A Short Course on Practical Seismic Design for New and Existing Structures, organised by the Society for Earthquake and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED) and Imperial College, was held in London from 22 to 24 September. The course, which was sponsored by the European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EAEE) took place in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Imperial College.

The course attracted a total of 77 participants from a total of 16 countries. The 15 overseas participants in the Short Course came from The Netherlands, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Malta, Sweden, Egypt and even China. Another 14 overseas participants were sponsored by SECED having been put forward by their national Associations for Earthquake Engineering affiliated to the EAEE. These delegates were:

Two other EAEE delegates, from Algeria and Egypt, were unfortunately unable to attend on the day of the course.

The course managed to cover a great deal of material in just three days, including the basics of hazard assessment, geotechnical earthquake engineering, method and principles of seismic design, seismic design of reinforced concrete and steel structures and assessment and repair. All of the sections of the course were illustrated with practical examples from engineering projects in which the speakers have been involved. Several points were also illustrated by observations and back analyses from recent earthquakes. These even included data from the earthquakes in Izmit and Athens, which occurred just weeks prior to the course, obtained by members of Earthquake Engineering Field Investigation Team (EEFIT) and Earthquake Field Training Unit (EFTU).

SECED looks forward to welcoming all of the delegates who came from overseas back to London in September 2002 for the Twelfth European Conference on Earthquake Engineering.

J. Bommer