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Newsletter Eefit ISSN 0967-859X THE SOCIETY FOR EARTHQUAKE AND S CIVIL ENGINEERING DYNAMICS E SECED E NEWSLETTER Volume 23 No 2 D November 2011 In this issue The following article appeared first inProceedings of the ICE - Forensic EEFIT – the UK Earthquake Engineering (August 2011). It is reproduced with permission. Engineering Field Investigation Team 1 Great East Japan Earthquake: Nuclear accident and lessons in resilience 7 EEFIT Notable Earthquakes April – June 2011 13 The UK Earthquake Engineering Pile design in seismic areas 14 Field Investigation Team Forthcoming events 20 EEFIT report on Haiti earth- quake 20 Edmund Booth Sean Wilkinson Consultant University of Newcastle Robin Spence Matthew Free Tiziana Rossetto Cambridge Architectural Research Ove Arup & Partners University College London University of Cambridge Antecedents of EEFIT Ambraseys studied the Skopje earthquake of 1963 and Field investigations of earthquakes by British engineers and five other events for UNESCO (Ambraseys, Moinfar and scientists have a long history dating back to Robert Mallet Tchalenko, 1986) and his many and significant contribu- (1820 – 1880) and John Milne (1880 – 1940) (Muir Wood, tions to the discipline of engineering seismology drew on 1988). In our own time, Nicholas Ambraseys of Imperial his extensive experience of earthquake field missions. College London was a pioneer in recognizing the value of Other UK engineers, too, were carrying out field mis- field missions in grounding the often abstract discipline sions, and the direct origin of EEFIT lay in an investigation into hard reality. He wrote: of the 1980 earthquake in Irpinia, Italy (Spence et al 1982). The Irpinia mission led to the realization of the value of “There is little room in Engineering Seismology carrying out field investigations as soon as possible after for ‘armchair seismologists’. Field study (...) helps the the event, and the consequent need to have a team of engi- young engineer choose his line of research on realistic neers ready to mobilize at short notice, with the attendant grounds and with enthusiasm.” (Ambraseys, 1988). procedures and funding sources in place. The mission also gave rise to the main guiding principles of EEFIT. SECED Newsletter Vol. 23 No. 2 November 2011 | For updates on forthcoming events go to www.seced.org.uk 1 Setting up and running EEFIT earthquake is as follows. The EEFIT management com- In 1982, a small group of engineers met to discuss and agree mittee decides whether it might merit EEFIT investiga- the formation of a UK based earthquake field investigation tion; if so, the secretariat e-mails all members, asking for team (Booth, 1984). EEFIT’s founding objectives, essen- expressions of interest in joining a possible field mission. tially unaltered today, stated that its purpose was to enable The management committee, usually meeting by telephone British earthquake engineers, architects and scientists to conference, then decides whether or not a mission is justi- collaborate with colleagues in earthquake prone countries fied, and, if so, who should be chosen to participate from in the task of improving the seismic resistance of both tra- those expressing interest. Each team member is required to ditional and engineered structures. Training of engineers sign a form committing, inter alia, to assisting with timely through observing how full scale structures actually re- publication of the mission report. During the mission, a sponded to ground motions was subsequently added as a UK Base Contact engineer acts to provide liaison and sup- key objective. These goals were to be achieved principally port to the team. The most recent mission also produced a by conducting field investigations following major damag- risk assessment and security plan, with assistance from the ing earthquakes and reporting to the local and internation- international charity RedR – Engineers for Disaster Relief al engineering community on the performance of ordinary (www.redr.org). These arrangements have resulted in effec- civil engineering and building structures under seismic tive working of the teams, but no doubt will continue to loading. The intention was to field a survey team within a evolve. few weeks of the event. Collaboration between the univer- sity and consulting communities was a major considera- Funding tion from the outset. The direct cost of running EEFIT has been small; the An obvious course of action would have been to inte- Institution of Structural Engineers provides secretarial and grate EEFIT into the UK’s earthquake engineering society banking support from their own resources, and the cost SECED (www.SECED.org.uk), following the pattern of the of producing field reports has been low. These costs have US’s Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) been met by membership subscriptions (currently not and its Learning from Earthquakes program. For various more than £15 per year, with student membership free) and rather English reasons of compromise and circumstance, by corporate sponsorship; current and past sponsors are this course was not