International Seventh Seminar on Seismic Isolation, Passive Energy Dissipation and Active Control of Vibrations of Structures

Assisi, 2-3-4-5 October 2001

 

MAIN ORGANIZERS:

Gruppo di Lavoro sull’Isolamento Sismico (GLIS)

dell’Associazione Nazionale Italiana di Ingegneria Sismica (ANIDIS)

Technical Group 5 on Seismic Isolation of Structures of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EAEE)

With The Patronage Of Regione Dell’umbria 

Sponsored by Enea, Acedis, Banca Dell’umbria, Impresa Generale Di Restauro Pouchain, Istituto Edilizia Residenziale Pubblica Di Perugia

 

1. BACKGROUND

Nowadays, most innovative techniques for the passive control of seismic vibrations - namely base seismic isolation (BSI), passive energy dissipation (PED) and provisional hydraulic coupling (HC) by means of shock transmitters - are considered to be already fully mature technologies of providing a mitigation of seismic damage for civil structures and equipment and have proven to be reliable and cost-effective for many structures such as bridges and viaducts, civil buildings, cultural heritage and critical facilities. With regard to the PED systems, several types of devices were recently developed and optimized, like viscous, elastic-plastic, viscoelastic and electromagnetic systems, as well as systems using shape memory alloys (SMA) and other smart materials.

There are already approximately two thousands applications of BSI, PED and HC in various countries, which concern not only new constructions but also several retrofits of existing important structures, including cultural heritage, as initially judged necessary especially after the Loma Prieta (1989), Northridge (1994) and Kobe (1995) earthquakes and more recently, after those which struck Italy in 1997-98 and Greece, Taiwan, Turkey, Central America and India in the last two years.

It is worthwhile stressing that the innovative anti-seismic techniques are of great interest not only for highly seismic countries, but also for areas characterized by low or moderate seismicity.

The design and behavior experience concerning the large civil buildings and bridges and viaducts provided with base BSI, PED and HC (for which the applications of such innovative anti-seismic systems are the most numerous) is extremely important for widely extending the use of these techniques to other extremely important application fields, like the cultural heritage, regular apartment buildings and industrial facilities, including the nuclear plants and other high risk facilities (e.g. some chemical plants).  In fact, the applications in these fields are not very numerous yet, although some applications to high risk facilities are quite important and several new projects are in a rather advanced development stage.

In addition, the progress of floor seismic isolation and that of active, hybrid and especially, semi-active vibration control techniques, for which important projects are now in progress in various countries, has already led to some promising results, not only for the control of wind-induced vibrations, but also for the seismic protection.

The only remarkable still remaining problems for the innovative passive anti-seismic techniques concern the design rules for structures provided with such systems. In fact, although design rules or guidelines are now available in most countries, they are still different in the different countries, frequently still penalize the use of the innovative anti-seismic systems with respect to the conventional design and their application still requires heavy approval processes. For the non-passive control systems the problems are even worse: in fact, these techniques are not considered by design rules.

International cooperation and detailed exchange of information and experience in both civil field (including cultural heritage) and the industrial (nuclear and non-nuclear) field are extremely important for the correct development and application of all the above-mentioned innovative techniques. To this aim, at San Francisco in 1989, Italian, Japanese and US experts started organizing an International Seminar on the innovative anti-seismic techniques. This first Seminar mainly dealt with BSI of the nuclear reactors. Since then, this Seminar has been held every two years, at Nara (Japan) in 1991, Capri (Italy) in 1993, Santiago (Chile) in 1995, Taormina (Italy) in 1997 and Cheju (Korea) in 1999. The Seminar objectives were gradually extended from the nuclear reactors to the other types of structures and from BSI to the other vibration control techniques. More and more experts from more and more countries and International Institutions (the European Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency) joined the International Organizing Committee. Until the last event of Cheju, the Seminar was organized in conjunction with the International Conferences on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT), in the framework of its Post-Conference events.

