Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MULTIRES (MULTI-level framework to enhance seismic RESilience of RC buildings)
Reporting period: 2019-11-01 to 2021-10-31
A seismic-resilient community is one which is leading comprehensive efforts towards mitigation and pre-disaster preparedness to recover quickly after major earthquakes. Common metrics related to seismic resilience refer to earthquake consequences on the built environment in terms of casualties/injuries, direct economic losses due to repairs/reconstruction, and indirect losses due to downtime related to the lost functionality (the so-called three Ds: Deaths, Dollars, Downtime).
Seismic resilience can be increased, for instance, by implementing structural retrofit strategies that reduce seismic vulnerability/expected damage to buildings (‘hard’ solutions) or, for instance, by transferring the risk to the (re)insurance market (‘soft’ solutions). This requires assessing the site-specific earthquake-induced ground shaking (seismic hazard), quantifying building response, estimating earthquake consequences (loss), designing and comparing different resilience-enhancing strategies.
The ambitious main objective of MULTIRES is the development of a multi-level, harmonised, innovative, seismic risk assessment framework for existing RC buildings (individual or portfolios) and the design, selection and implementation of practice-oriented, cost-effective, resilience-enhancing solutions.
The project resulted in 13 published journal papers (gold/green open access) in leading international journals such as Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, Earthquake Spectra, Structural Safety, Engineering Structures, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, and Journal of Structural Engineering. Six more journal papers related to this project are under review or in preparation at the time of end of the action. The project also resulted in ten international conference presentations. Such results overwhelmingly exceed the targets at the time of the proposal writing (three journal papers and three conference presentations). Social media posts have been constantly used to disseminate the results to the public, and give constant updates on the status of the project.
Through research, international collaboration, transfer of knowledge, dissemination, and communication, the Fellowship allowed the Experienced Researcher working towards a scientific and professional maturity, and therefore to an independent research and academic position. Before the end of the action, the Experienced Researcher was offered a full academic position as an assistant professor (lecturer).
The application of this methodology directly responds to the societal demand for earthquake resilience and will help households, structural engineers, and government agencies worldwide. This will allow significant reduction of socio-economic losses associated with strong earthquakes.