Seismic Vulnerability Of Primary Schools In The City Osijek

The Republic of Croatia is located in a highly earthquake prone zone; strong ground motion events occurs in Croatia every 20-30 years. Most of the buildings built in the last decade are in accordance with Eurocode 8 provisions for earthquake-resistant design but a great number of older low- and medium-rise buildings are built from stone and masonry units, not following any such provision. These buildings must be evaluated, their level of risk determined and unacceptable risks reduced or eliminated. The city of Osijek with its suburbs has 114.616 inhabitants (2001 population census), 41.835 dwellings and households, around 7,000 buildings, public buildings – which include kindergartens (24), primary schools (20), high schools (19), colleges (11), libraries (19), theatres (3), movie theatres (2), hospitals and healthcare centres, homes for the elderly, police and fire brigade buildings, communication centres, etc. Primary schools in Osijek have an important role in the educational process. For each of the 16 school buildings, the properties related to the year of construction, height, type of structure, total area, etc., are given. These factors are important for determining the seismic vulnerability of existing buildings. Seismic risk is the probability of loss at a given site and is obtained through the convolution of exposure, vulnerability and seismic hazard. Vulnerability is defined as the degree of loss to a given element at risk resulting from a given level of hazard. The vulnerability of an element is defined as a ratio of the expected loss to the maximum possible loss on a scale from 0 to 1. The aim of the paper is concerned with an important step of the required strategy: to evaluate the seismic vulnerability of existing school buildings.