Report of building damage in Valparaiso and Santiago, Chile
Valparaiso
photos by Roger Parra
Bldg ID 3-8.1
Port Customs Buildings (33⁰ 02′ 16″, 71⁰ 37′ 40″)
Two L-Shaped URM buildings with towers at opposite sides of the street. The low rise portion is four stories and towers are 9 stories tall. One building has a seismic joint at the tower portion the other does not and thus suffered damage at the tower junction. Use Seismic Joints! The damage in Valparaiso is very light and limited to URM and Adobe buildings. However, most URM and Adobe buildings fared well. We did not see any collapsed buildings in Valparaiso. The average age of the buildings we looked at was probably 100 years.
Bldg ID 3-8.2
Metro Station (33⁰ 02′ 20″, 71⁰ 37′ 36″)
Modern one story concrete braced framed building at the edge of the port. No damage to the structure.
Bldg ID 3-8.3
Adobe Church (33⁰ 02′ 11″, 71⁰ 37′ 56″) Iglesia de la Matriz
Adobe building with little damage to the structure. Wood framed tower is leaning. Adjacent to church also noticed a three story URM unbraced façade that suffered no damage. Made us wonder if the ground shook much in this area.
Santiago – Enea Industrial Park Area (1 KM South of Airport)
Bldg ID 3-8.4
Precast Concrete Warehouse (33⁰ 25′ 49″, 70⁰ 46′ 40″) Cosmoplas
Building built in 2007. One story warehouse with precast girders supporting precast tees with exterior tilt-up concrete walls. Roof consists of light gauge decking panel alternating with translucent skylight panel. Diaphragm consisted of ¾ inch diameter rod X-bracing. Rods in longitudinal direction have fractured and have fallen. All the concrete wall panels on west side(longitudinal direction) fell out-of-plane. Panels are 30 feet tall with short rebar dowels into footing at base and concrete inserts at top. The concrete inserts consist of a single expansion anchor into the panel with a bent plate hooked over the concrete beam at the roof. The concrete panels have damaged the adjacent DHL warehouse building. Storage racks in building performed well. All the racks were tied together in the long direction, braced in the short direction back-to back and anchored to the floor.
Bldg ID 3-8.5
Precast Concrete Warehouse (33⁰ 25′ 57″, 70⁰ 46′ 40″) Trial Clothing Warehouse
Building built in 2008. One story warehouse with precast girders supporting precast tees with exterior tilt-up concrete walls. Roof consists of canvas. Diaphragm consisted of 4 inch square tubing X-bracing. Tubing has fractured as some locations and connection of bracing to beams has failed in some locations.All the wall panels on three of the four sides of the building have fallen out of plane. Wall panel connection to base consisted of rod insets into slab with no adhesive. Connection at top consisted of similar connection to previous building.
