RAPID: Proposal for Systematic Building Data Documentation following the February 27, 2010 Chile Earthquake

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On Saturday, February 27, 2010 at 03:34 am local time (06:34:14 UTC), a Mw 8.8 earthquake struck the central south region of Chile, affecting an area with a population exceeding eight million people. This earthquake caused damage to buildings, highways, railroads, ports, airports, and other facilities due to ground shaking, liquefaction, and tsunami. Chile is a country that, in response to a history of frequent strong earthquakes, has developed and implemented building standards aimed at achieving earthquake safe construction. Many of the Chilean standards are adopted from standards in use in the United States. Although the majority of buildings performed well, an estimated 50 mid-rise concrete buildings sustained damage requiring extensive repair or demolition. By studying these buildings, U.S. engineers can improve modeling, analysis, and design methodology for U.S. buildings. The purpose of this RAPID is to travel to Chile to conduct a systematic effort to recover perishable data from a sample of heavily damaged or collapsed mid-rise concrete buildings, including building drawings and specifications, materials samples, and detailed damage documentation. The results will be archived and made available to academic researchers and practitioners for detailed study. This data gathering is urgent because several of these buildings will be demolished within the next several months.The intellectual merit of this field investigation lies in the development of rapid data collection techniques and preparation of data for online archiving using the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) (http://www.nees.org) data archive or other data archiving opportunities. As a real-world laboratory, Chile can serve as a complement to the laboratories of NEES. By using selected field equipment of NEES laboratories, this project will test their applicability to post-earthquake data gathering.The broader impacts of the proposed program are extensive. The field investigation will gather fundamental data from full-scale structures subjected to strong, long-duration shaking, and the results will be available to other researchers and practitioners to conduct detailed studies on aspects such as modeling, simulation including collapse, soil-foundation-structure interaction, and design methodology. The project team will collaborate with Chilean academics, students, and practitioners, thereby enhancing international research collaborations including exchange of important data, potentially including the earthquake strong motion recordings. The results of the program will be disseminated in several ways, including: by sharing results using the NEES capabilities, by involving earthquake professionals, and by presenting results at professional meetings and in journal papers. The results will benefit society through the means noted above, most directly by providing data for studies helping define appropriate engineering design requirements for earthquake-resistant buildings in the United States. Graduate and undergraduate student experiences will be enhanced by active participation in the activity including collaboration with overseas researchers.This award is part of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).