PERFORMANCE OF NON-ENGINEERED STRUCTURES IN RECENT EARTHQUAKES: OVERVIEW AND MITIGATION STRATEGIES

In the past fifty years the number of casualties due to the occurrence of earthquake events has been notably increasing, due in part to the demographic explosion that the world has seen in the XX century. Many of the large urban centres populating the globe are located in costal zones or next to mountain areas that are part of tectonic systems that include subduction zones or important faults capable of generating large earthquake events. Moreover, most of these urban conglomerations are located in developing areas of the world that have low resilience against natural hazards, posing high levels of risk against seismic hazard. The low resilience is mainly due, among other factors, including socio-economic ones, due to the high vulnerability of the building stock, which is characterized by poor construction quality and absence of seismic design features, commonly found in what is known as non-engineered structures. The aim of this paper is to present a summary of the common features and observed performance of this type of structures resulting from the experience of the Joint Research Centre from a number of post-earthquake field reconnaissance missions in developing areas the world, as well as the undergoing efforts to reduce their vulnerability and mitigate the construction of new ones.

TAUCER Fabio;  PAPANIKOLAOU Aikaterini; 

2011-07-27

Universidade de Aveiro

JRC65892

http://www.mendeley.com/research/performance-nonengineered-structures-recent-earthquakes-overview-mitigation-strategies/,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC65892,