering Note

Performance of the base-isolated USC University Hospital

under the 1994 Northridge earthquake
George W. Housner a, Sami F. Masri b
a Division of Engineering andApplied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
b Department of Ovil Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA

In many countries the infrastructure of cities is
inadequate, obsolete, inefficient, or potentially
hazardous, and this requires special study and
planning for future improvements. The subject of
structural control offers opportunities to design
new structures and to retrofit existing structures
by the application of counter-forces, smart mate-
rials, frictional devices, etc., instead of just in-
creasing the strength of the structure at greater
cost. A variety of applications have already been
installed in building structures to control wind-in-
duced motions that are objectionable to the occu-
pants, and many applications of passive control,
such as base isolation, have been installed to
reduce structural accelerations produced by
strong earthquake ground shaking. There is a
consensus that structural control has the poten-
tial for improving the performance of structures,
new or existing, if appropriate research and ex-
perimentation are undertaken.
The recent Northridge earthquake, which was
of magnitude 6.7 and occurred on 17 January
1994 at 4:31 a.m., was the strongest earthquake to
hit the Los Angeles metropolitan area. While
there were numerous structures and systems that
suffered severe damage and demonstrated the
penalty for not devoting sufficient attention to
seismic mitigation measures, there were also some
examples of success stories that illustrated the
benefits and cost effectiveness of appropriate
structural control approaches when intelligently
applied to actual structures.
The California Office of Statewide Health
Planning and Development reported that 18 Los
Angeles area hospitals sustained moderate or ma-
jor damage. It is estimated that the earthquake
damage repair expenses to hospitals could reach
$1 billion, out of which about $390 million is for
damage to the Los Angeles County USC Medical
Center, a county-run facility administered by the
USC Medical School. Two buildings in this center
sustained severe damage that necessitated their
closure: the pediatric pavilion and the psychiatric
hospital. Among the private hospitals that suf-
fered serious damage are: Northridge Hospital
Medical Center, Holy Cross Medical Center,
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, St. John's Hospital
and Health Center, and Santa Monica Hospital
Medical Center. Two additional major public
hospitals had their operations interrupted during
the critical period after the earthquake due to
serious nonstructural damage: Olive View Hospi-
tal and Veteran's Administration Hospital.
In contrast to the above list of medical facili-
ties that sustained severe damage during the sub-
ject earthquake, this brief note provides a "Quick

Elsevier Science S.A.

SSD1 0029-5493(94)00725-E
510 G. W. Housner, S.F. Masri / Nuclear Engineering and Design 148 (1994) 509-513

Report" on the excellent performance of what is tural dynamics problems. Owing to the important
the only base-isolated hospital in the world: the nature of the facility, the California Office of the
USC University Hospital. State Architect was involved in evaluating the
The University Hospital is located at the Med- design of this hospital. Both a conventional
ical Campus of the University of Southern Cali- fixed-base design and a base-isolated design were
fornia in East Los Angeles at 1500 San Pablo considered, and it was determined that the latter
Street, about 36 k away from the epicenter of the design is optimal based on overall cost and the
earthquake. This structure is an eight-story steel- estimated level of reduction in damage due to
braced frame structure which is base-isolated by future earthquakes.
means of a combination of elastomeric and During the subject earthquake, 27 records of
lead-rubber bearings. A total of 68 lead-rubber data were obtained from the extensive instrumen-
bearings are used at the exterior columns, and 81 tation network. The "First Quick Report"
elastomeric bearings are used at the interior [CSMIP, 1994] of the California Strong Motion
columns. Owing to site topography and architec- Instrumentation Program provided the recordings
tural requirements, the plan for this structure is shown in Figs. 1 and 2, and the corresponding
not regular, thus posing some challenging struc- hospital instrumentation plan shown in Fig. 3. By

Los Angeles - 7-story U n i v e r s i t y Hospital

(CSMIP S t a t i o n 24605) RECORO 24605-C0t|5-94017.02

2| Roof: Center - N

]7 6th Floor: Center - N

13 4tn Floor: Center - N

9 Lower Level: Center - N

5 Foundation Level: Center - N

25 Free F i e l d : - N

4 Lower Level: East Wall - Up

3 Foundation Leve): East Nell - Up

v

2 Lower Level: Nest Nal] - Up

| Foundation Level: Neat Wall - Up

26 Free F i e l d : - Up

Structure Reference Orientation: N - 5 <'

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

0 ! 2 3 ,I 5 i0 15 20 22 Sec.
Fig. l.
 G. W. Housner, S.F. Masri / Nuclear Engineering and Design 148 (1994) 509-513 511

Los Angles - 7-story University Hospital

[CSMIP Station 24605) RECORD 24605-C0t15-94017.02

24 Roof: South N a i l - E

23 Roof: Center - E

22 Roof: N o r t h Wall - E

20 6th F l o o r : South N a i l - E

19 Gtn Floor: Center - E _,-x~,,.x,...-,-~,/~ _ ~ NX,x,~_.~,~,,-~,_ I-,-._.._

|B Gth F l o o r : North Nail - E

|G 4th F l o o r : South Wall - E

|5 4th F l o o r : (:enter - F

|4 4th Floor: North Nell - F

12 L o * e r Love1: South N e l l - E ............... , - ~ . / ' ~ / ~ , ~ . , ~ / ~ t ~ , " - , ~

|| Lower L e v e l : Center - E

|0 Lower L e v e l : North N e l l - E

B Foundation Level: South N a ] l - E

7 Foundation Level: Center - E

6 Foundation Level: North N a i l - E

2, Free F t01d: -E .,.. lentet o:. N-S

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

0 I 2 3 4 5 10 15 20 22 Sec.

F i g . 2.

