Evaluation of Disaster Risks, Vulnerabilities and Response Strategies of High Rise Buildings in Lagos Municipality

Although disasters can occur anywhere, certain types of disasters are more likely to have more effects on some buildings than others, especially on those in urban areas. Buildings in Lagos have had nasty experiences from both natural and artificial disasters, claiming lives and properties in the past. This study aims at evaluating the disaster risks, vulnerabilities and response strategies in the high rise buildings in Lagos municipality. Structured questionnaire was administered to building owners, estate managers and disaster managers who manage the high rise buildings. The information obtained was supplemented by personal interviews conducted with tenants and rescue organizations. The study identified collapse of building, fire out break, and communication and power failure as the most likely potential disasters, power failure and collapse had the highest severity of impact, and the degree of preparedness achieved to confront the disasters was below satisfaction. However, the specific status of the response strategies was as expected, but there was room for improvements. The potential disasters were natural, human and environmental and the most vulnerable sectors were other properties rather than the high rise buildings themselves. The magnitude of risk levels could be contained with the level of response strategies already achieved if coordinated.

Experimental study on seismic behavior of semi-rigid connection between steel beam and concrete wall

Beam-column or beam-wall connections are an important problem in high-rise buildings. In this study, based on the analysis of an example structure, an analytical model for design of the semi-rigid connections between steel beams and RC walls in high-rise hybrid buildings is proposed. Also, the mechanical characteristics of these connections subjected to low-reversed cyclic loading are investigated through comparison of experimental results from three semi-rigid connections and two rigid connections. Moreover, some latent problems for design of these connections as well as the corresponding solutions are discussed. The results from the experiments and analyses indicate that semi-rigid connections exhibit satisfactory capacity and seismic performance, and the proposed design can be used in practice.

Gaseous pollutant transport from an underground parking garage in a Mediterranean multi-story building—Effect of temporal resolution under varying weather conditions

Indoor air dynamics and quality in high density residential buildings can be complex as it is affected by both building parameters,pollution sources,and outdoor meteorological conditions.The present study used CONTAM simulations to investigate the intra-building transport and concentration of an inert pollutant continuously emitted from an underground garage of a 15-floor building under moderate Mediterranean weather.The effects of outdoor meteorological conditions(air temperature,wind speed and direction)on indoor distribution of the emitted pollutant was tested under constant conditions.The importance of using actual transient meteorological data and the impact of their temporal resolution on calculated concentrations and exposure levels were also investigated.Vertical profiles of air exchange rate(AER)and CO concentration were shown to be sensitive to indoor-outdoor temperature difference,which controls the extent of the stack effect and its importance relative to wind effect.Even under constant conditions,transient mode simulations revealed that the time needed for pollutant distribution to reach steady state can be quite long(>24h in some cases).The temporal resolution(Ih vs.8h)of the meteorological data input was also found to impact calculated exposure levels,in an extent that varied with time,meteorological conditions and apartment position.