This 7th International Seminar, on the contrary, as recommended at Cheju, has been organized as an independent event, based on the great interest in holding it in an area like Umbria Region, which suffered severe earthquake damages in 1997 and where new important applications of the innovative anti-seismic techniques were recently completed or are in progress, and especially at site like Assisi, where the restoration of the worldwide famous “Basilica Superiore di San Francesco” was seismically retrofitted and restored by making use, for the first time in the world, of SMA devices (it is well known that the 1997 earthquake had severely damaged the Basilica, including famous frescos of Cimabue and Giotto).

In addition, the Seminar will be held in the last three and a half days of the week preceding that of the 5th World Congress on Joints, Bearings and Seismic Systems for Concrete Structures, which will take place in Rome on October 7 to 11, 2001.

Similar to the two previous events held in Italy, this 7th Seminar is being organized by the Italian Working Group on Seismic Isolation (GLIS) of the Italian National Association for Earthquake Engineering (ANIDIS) through the sponsorship and patronage of the Italian Agency for New Technology, Energy and the Environment (ENEA), the Government of Umbria Region and other Partners. For the organization of this Seminar, GLIS has been supported by the Task Group 5 on Seismic Isolation of Structures (TG5) of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering (EAEE). Co-organizers are at present ENEA, the European and International Associations for the Control of Structures (EACS and IASC), the Joint Research Center at Ispra (JRC) of the European Commission (EC), the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ferrara and that of Engineering of the University of Perugia, the Orders of Architects and Engineers of Perugia and Terni Provinces (those located in Umbria) and the Italian National Seismic Survey (SSN), together with other Institutions from several countries (Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, P.R. China, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the USA).

The aim of the Seminar is the further strengthening of already established good basis for international collaboration for research, transfer of technology and information, and implementation in practice of base seismic isolation, passive energy dissipation, hydraulic coupling and shape memory alloys, as well as dissemination of information among the population in seismic prone countries to promote implementation of base isolation in retrofitting or new construction of housing.

2. SCOPE

The 7th Seminar is being organized based on the increasing success of the previous ones and according to the recommendations made by participants in the Closing Panel of the last Seminar at Cheju, Korea, 1999. It will provide again an opportunity for the exchange of updated, detailed information concerning the state-of-the-art on the development and applications of the previously mentioned innovative anti-seismic techniques.

Similar to the previous events, topics covered by the Assisi Seminar will be base and floor isolation, passive energy dissipation and provisional hydraulic coupling. In addition, as at Cheju, the development and applications of active, semi-active and hybrid control of seismic and non-seismic vibrations and the critical issues concerning the application of innovative anti-seismic techniques in low and moderate seismic areas will be dealt with.

With regard to the passive control techniques, particular attention will be devoted to the following issues, whose importance was identified at Cheju:

·  Extension of retrofit using the innovative anti-seismic techniques;

·  Improvement of studies concerning innovative systems applicable to cultural heritage;

·  Improvement of knowledge and development of systems for vertical isolation;

·  Promotion of more applications to hospitals and chemical plants and components;

·  Wide extension of application from strategic to apartment buildings;

·  Performance of adequate monitoring;

·  Improvement of knowledge on seismic input, in particular for near-field earthquakes (how correct is this point was confirmed later by the 1999 earthquake in Turkey);

·  Improvement of studies concerning some reliability and uncertainty issues which have not been yet fully analyzed (including scale effects for qualification tests, the behavior of the anti-seismic devices at earthquake levels exceeding the design value and failure modes, at extremely violent beyond design earthquakes, of structures provided with the anti-seismic systems);

·  Consideration of other sources of vibrations which may damage or weaken structures, for instance, traffic.

·  Comparison of design rules and guidelines applicable in the different countries;

·  Issues related to the applications in the low and moderate seismicity areas.