comparing the earthquake acceleration level in acceleration was reduced by a factor of about two
the north direction at the foundation level (data and the accelerations to the isolated portions of
channel 5) with the corresponding roof accelera- the hospital clearly indicate the absence of high
tion (channel 21) it is seen that this ratio is frequencies (contained in the base input record)
from the recorded response within the hospital.
(roof record 21)/(foundation record 5) The manifestation of this fact is that some hospi-
= 0.21/0.37 = 0.57 tal personnel who were in the building during the
initial earthquake and subsequent aftershocks re-
A similar comparison of the response at the lower
ported gentle swaying of the building (similar to
level and the free field in the north direction
being on a water bed) which made some people
shows that
feel seasick.
(lower level record 9 ) / ( f r e e field record 25) The response ratio in the East-West direction
= 0.13/0.49 = 0.26 of swaying between the foundation and roof is

Thus it is clear that the base isolators did indeed (roof record 23)/(foundation record 7)
act as a low-pass filter, whereby the peak level of = 0.16/0.29 = 0.55
512 G. W. Housner, S.F. Masri / Nuclear Engineering and Design 148 (1994) 509-513

Los Angeles - 7-story University Hospital

(CSMIP Station No. 24605) SENSOR LOCATIONS

SteelBraced16T ]
. I--- ~ Roof
PerimeterFrarneJ S 2'I
~1- 4 4 ~ l a C d : # l ~ A 2.d --,3
2~ 21
~ [ ~ i ~ l ~ l l i Lower level
"q'mmwm~m~mim~ Founclation level
NorthElevation
214' 253' ~ 144-
"~
~'~"7'.20~" ] re.5' . e0'. 12e.5' J 4 t h F l o o r Plan R o o f Plan

Ft. / 8~o o o .t ,~,a,ors ,2

Field ~[
~I
a a a
F. o o...7"
t o.V N,.,
I~ 2.
_ _ I~/~17
/1: "0 0 5" -1 Elastomeric I"
~I r. ~
0
0
0
O

0
0

O
o
0

;3~ ,-~;c,o;; I s,,uo,o,. .., . . . . . .
Otienlafion: N= 5

I 0 0 0 0

Ll=,,,, ,,, =~,1'I ,,,,i

O

71
0

Foundation Level
/
L
Lower Level
18--,-
61h Floor Plan

Fig.3.
( A b o v e II~olatorn

while the ratio of response at the lower level
compared to the free field is
(lower level record 11)/(flee field record 27)
= 0.07/0.22 = 0.32
Similarly, for the vertical component, the corre-
sponding ratio is
(lower level record 4)/(foundation record 3)
= 0.13/0.09 = 1.4
It is worth pointing out that in an adjoining,
conventionally built steel building with a fixed
base, the pharmacy suffered significant nonstruc-
tural damage, while virtually nothing at all fell in
a similarly "stacked" storage facility in the base-
isolated hospital. Furthermore, another hospital
at the USC Medical School Campus (Los Angeles
County USC Pediatric Hospital) suffered severe
structural as well as nonstructural damage, which
resulted in its evacuation and the subsequent
decision to tear down this old hospital (built in
the 1930s).
The performance of the USC University Hos-
pital is a very encouraging experience to engi-
neers involved in the field of structural control,
since it vindicates their contention that the
emerging field of structural control, which deals
with a wide spectrum of topics including adaptive
structures, intelligent/smart materials and sys-
tems, health monitoring and damage detection,
actuators, sensors, and hybrid vibration control of
civil infrastructure components under the action
of earthquakes, wind and man-made loads, has a
lot to offer as an effective seismic mitigation
approach.
Where the contents of structures must be pro-
tected against earthquake shaking, as in the case
of nuclear power plants, hospitals, emergency
 G.W. Housner, S.F. Masri/ Nuclear Engineering and Design 148 (1994) 509-513
communications systems, etc., the Northridge
earthquake demonstrated the effectiveness of the
base-isolation system in reducing the severity of
shaking. This is an encouragement to explore
other methods of controlling motions of struc-
tures during earthquakes, such as active control
of structures. To verify the effectiveness of struc-
tural control, it is desirable to apply such meth-
ods to ordinary buildings and thus develop the
necessary information.
In view of the growing world-wide interest in
the field of structural control, the US Panel on
Structural Control Research in collaboration with
the Japan Panel on Structural Response Control,
the International Association of Structural Con-
trol, and several scientific organizations in the
United States, Asia, and Europe has announced
the first World Conference on Structural Control
(lWCSC) to be held during the period 3-5 Au-
gust 1994 in Los Angeles, CA, USA. This confer-
513
ence seeks to bring together engineers, scientists,
architects, builders and other interested in the
general field of active or hybrid vibration control
and monitoring of buildings and civil infrastruc-
ture systems. The conference will focus on topics
related to building structures, including adaptive
structures, intelligent/smart materials and sys-
tems, health monitoring and damage detection,
actuators, sensors, vibration isolation, and hybrid
vibration control of civil infrastructure compo-
nents under the action of earthquakes, wind and
man-made loads.
References
CSMIP First Quick Report, State of California, Department
of Conservation, Division of Mines and Geology, Strong
Motion Instrumentation Program, Sacramento, 17 January
1994, pp 4-6.