Overview of adopted Nationally Determined Parameters for Eurocode 8

The EN Eurocodes are a series of 10 European Standards, EN 1990 - EN 1999, providing a common approach to the design of buildings and other civil engineering works and construction products. The implementation of the Eurocodes in the EU and EFTA Member States comprises the publication of National Standards that transpose the EN Eurocodes to the country National Standards. They include National Annexes (NAs) containing the country choice of the Nationally Determined Parameters (NDPs) and reference to non contradictory complementary information. The NDPs are those parameters that were left open in Eurocodes for national choice, to be used for the design of buildings and civil engineering works, in order to take into account country specific geographical, geological or climatic conditions, as well as specific levels of protection. Since March 2005, the Joint Research Centre provides scientific and technical support to DG Enterprise and Industry in the frame of Administrative Arrangements on the Eurocodes, developing and maintaining a Database with the Nationally Determined Parameters (NDPs Database). The NDPs Database acts as a platform for notification to the European Commission by the Member States on the adopted values of the NDPs and constitutes the basis for the analysis of the NDPs, contributing to the definition of strategies tending to achieve further harmonization of the Eurocodes. This paper presents an overview of the already uploaded NDPs in the Database, mainly for Eurocode 8 (EN 1998), and the results of a preliminary statistical analysis of the uploaded NDPs and their divergences from the recommended values (RVs) supplied by the Eurocodes. The analysis should be considered as preliminary, since the available data represents approximately 30% out of all expected NDPs for Eurocode 8 and cannot be treated as final. Nevertheless, few divergences were found in the uploaded parameters, indicating a tendency of acceptance of the recommended values, thus facilitating the process to the harmonization of the national choices and to the reduction of the number of the NDPs in the next generation of Eurocodes.

RAPOSO DE M. DO N. E S. DE SOTTO MAYOR Maria Luisa;  DIMOVA Silvia;  PINTO VIEIRA Artur;  KAMENAROVA Borislava Nikolova; 

2015-01-05

European Association of Earthquake Engineering & European Sesimological Comission

JRC89716