The Earthquake Engineering Online Archive

Response of the Olive View Hospital main building during the San Fernando earthquake

Mahin, Stephen A.; Bertero, Vitelmo V.; Chopra, Anil K.; Collins, Robert G.

UCB/EERC-76/22, Earthquake Engineering Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, 1976-10, 321 pages (710.1/M22/1976)

This report presents the results of an extensive field and analytical investigation of the structural performance of the main building of the Olive View Hospital Medical Treatment and Care Facility during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake. This modern, six-story, cast-in-place, reinforced concrete building suffered such severe structural and nonstructural damages that it had to be demolished after the earthquake. The observed structural damages are compared with those predicted in a series of quantitative elastic and nonlinear dynamic analyses of the building in order to: (1) reassess current seismic-resistant design practices; (2) identify the principal parameters that controlled the response of the building; and (3) evaluate the ability of currently available analytical methods to predict seismic behavior.

Available online: http://nisee.berkeley.edu/documents/EERC/EERC-76-22.pdf (67 MB)