APPLICATIONS OF ENERGY DISSIPATION TECHNOLOGIES IN RECONSTRUCTION AFTER 2008 WENCHUAN EARTHQUAKE

摘要

On May 12, 2008 a magnitude of MW 8.0 earthquake hit Wenchuan in China. The earthquake engineering specialists' reaction to the earthquake can be divided into two stages. At the first stage, immediately following the event, they spent day to day in the field surveying the damage to buildings and evaluating the performance of structures. Based on those results, the second stage for the post-quake reconstruction started. Earthquake engineering experts devoted themselves to designing the new buildings and strengthening the damaged buildings.In the design of new buildings, new national codes were published with higher protection levels of earthquake ground motions in the quake-hit area and sustainable development concept was applied by using recycled materials of building waste to avoid further damages to environment in the area of strong earthquakes. In the retrofitting of the damaged buildings, energy dissipation devices are more acceptable than before by decision-makers for its high performance.