SPECIAL ISSUE: 2010 LOS ANGELES TALL BUILDINGS STRUCTURAL DESIGN COUNCIL—2010 MAGNITUDE 8⋅8 CHILE EARTHQUAKE

摘要

It is a pleasure to present the seventh annual issue developed by the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design nCouncil. This two part issue is devoted to the Offshore Maule earthquake that shook Central Chile earlier this nyear. These two issues represent signifi cant lessons learned from this earthquake. This earthquake is very signifi -ncant as it presents a unique opportunity to study the effects of a true mega earthquake (with moment magnitude nof 8⋅8) on modern tall buildings designed with contemporary building codes and constructed with modern con-nstruction methods. The building codes and construction methods are similar to those used in the USA so this nevent should be of interest to all structural engineers. This earthquake occurred on the South American subduction nzone, which has uncanny similarities to other similar subduction zones around the world including the Cascadia nsubduction zone off the coast of the Pacifi c Northwest of the USA and Southern British Columbia, Canada; other nsubduction zones include those off of Alaska, Japan, Philippines and Indonesia. Thus, this earthquake gives us nthe fi rst opportunity to develop an understanding of the behaviour of tall buildings to subduction zone events.