What if we could minimize financial loss from earthquakes….
Cancelled
Event details
| Date | 29.05.2015 |
| Hour | 12:15 › 13:15 |
| Speaker | Prof. Rajesh Dhakal, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Synopsis
In the last century, seismic design has undergone significant advancements. Starting from the initial concept of designing structures to sustain no or minimal damage during an earthquake, the modern seismic design philosophy allows structures to respond to ground excitations in an inelastic manner, thereby allowing damage in earthquakes that are significantly less intense than the largest possible ground motion at the site of the structure. Current performance-based multi-objective seismic design methods aim to ensure life-safety in large and rare earthquakes and to limit structural damage in frequent and moderate earthquakes. As a result, not many recently built buildings have collapsed and very few people have been killed in 21st century buildings even in large earthquakes. Nevertheless, the financial losses to the community arising from damage and downtime in these earthquakes have been unacceptably high. This has raised a new question; “what if we could minimize financial loss from earthquakes?”
It was well-known before the earthquakes that our old and unreinforced masonry (URM) building stock was seismically deficient and needed urgent intervention to enhance their performance. These buildings were not expected to come out unscathed after such severe shakings. Still, it was very unfortunate that collapse of some of our old buildings resulted in significant loss of life. Nevertheless, modern buildings built in the 21st century using the current design philosophy in general did better than what they were expected to do in much severer shakings than they were designed for. Consequently, some engineers have been (justifiably) claiming that the performance of building stock in the Canterbury earthquakes was generally better than expected. This has perplexed the general public, who has been reading in media the continually growing amount attributed as earthquake induced cost. They may be pondering: “How can the engineers say we have done well? Do we need to go broke before they realize we have failed miserably?” This difference is mainly because of the different expectations of the engineers (life-safety) and the general public (economic consequences). Hence, it is high time that the seismic design objectives be matched in line with public expectations.
In this pretext, the seminar will try to answer the following questions:
What unexpected did we observe in recent earthquakes and did we learn anything new?
Why is current earthquake-resistant design approach unable to minimize loss?
How is structural performance related to loss?
How can we reduce loss from earthquakes?
Where to in future?
Bio : Prof Rajesh Dhakal has a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, Master of Structural Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, and a PhD from Tokyo University, Japan. His research interests are in the areas of seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures; non-structural elements; and seismic loss estimation. He has supervised more than postgraduate (ME/PhD) students and has authored more than 250 technical papers in the areas of reinforced concrete, earthquake engineering, and structural fire engineering. He has received multiple research awards including the prestigious EQC-NZSEE Ivan Skinner award for the advancement of earthquake engineering research in New Zealand. He is a fellow of IPENZ (Institution of Professional Engineers in NZ). He served as an Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering from 2007 to 2013, and is currently the chief Editor of the Bulletin of the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE).
In the last century, seismic design has undergone significant advancements. Starting from the initial concept of designing structures to sustain no or minimal damage during an earthquake, the modern seismic design philosophy allows structures to respond to ground excitations in an inelastic manner, thereby allowing damage in earthquakes that are significantly less intense than the largest possible ground motion at the site of the structure. Current performance-based multi-objective seismic design methods aim to ensure life-safety in large and rare earthquakes and to limit structural damage in frequent and moderate earthquakes. As a result, not many recently built buildings have collapsed and very few people have been killed in 21st century buildings even in large earthquakes. Nevertheless, the financial losses to the community arising from damage and downtime in these earthquakes have been unacceptably high. This has raised a new question; “what if we could minimize financial loss from earthquakes?”
It was well-known before the earthquakes that our old and unreinforced masonry (URM) building stock was seismically deficient and needed urgent intervention to enhance their performance. These buildings were not expected to come out unscathed after such severe shakings. Still, it was very unfortunate that collapse of some of our old buildings resulted in significant loss of life. Nevertheless, modern buildings built in the 21st century using the current design philosophy in general did better than what they were expected to do in much severer shakings than they were designed for. Consequently, some engineers have been (justifiably) claiming that the performance of building stock in the Canterbury earthquakes was generally better than expected. This has perplexed the general public, who has been reading in media the continually growing amount attributed as earthquake induced cost. They may be pondering: “How can the engineers say we have done well? Do we need to go broke before they realize we have failed miserably?” This difference is mainly because of the different expectations of the engineers (life-safety) and the general public (economic consequences). Hence, it is high time that the seismic design objectives be matched in line with public expectations.
In this pretext, the seminar will try to answer the following questions:
What unexpected did we observe in recent earthquakes and did we learn anything new?
Why is current earthquake-resistant design approach unable to minimize loss?
How is structural performance related to loss?
How can we reduce loss from earthquakes?
Where to in future?
Bio : Prof Rajesh Dhakal has a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, Master of Structural Engineering from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, and a PhD from Tokyo University, Japan. His research interests are in the areas of seismic performance of reinforced concrete structures; non-structural elements; and seismic loss estimation. He has supervised more than postgraduate (ME/PhD) students and has authored more than 250 technical papers in the areas of reinforced concrete, earthquake engineering, and structural fire engineering. He has received multiple research awards including the prestigious EQC-NZSEE Ivan Skinner award for the advancement of earthquake engineering research in New Zealand. He is a fellow of IPENZ (Institution of Professional Engineers in NZ). He served as an Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering from 2007 to 2013, and is currently the chief Editor of the Bulletin of the NZ Society for Earthquake Engineering (NZSEE).
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Dr Nikolas Geroliminis & Katrin Beyer
Contact
- Prof. Dr Katrin Beyer