Seismic Capacity Evaluation of Existing Reinforced Concrete School Building in Afghanistan
Member ○ NAZIMI, Karishma *
Reinforced Concrete School building Infilled Masonry
Seismic Capacity Index Afghanistan Japanese Method
1. Introduction
Afghanistan is a country with several severe earthquakes
in the past. The latest big earthquake happened in October
2015, was the Hindu Kush earthquake with magnitude M7.5.
It killed 115 and injured 538 people in Afghanistan out of total
399 killed and 2,342 injured in the region including Pakistan.
Beside such historical earthquake record, Afghanistan still
doesn’t have an appropriate seismic design code.
Among other thousands of buildings, 1,327 new school
buildings were constructed only in Kabul Province after 2001.
Hence, it is important to evaluate the safety of these buildings
in case of earthquake activity in Kabul area. This paper
presents the seismic capacity evaluation of a model school
building in Kabul City, based on the Japanese standard for
seismic evaluation of existing reinforced concrete buildings 1).
2. Methodology
This research is performed in two steps. First, site
investigation is done to understand the building’s damage,
structural irregularity, structure materials’ identification,
understanding of soil condition, and seismic activity of the
research area. In the second step the collected data from the
site investigation are used to conduct calculation for seismic
capacity evaluation of a model school building.
3. School Buildings Characteristic in Kabul City
In this field research among 1,327 school buildings in
Kabul province, 323 were identified. Figure 1 shows the
number of school buildings according to the classrooms (CR)
number. The 8-CR, 10-CR, and 12-CR are constructed with
one or two floors. While, from 16-CR to 30-CR buildings are
constructed mainly in two or three floors.
The structure types of typical school buildings, identified
in Kabul, are mainly composed by 1) reinforced concrete
frame with unreinforced infill brick masonry walls (RC-UM),
2) confined masonry (CM), 3) unreinforced brick masonry
(URBM) with I-beam roofing system, 4) sun-dried brick
(SDB) and mud (M) structures. The typical RC-UM structures
consist of reinforced concrete (RC) frame with un-reinforced
infill brick masonry (UIBM) walls. In this case UIBM walls
are placed after construction of RC frame. The CM structure
Seismic Capacity Evaluation of Existing Reinforced Concrete
School Building in Afghanistan
Member CASTRO, Juan Jose **
Member NAKADA, Kozo ***
type consists of brick masonry walls which confined with
concrete columns and beams. The brick masonry walls are
constructed before placing the concrete columns. The URBM
with I-beam, is brick bearing walls structure without RC
columns confinement. The precast concrete I-section beams
are used in roof system. The SDB and M structures are still
being used in some areas rarely. Figure 2 shows the percentage
of each type of these school buildings.
Figure 1 School buildings Figure 2 Ratio of the school
according to classrooms buildings structure types
4. Soil Condition and Seismic Zone
Soil condition of the site is also investigated for Kabul
City. Based on the geotechnical investigation at the 2m depth
from surface level, the standard penetration test (SPT) value
varies between 10 and 50 and the bearing capacity of soil is
obtained between 67 and 120 MPa2). The soil profile types
under these conditions can be grouped as soft soil and stiff soil.
Concerning to the seismic zone for this research, the
Afghanistan seismic map is divided into three zones, A, B, and
C respectively, as shown in Figure 3. This division is according
to the recorded maximum Ground Peak Acceleration (GPA).
The GPA and related zone factors assigned for Afghanistan, are
shown in Table 2. These are in correspondence with the GPA
assigned to each zone in the Japanese code.
Figure 3 Afghanistan seismic zone
5. Case Study of School Building in Kabul City
A 3-stories RC-UM structure school building of 30
classrooms was selected for calculation of seismic capacity
index. Each column’s section is 0.35x0.35m and the UIBM
Karishma NAZIMI, Juan Jose CASTRO, Kozo NAKADA
walls width is equal to 0.35m. The story height is 3m for all
floors. For calculation, according to the construction joints, the
building was divided in to three parts, named Part-A and Part-
B, as shown in Figure 4. The Figure 5 shows a picture of
building during the construction. The average materials
strength of the surveyed buildings is shown in table 2.
