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Case study
Structural health monitoring system utilizing vibration sensors

Kumamoto City Hall Main Government Building
Helping to keep city residents safe by instantly assessing the degree of damage to buildings

Overview

Kumamoto City Hall Main Government Building

Kumamoto City has been working to strengthen its disaster response capabilities since major earthquakes with a peak seismic intensity of 7 struck the city in April 2016. The municipal government had Fuji Electric’s structural health monitoring (SHM) system installed in the main government building of the Kumamoto City Hall, which will serve as a base for the disaster prevention headquarters in the event of a disaster, in combination with the Nikken Sekkei Structural Monitoring System (NSmos), an earthquake damage assessment system. The operation of these systems began in November 2019.

Kumamoto City had commissioned specialists to investigate and assess the damage and safety levels of the damaged buildings; however, several months are required for the assessment results to become available. The installation of the NSmos system has greatly shortened the time required for investigating and assessing the degree of damage and has helped to ensure the safety of the residents.

Client issues: Instantly assessing the degree of damage to buildings and ensuring the safety of the residents

Disaster prevention center (Kumamoto City Hall Main Government Building)

Automatically assesses the damage level in only one to two minutes

When the NSmos system is installed, the safety of a damaged building will be automatically assessed within one to two minutes after an earthquake occurs, and when a network environment is also available, the assessment results can be checked anytime and anywhere using a variety of devices such as PCs, tablets and smartphones.

Visualization of building strength and rapid damage level assessment utilizing Fuji Electric vibration sensors that reliably capture the shaking.

Our SHM system utilizing Fuji Electric vibration sensors supports this NSmos system.*
The building strength is visualized and the damage level is rapidly assessed utilizing vibration sensors that very accurately measure a wide range of weak to strong building vibrations (acceleration) in combination with the building structural analysis technology of Nikken Sekkei Ltd.

The damage level can be assessed not only by building but also by floor. When vibration sensors and SHM systems are installed in multiple buildings, the NSmos system can centrally manage the assessment results of several buildings.

*

Fuji Electric has been collaborating with Nikken Sekkei Ltd. on this system since April 2018.

Fuji Electric structural health monitoring system screen
Fuji Electric vibration sensor

Client comments

Thanks to Nikken Sekkei and Fuji Electric, we are able to instantly assess the degree of damage to the buildings in the event of a disaster, and this enables us to make business continuity decisions, ensures the safety of our residents, and strengthens our disaster prevention systems.（Kumamoto City Hall)

Client information

Client name: Kumamoto City Hall Main Government Building
Location: 1-1, Tetorihoncho, Chuo-ku, Kumamoto-shi