Performance of Concrete Parking Garages in January 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake

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9411759 Hawkins During the devasting Northridge earthquake in January 1994, unexpected damage occurred to many parking garages of various prestressed construction types. Such damage revealed serious questions as to the design adequacy in terms of gravity as well as lateral load-resistance of such structures. Important engineering lessons could be learned from studying the earthquake response or damage data collected from post-event field investigations. The Principal investigator, with assistance provided by the prestressed/precast concrete industry and trade association, conducted a comprehensive field investigation and has collected a rather complete set of relevant data/information pertaining to parking garage structures and their damage. This project will enable an indepth study to be carried out to address some of the critical issues as follows: (1) to determine reasons for observed damages and identify common features, (2) to determine seismic risk to existing garages and (3) to recommend necessary building code changes. This Small Grant for Exploratory Research project is supported, due to the importance of the anticipated learning, as a part of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program's Post- earthquake investigation activity. ***