Disaster Assessment of Tall Buildings in Korea by K-Rapid Visual Screening System Focusing on Structural Safety

Multiple hazards, which threaten people’s lives and property, are the main concern for engineers in preventing dangers to buildings. In particular, densely populated areas, such as capital cities and tall buildings, are exposed to higher risks owing to multiple hazards. To rapidly evaluate the disaster assessment of tall buildings, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the U.S. proposed the integrated rapid visual screening system (IRVS). However, the IRVS system only considers U.S. conditions. Therefore, a Korean-oriented rapid visual screening system should be developed because the number of buildings over 200 m in Korea ranked fourth in the world with the highest density (500 people per square kilometer) among the top five countries based on the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s (CTBUH) database. This study describes a Korearapid visual screening (K-RVS) system that focuses on the structural safety of tall buildings in Korea. The K-RVS system was modified based on the IRVS, considering the Korean design standard (KDS) and Korean conditions. With the weight value for each characteristic, the scores for each hazard and final scores combined from the scores by multi-hazard can be obtained to conduct a disaster assessment of tall buildings subjected to multiple hazards.