To this aim, differently from previous seminars, after those containing general lectures on state-of-the-art on application and R&D, specific Oral Sessions will be devoted to lectures on the different kinds of structures of interest for application of the innovative anti-seismic techniques (namely: bridges and viaducts; strategic and important buildings such as hospitals emergency management centers and schools; regular apartment buildings; cultural heritage; and high risk nuclear and chemical plants). The main new ongoing R&D projects will also be presented in the Oral Sessions, while more specific but important topics concerning R&D and single applications will be presented in the Poster Session. As suggested at Cheju, invited lectures and contributed papers on applications shall containing sufficiently detailed reference to seismic input, the codes used and problems faced in using them, as well as cost evaluations.

In addition, the proposal made at Cheju, to develop international design guidelines for structures provided with the innovative anti-seismic systems (which also explain such systems correctly and leave official codes out of consideration) will be further discussed and again as suggested at Cheju, a volume collecting the English translations of design rules and guidelines made available to the organizers will be distributed to the participants in the Seminar as a draft and may be published after some months.

Finally, it is worthwhile stressing that the collaborations established for the organization of the Seminar with the Regional Government of Umbria and the local Orders of Architects should ensure the larger participation of governmental officials and designers, with respect to previous seminars, which had been augured at Cheju

3. GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PROGRAM

The Seminar will last three and a half days, starting in the afternoon of Tuesday, October 2, 2001, at 3:30 p.m.

Contacts are in advanced progress with the IAEA to check the feasibility of organizing the Seminar in conjunction with the Final Meeting of the Research Coordinated Program (CRP) of the IAEA on “Intercomparison of Analysis Methods for Predicting the Behaviour of Seismically Isolated Nuclear Structures”. In such a meeting the Final Report of such a CRP, as prepared by its Technical Secretary, should be approved for publication by the Representatives of the participating countries, after being examined and if necessary, updated based on the results of the Seminar. The aforesaid meeting, restricted to the Representatives of the countries  participating in the CRP, should be held in the morning on Saturday, October 6, 2001.

At any rate, a Meeting of Task Group 5 of the EAEE will take place in such a day, which will be opened to all European participants who are interested to join the Task Group and non-European observers, as well. In addition, a Meeting of Subcommittee (SC) 1 of Technical Committee (TC)  167 on “Anti-Seismic Devices” of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) will take place in the morning of October 2, 2001; this meeting will be restricted to the members of CEN TC 167 /SC 1.

The Seminar consists of Oral Sessions, Poster Presentations and the International Exhibition. It should be followed by Technical Visits: in particular, the feasibility of visits to the ”Basilica Superiore di San Francesco in Assisi” on Saturday, October 6, 2001, is been checked by the organizers.

            The Oral Program will consist of invited lectures presented or co-authored by experts from the countries and international Institutions that are the most involved in the development and applications of the new techniques, namely: Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Chinese Taipei, the EC, EACS, France, Germany, Greece, IAEA, IASC, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Portugal, the P. R. China, the Russian Federation, Spain, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the USA. As detailed in Sect. 2, presented in such lectures will be the state-of-the-art of applications and designs in both the civil and the industrial fields, overviews on the ongoing R&D projects and future programs, and observations (if any) of behaviors of structures provided with the innovative systems in actual earthquakes occurred after the last Seminar at Cheju, Korea in 1999, as well as the progress in the development of codes and standards, design rules, seismic input for structures, and cost evaluation. New development of active, semi-active and hybrid control techniques for seismic and non-seismic vibrations and new applications of such techniques, as well as key issues in the application of innovative anti-seismic techniques in low and moderate seismic regions will also be addressed.

            The last part of the Oral Program will be a Closing Panel, followed by Closing Remarks, where experts from the most seismic areas and international Institutions will draw conclusions based on the results of the Seminar works and will make recommendations for future activities, including whether the Seminar shall continue in 2003, and if yes, whether connected to the SMiRT Conference to be held at Prague or not, and where it may be organized: among others, the possibility of holding the 2003 8th Seminar in Vienna (Austria) or Yeravan (Armenia) will be considered. To this aim, it is noted that the American University of Armenia already officially confirmed its proposal to organize the 8th Seminar in Yeravan in 2003.