Units: meter
Figure 4 Typical floor plan and column section details
Figure 5 Picture of the school building during construction
The seismic capacity evaluation is performed based on
the Japanese method which consists of three level of screening.
In order, to simplify the calculation, the seismic evaluation of
st nd
this building is limited here to 1 and 2 levels of screening.
The seismic capacity of the building is evaluated using
the seismic capacity index Is = E0 x SD x T, where E0 is the
basic seismic capacity index. SD is the structural irregularity
index and T is the time index. Here SD and T are assumed
equal to 1. Since the building is new, it is considered the with
no deterioration due to aging. Also, the building almost has no
horizontal and vertical structural irregularity. Additionally, the
infilled wall effect is also considered in calculation of seismic
capacity of this building3). Hence, the shear strength of the
2
walls 𝜏𝑏𝑤 , was considered 0.6 N/mm for walls without
opening and 0.2 N/mm2 for walls with openings 4).
The obtained Is value, is compared with seismic demand
index Is0 = Es x Z x G x U. In this equation, Es is the basic
seismic demand index, which is assumed 0.8 for the 1st level of
screening and 0.6 for the 2nd level of screening. Z is seismic
zone index. Based on the Kabul City location which is in
* 琉球大学大学院理工学研究科 大学院生 Grad. Student, Grad. School of Eng. & Science, Univ. of the Ryukyus
** 琉球大学工学部建築学コース 教授・博士（工学） Professor, Faculty of Eng., Univ. of the Ryukyus, Ph.D.
*** 琉球大学 工学部建築学コース 准教授・博士（工学） Assoc. Prof., Faculty of Eng., Univ. of the Ryukyus, Dr. Eng.
seismic zone A, as shown in Figure 3, the seismic zone index
assumed Z=0.9. On the other hand, the ground index G=1.0
because of flat topography of the site. The usage factor is
U=1.25 based on school building importance level. Thus,
considering these factors the Is0 = 0.9 for the 1st level of
screening and Is0 = 0.54 for the 2nd level of screening, are
obtained in this case study. The Figure 6 shows the results of
this case study for X and Y direction. As it is shown in Figure
6 a), in the 1st level of screening, only in Y direction of part-A,
3rd floor seismic capacity index obtained greater than demand
index and can be considered as safe. While in the 2nd level of
screening, which shown in Figure 6 b) the result obtained not
safe in both direction for all floors. This weak lateral strength
of building is due to slender RC columns and heavy structural
weight of the building because of UIBM walls.
X- direction Y-direction
a) 1st level of screening
b) 2nd Level of Screening
Figure 6 Seismic Index Distribution of School Building
6. Conclusion
As shown above a 30 classrooms school building with
RC-UM structure is studied to evaluate its strength against
earthquake actions. The 1st and 2nd levels of Japanese screening
method are applied in conducting this research. In this study,
only strength of the vertical structural members is considered
in seismic capacity calculation. Therefore, having low shear
strength of RC columns caused to low seismic capacity of this
school building. The result show that Is is lower than Iso in
almost all cases. Since there are several other school buildings
with different number of classrooms, stories, and structure type
a detailed seismic capacity evaluation program is necessary.
7. References
1) JBDPA English Version 1st, Japanese Standard for Evaluation of Existing
Reinforced Concrete Building, 2001
2) Afghan National Standard Authority, Afghan Building Code (ABC), 2012
3) MAIDIAWATI, Ph.D. of Eng., Thesis, Toyohashi Univ. of Technology Modeling
of Brick Masonry Infill for Seismic Performance Evaluation of RC Frame
Buildings, 2013
4) AIJ Report, on the Technical Cooperation for Temporary Restoration of
Damaged RC School Buildings due to the 1999 Chi-Chi Earthquake, 2000