Improving community Resilience through Experimentally validated tools for assessing the performance of Structures under Earthquake and Tsunami hazards

Several coastal communities across Europe and the entire globe are exposed to earthquake triggered tsunami hazards.

Past EU projects on the tsunami risk assessment highlighted the significant gaps in existing knowledge in the relatively new tsunami engineering field regarding the fragility of buildings and critical infrastructures to such hazards.

The iRESET project looks at filling the gaps in fundamental knowledge about the physical behaviour of buildings hit by tsunami flows and by sequential earthquakes and tsunami (E&T). iRESET is conceived in a multi-hazard vision, combining load-histories from hydraulic tests with an innovative quasi-static structural testing procedure (with novel test set-up and load protocols) able to simulate the tsunami-induced loads on large-scale sub-structures and to experimentally investigate the performance of structures under sequential earthquake and tsunami loads.

The project covers aspects of multi-hazard risk assessment, fluid dynamics and civil/structural/coastal engineering.

Furthermore, the proposed new testing methodology is highly transversal and could be adopted for other natural hazards such as floods, slow landslides and storm surges, representing a unique experimental resource for the EU.

This proposal includes a strong two-way transfer of knowledge between the experienced researcher (ER) and the host institution, a wide dissemination plan and will have a strong impact on the ER future academic career, giving the chance to achieve a strategic position among the international scientific community, becoming a leading expert in the tsunami engineering field in Europe and worldwide.

The results will contribute to an improved European capacity for the assessment and management of tsunami and E&T risk.

This is in line with the EU policy priorities focusing on creating a resilient and stable society against disasters toward a successful implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.