Thesis Type: Postgraduate
Institution Of The Thesis: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Turkey
Approval Date: 2013
Student: TULUHAN ERGİN
Supervisor: ÖZGÜR KURÇ
Abstract:During and after earthquakes, occupants inside a damaged building should be evacuated rapidly and safely whereas related units outside the buildings (e.g. first responders) should know the current condition of the building. Obviously, this information should be as accurate as possible and accessed timely in order to speed up the evacuation. Unfortunately, absence of such information during evacuation and emergency response operations results in increased number of casualties. Hence, there arises a need for an approach to make rapid damage and blockage assessment in buildings possible. This study focuses on sensor-based, real-time blockage assessment of buildings during earthquakes and it is based on the idea that; the blocked units of a building (e.g. corridors) can be assessed with the help of different types of sensors. The number and locations of these sensors are arranged in such a way that it becomes possible to picture the current condition of the building. Sensors utilized in this study can be listed as accelerometer, ultrasonic range finder, gyro sensor, closed cable circuit and video camera. The research steps of this thesis include (1) examination of the damage indicators which can cause blockage, (2) assessment of the monitoring devices, (3) expression of the conducted experimental studies in order to assess blokage condition of a corridor unit, (4) proposing an sensor fusion approach, and (5) presentation of the performed case study as an implementation of the blockage assessment. The findings of this research can be made use of in future studies on sensor-based blockage assessment.