A new function for large-span civil buildings

Abstract

This paper presents in detail Jiuzhou stadium's great functions from temporary settling, relief supplies collecting and medical care to psychological assistance for about 50,000 victims and temporary school for about 2000 primary and secondary students whose classroom buildings just seriously damaged and even collapsed in Wenchuan great earthquake. The reasons of the stadium safely playing such a tremendous role in the battle against the disaster after strong earthquake are discussed. From the case of Jiuzhou stadium, this paper proposes an idea that some future large-span civil buildings should be added a new function as safe-working indoor earthquake victim shelters even under strong earthquake, and their construction are proposed to be legislatively added to official urban and town planning. The functions of this kind of large span buildings and their anti-seismic design standard are also discussed in this paper. The preliminary analysis shows that the cost increase of large-span building with the functions of earthquake shelter may not be much. Their cost could be reduced a lot by careful design and introduction of many hightechniques including vibration reduction and isolation, structural optimization, damping element application and so on.