            In the Closing Panel, decisions will also be taken on the foundation and objectives of the “International Association of Seismic Isolation”, which had been recommended in previous Seminars: this Association may group National Associations or groups of them like the Japanese JSSI,  the “Chinese Committee of Seismic Control of Structures”, the Italian GLIS, etc.  

Poster Presentations and the International Exhibition, organized in parallel to the Oral Sessions, will last the whole Seminar duration. Poster Presentations will concern invited and selected contributed technical papers dealing with specific items of particular interest for the Seminar, such as new R&D on specific topics and single important applications. Poster presentations of design rules applicable in the single countries, which are part of the documents to be published in the already mentioned volume, are also particularly welcome, in order to allow for a first discussion on this topic among the participants. In the International Exhibition displayed will be the general activities and products of research centers, industrial companies and other Institutions. The International Exhibition will be opened to the public, during at least one day.

4. PROCEEDINGS, ABSTRACT VOLUME, VOLUME ON DESIGN RULES

All invited lectures presented in the Oral Sessions and invited or contributed papers presented as Posters (those contributed after acceptance of the International Technical-Scientific Committee) will be published in the Seminar Proceedings (whether on printed volumes or compact disk - CD - will be decided by the organizers at a later date), with the exception of the English translations of design guidelines, which will be collected in a specific volume, to be published after the Seminar, if all contributors agree and if a suitable editor is identified.

All lectures and papers and the related abstracts shall be written in English and shall be made available to the Seminar Technical Secretariat as electronic files, as explained in Sect. 5. Proceedings will be distributed to the participants some months after the Seminar, while an Abstract Volume will be distributed at the Seminar.

5. DEADLINES FOR SUBMITTING EXTENDED ABSTRACTS AND FULL MANUSCRIPTS

All authors of both lectures for the Oral Sessions and papers for the Poster Session are requested to submit EXTENDED ABSTRACTS (including titles of lectures or papers, authors and their affiliations and addresses and approximately 1 page text, typed according to required format, as electronic files, with Format “.doc” (WORD), to the Seminar Technical Secretary (Dr. M. Forni, mailto:forni@bologna.enea.it) within May 15, 2001, in order to allow the International Technical-Scientific Committee to select the contributed papers to be presented in the Poster Session and the organizers to print the Abstract Volume before the Seminar. Acceptance of contributed papers for the Poster Session will be notified to their main authors by June 15, 2001.

All authors of both lectures for the Oral Sessions and papers for the Poster Session are also requested to submit the FULL MANUSCRIPTS (including the contributions for the volume on design rules), again as electronic files, possibly with Format “.pdf” (ADOBE-ACROBAT), otherwise with Format “.doc” (WORD), to the Seminar Technical Secretary (Dr. M. Forni, by e-mail to mailto:forni@bologna.enea.it or by mail on magnetic support) within August 31, 2001, so that photocopies of full paper manuscripts can be made and distributed to the participants at the Seminar. All lectures and papers for the Poster Session and the volume on design guidelines shall be typed again according to required format.

6. OFFICIAL LANGUAGE AND SIMULTANEOUS TRANSLATION

The Seminar official language will be English (all lectures shall be written and presented in English). However, simultaneous translation into Italian and when necessary (for welcome addresses, discussion, etc.), from Italian into English, will be available.

7. SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Second Seminar Announcement, containing information on the updated technical program, will be distributed in September 2001. This First Announcement is available on Internet at the GLIS address http://192.107.65.2/glis; it will be periodically modified to account for the most updated information, by also including the scheduled detailed Seminar Program as soon as this is sufficiently assessed and after June 15, the list of papers to be presented in the Poster Session.

A.Martelli

Seminar Chairman

Phone:          +39-051-6098468

Fax:    +39-051-6098544 / 6098639

E-mail:           mailto:martelli@bologna.enea.it

Full Text of the First Announcement