Many more people are coming to live in earthquake-prone areas, especially urban ones. Many such areas contain low-rise, low-cost housing, while little money is available to retrofit the buildings to avoid total collapse and thus potentially save lives. The lack of money, especially in developing countries, is exacerbated by difficulties with administration, implementation and public awareness.

The future of modern earthquake engineering will come to be dominated by new kinds of measuring technologies, new materials developed especially for low-rise, low-cost buildings, simpler and thus lower cost options for retrofitting, cost cutting and raising public awareness.

The book covers all the areas involved in this complex issue, from the prevention of total building collapse, through improvement techniques, to legal, financial, taxation and social issues.

The contributors have all made valuable contributions in their own particular fields; all of them are or have been closely involved with the issues that can arise in seismic zones in any country. The recent research results published here offer invaluable pointers to practicing engineers and administrators, as well as other scientists whose work involves saving the lives and property of the many millions of people who live and work in hazardous buildings.

Zusammenfassung

This volume covers the interdisciplinary field of disaster mitigatition against earthquakes with special emphasis on prevention of total collapse of existing low rise buildings towards reduction of life losses and economical assets. Rehabilitation of thousands of low-rise buildings in many big cities located in earthquake prone areas, is practically impossible even though there are experimentally and analytically approved intervention techniques to protect these existing buildings. It is simply not possible to find a proper way and proper amount of financial support to do this job. It will be more realistic to change the target to be achieved in a relatively short time, especially if time shortage starts to become the most critical issue. The new target can be specified as the prevention of total collapse of low-rise low-cost existing buildings, at least to save as much lives and property as possible. Simple prescriptive techniques, which can be implemented by the building owners, should be prepared. The cost of the improvement techniques, all kinds of legal, economical and social issues for convincing people, and promotions such as tax exemptions should be discussed in detail. Writers of all chapters are leading researchers and engineers working in the field of structural and earthquake engineering. The book will start with an introduction chapter written by Prof. Helmut Krawinkler of Stanford University. In this chapter, past and present of studies towards seismically safe design and construction will be introduced, as well as potential future trends in structural and earthquake engineering. In other chapters, different subjects will be presented under three main titles, namely; determination of seismic risks, seismic safety assessment of existing buildings, and measures for prevention of total collapse.

Inhalt
Seismic Monitoring to Assess Performance of Structures in Near-Real Time: Recent Progress.- Dance for Modern Times: Insurance, Economic Stability and Building Strength.- A Critical Review of Current Assessment Procedures.- Risk Management and a Rapid Scoring Technique for Collapse Vulnerability of RC Buildings.- The Importance of Plan-Wise Irregularity.- Advanced Composite Materials and Steel Retrofitting Techniques for Seismic Strengthening of Low-Rise Structures: Review.- A Novel Structural Assessment Technique to Prevent Damaged FRP-Wrapped Concrete Bridge Piers from Collapse.- Strengthening of Low-Rise Concrete Buildings: Applications After Dinar (1995) and Adana-Ceyhan (1998) Earthquakes.- Rehabilitation of Precast Industrial Buildings using Cables to Develop Diaphragm Action.- Vulnerability Evaluation and Retrofitting of Existing Building Heritage: an Italian Research Programme.- Soft-Landing Base-Isolation System.- Development of a New Precast Concrete Panel Wall System Incorporated with Energy Dissipative Dowel Connectors.- Alternative Performance-Based Retrofit Strategies and Solutions for Existing RC Buildings.- FRP Wrapping of RC Structures Submitted to Seismic Loads.- Upgrading of Resistance and Cyclic Deformation Capacity of Deficient Concrete Columns.- Supplemental Vertical Support as a Means for Seismic Retrofit of Buildings.- How to Predict the Probability of Collapse of Non-Ductile Building Structures.- Strengthening of Brick Infilled Reinforced Concrete (RC) Frames with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) Sheets.- Improved Infill Walls and Rehabilitation of Existing Low-Rise Buildings.- How to Simulate Column Collapse and Removal in As-built and Retrofitted Building Structures?.