Seismic monitoring instrumentation needs of a building owner and the solution: A cooperative effort

A specific case whereby the owner of a building, in collaboration with another federal agency with expertise in seismic monitoring of buildings, private consulting engineers, and a supplier, facilitated development of a seismic monitoring system for a 24-story building in San Francisco, California. The unique aspects of this monitoring systems include: the monitoring system must relate to rapid assessment of the building following an earthquake and the monitoring system must deliver the data in relatively short time, if not in real-time. The system has the standard recording capability at the site server PC. It has the capability to calculate select number of drift ratios, specific to the building.