Use of Serious Games for Post-earthquake Safety Evaluation Training of Reinforced Concrete Buildings

Abstract

After an earthquake, an urgent visual inspection is required to assess structural damages. Previous research has relied on the use of advanced technologies such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Augmented Reality (AR) to either replace or facilitate visual inspection. However, none of these efforts targeted training inspectors prior to inspection. As a matter of fact, damage inspection is prone to subjectivity and necessitates proper training in order to deliver accurate results. This includes using passive traditional training methods, such as technical manuals (TM) and multimedia films (MF). Recently, game-based virtual learning has started gaining attention by offering opportunities to facilitate the learning process and improve training performance. Nonetheless, no research has yet adopted serious games to boost traditional damage inspection training and facilitate post-earthquake safety evaluation. Therefore, this research takes the first steps and aims at developing a serious game to replicate a real-world inspection process by allowing users to walk through a virtual environment and perform a typical field survey of damages. More specifically, game scenes are created with different damage levels of a typical reinforced concrete moment-resisting frame building while relying on data from the Applied Technology Council (ATC-20) and Greek reports. The game includes training and assessment tools. In the training tool, the user learns about damage types and severities and fills building inspection forms. In the assessment tool, the user assesses his/her knowledge by inspecting 20 buildings with different safety conditions. The gaming tool was tested on 30 civil engineers who enjoyed the learning process and conveyed that navigating and inspecting within the virtual world can potentially enhance their performance in a real-world context.