Earthquake Engineering

The seismic damage done to the lives of people all around the world is almost incomprehensible.

One would only have to look at recent seismic incidences; the Japan and Haiti disasters shocked the world in 2011 and 2010, as did the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004, as well as many other seismic incidences around the world.

Between the aforementioned three incidents alone, over 500,000 people were killed and a further 2.6 million people left homeless, demonstrating how catastrophic these natural disasters can become.

Trends also imply extreme events such as this will become more regular emphasising the need for reliable estimates of the design demands on buildings and structures during earthquakes, as well as rapidly deployable, semi permanent, safe structures.

Researchers in NUI Galway work very closely with international partners on many projects through EU Framework Programme 7 and other vehicles to develop simulation methods that produce reliable estimates of the design demands on buildings and structures during earthquakes. The research will lead to the development of a simplified assessment approaches for structural systems that can be used by design engineers.

At NUI Galway, novel systems and components are being investigated and developed to improve the response of building structures during earthquakes.

Furthermore, important research into novel methods to monitor the condition of building structures during and after earthquakes is also ongoing at NUI Galway.