INFRASTRUCTURE RESILIENCE
AS1170.4 and the Australian Earthquake Society’s IL4 Special Study Under Australian Standard, AS1170 Part 4, Earthquake actions in Australia were incorrectly considered only a structural engineer’s obligation. As per Section 8, however, Parts and Components constitute 75-85% of a medical facility’s build cost: these are the architectural and building services (including machinery/equipment and attachments to the facility). Commonly referred to under the heading, Seismic Design of Non-Structural Elements (NSE), these are still unknown in some construction circles even today, even though the principle has been mandated in full by the National Construction Code (NCC) since 2010. All structures are assigned an Importance level based on the NCC, and the structural engineer utilises AS1170.4 to design the structure accordingly. The structural performance for forces and displacement are then designed and accommodated by the architectural and building services. It’s a risk-based process that considers life safety systems, explosive energies, and moving elements, etc. It’s worth noting that Importance Level 4 (IL4) facilities are generally those with a post-disaster function or a hazardous facility.
In Section 2.2, a paragraph and a table
introduce the requirement for an IL4 facility to have a Special Study to ensure that it ‘remains serviceable for immediate use’ following an Importance Level 2 design event (a 1 in 500-year earthquake). This minor sentence does not appear with a definition, although it has its origins in international standards, guides, and similar literature. For a detailed explanation of AS1170.4 and Special Study requirements, the Australian Earthquake Engineering Society has published the AS1170.4-2007 Commentary: 2nd Edition, which can be downloaded free at:
https://aees.org.au/ as-1170-4/
1. Update BCP for EQ
5. Post
construction review
Seismic consultant
4.
Construction monitoring to ensure delivery
2. Prepare a special study to…
checking it, then it is more likely to be done. If that checking is early and often, there’s no avoiding it. Test the systems and compare the delivered elements to the BCP, the Special Study, the design documentation, and the ‘as-built’ drawings. Identify the gaps, correct anything that needs attention, and then update the BCP company-wide to ensure that the learnings are repeated for future upgrades or new facilities. *Note: Help is available with these many
3. …Guide facility design or assessment
Figure 1: Some of the key steps that organisations should take to update their Business Continuity Plan and ensure that they have a resilient healthcare facility.
Earthquake resilience solutions How, however, do you deliver a seismic- compliant facility? There should be several key steps, as follows: 1) Your organisation or client should update its Business Continuity Plan to consider how it wishes the facility to perform post-earthquake, which may focus upon the essential services only, operating times with lifeline network loss (such as power, water, sewer, internet), limited supply chains, and staffing. 2) Prepare a Special Study considering the many systems within the building, their importance to the operation of the facility post-disaster, their capacity to run offline, systems for assisted operation (i.e. septic suction truck access), and overflow areas for increased operational capacity, etc. 3) Ensure that designers of architecture and systems make clear that the Special Study requirements are enshrined in buildable systems, with seismic design considerations incorporated. 4) Actions, not words: if someone is
processes from a Seismic consultant… it’s what we do. Healthcare supports some of society’s
most vulnerable people, and during natural hazard events, they represent the most significant loss of lives. The performance of non-structural elements in healthcare facilities requires greater attention to avoid these shortfalls. Business continuity planning should guide the design to the commissioning process of new and upgraded facilities in alignment with AS1170.4 and the Special Study for post- disaster facilities.
n Acknowledgment
This article, titled ‘Post-earthquake function of medical facilities’, was first published in Autumn 2024 issue of Healthcare Facilities, the official journal of the Institute of Hospital Engineering, Australia. HEJ would like to thank the author, the IHEA, and the magazine’s publisher, Adbourne Publishing, for allowing its reproduction in slightly edited form here.
Jordan Bartlett
Jordan Bartlett is a Facility Resilience consultant specialising in the design requirements of non-structural elements to remain serviceable post-disaster with an ‘All-hazards approach’. Providing support from Concept through to Post-Occupancy Evaluation, he engages with government, constructors, designers, installers, and manufacturers, ‘to create resilient facilities prepared for business continuity under disruptive conditions’.
Many buildings in Christchurch, New Zealand, were damaged by the 2011 earthquake. 38 Health Estate Journal August 2024
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