followed. However, relationships be- listed in Appendix A. tween EEFIT and SECED have always been very close and Funding is mainly needed for the expenses of mount- supportive; with many EEFIT members being SECED ing field missions. The employers of practising engineers members as well, it would have been strange otherwise, have met the travel and other costs of their members, while and the two societies have run in an entirely complemen- generally continuing to give them a salary. The willing- tary and mutually supportive fashion. Rather than being a ness – indeed, eagerness – of consulting engineers to sup- sub-group of SECED, EEFIT evolved along different lines; port their employees in this way is a testimony to EEFIT’s initially it was run as an independent society on an ad hoc, perceived value. The expenses of academic members have volunteer basis, but at the end of the 1980’s, after EEFIT been met by grants from the UK Government’s Engineering had successfully published reports on about half a dozen and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC, formerly field missions, the Institution of Structural Engineers ap- SERC). An absolutely crucial element in EEFIT’s success proached EEFIT with the offer to take over administrative has been the EPSRC’s willingness to expedite rapidly the aspects, and this offer was enthusiastically accepted. An grant application process for field missions. Reviewing, independent volunteer management committee continues and deciding on, whether to fund a research grant is nor- to set policy and decide on the details of field missions, mally a long drawn out process taking many months, but with the Institution providing secretarial and other sup- approval to fund EEFIT missions has been provided within port. This has been a very beneficial relationship; EEFIT a few weeks, and sometimes less, of submitting the grant gains from the professional support and the high profile application, making it possible to mount a field mission that the Institution’s leading international standing gives it. soon after an earthquake. New arrangements with EPSRC, The Institution manages EEFIT’s website (www.EEFIT.org. described below, promise to allow even more rapid and ef- uk), on which all of the field mission reports are now post- fective response. ed as freely downloadable pdf documents. The Institution benefits in fulfilling part of its learned society role, particu- EEFIT’s achievements larly in an international context, by support of a topic of Between 1982 and 2010, EEFIT produced reports on 25 great importance to many of its members, especially those earthquakes and two more are in preparation (Figure 1 and overseas. Table 1). Most of the significant events of the last quarter As EEFIT gained in experience, the professionalism of century have been covered and 101 engineers, with affili- setting up and conducting field missions has developed ations almost equally split between industry and acade- and increased. The procedure following a major damaging mies, have participated in its missions. It has collaborated 2 For updates on forthcoming events go to www.seced.org uk | SECED Newsletter Vol. 23 No. 2 November 2011 Figure 1. Some EEFIT report covers with other international field teams, include groups from earthquake satellite imagery and holds geo-referenced France, Italy, the US, Chile, Peru and New Zealand. pictures of damage and field observations made by the EEFIT will never have the resources or clout available to EEFIT team. its counterparts in the US (and elsewhere), so is the effort 6. Important information brought back from field mis- that goes into keeping it going justified? The financial sup- sions has been disseminated to the rest of the profession port given to EEFIT from both industry and government by means of meetings and reports. The meetings often funding bodies is evidence that it is. The main achieve- generate intense debate; a memorable one, following the ments of EEFIT are considered to be the following. Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004, concerned the value 1. Perhaps the most important achievement (following of tsunami warning versus tsunami resistant design. Nick Ambraseys’ remarks quoted at the start of this 7. EEFIT has lent credibility to the commitment to, and paper) has been the training of over one hundred UK involvement in, earthquake engineering by the UK, a based engineers and scientists. Aspects of earthquake country not noted for its high seismicity. This has been engineering are highly complex, and it is so easy to lose important for the academic community, for exam- sight of the reality of the subject among these complexi- ple in gaining government support for major research ties. There is nothing like the experience of seeing the initiatives, such as those at Bristol University, Oxford often disturbing consequences of a major earthquake and Cambridge Universities, and University College on structures and those who live around them to rebal- London. It has also been valuable to the UK consulting ance one's approach and ground it in practical reality.
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