Development of indoor seismic damage simulator for evaluation of human injury

Many people suffered severe injuries from crashing into furniture or falling when attempting to evacuate during a large historical earthquake. To assess human injuries during an earthquake, it is essential to estimate both the behavior of furniture and a human response to shaking. This study proposes a method for evaluating injury during an earthquake that considers the behavior of humans and furniture by constructing seismic response analysis models in a physical simulator. First, shaking table tests with human subjects were conducted to observe the behavior of a human during strong motions. Next, a human body model considering walking and falling was developed based on a cart-type double inverted pendulum with a feedback control system. To set appropriate feedback gains of the control system, the displacement and velocity of the head of the human body model were compared with those of the human subject in the shaking table test. Entering the strong motion recorded during the 1995 Hyogo-ken Nanbu earthquake into the human body model, the manner in which people behave and fall when they are walking during shaking was investigated. A static loading test of a bookshelf was conducted to measure the static and dynamic friction coefficients to construct a seismic response analysis model of the furniture. Finally, the human body and furniture models were incorporated into the physical simulator. The floor responses calculated by seismic response analysis of an RC super high-rise building were input to the simulator to evaluate the risk of human injury in the building. The degree of injury was quantitatively evaluated using head injury criterion.