Role of Seismic Testing Facilities in Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering





Preface

The Tohoku earthquake that devastated the North-eastern coast of Japan on March 11, 2011 and the smaller, yet also catastrophic, Christchurch (NZ) shock that hit the opposite end of the Pacifi c Rim less than 3 weeks before, were stark reminders of the weakness of humans and their works against the force of nature. These events came almost exactly 1 year after the extraordinary Bio-Bio earthquake in Chile and less than 2 years after the L’Aquila (IT) earthquake, the strongest and deadliest in Europe for almost 10 years. Within the overall picture of disaster left by these events, one can fi nd bright spots. For example, the performance of buildings and civil infrastructures in the Tohoku earthquake looks like a success story, in view of the magnitude of the shock and of the disastrous effects of the 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake on buildings and civil infrastructures in Kobe. By contrast, the collapse of several RC wall buildings in Viña del Mar and Concepción in Chile shook our confi dence to this time-and-again proven type of earthquake resistant construction and our knowledge of it.


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