Title: Seismic structural health monitoring for civil structures

Organiseres: Maria Pina Limongelli (Politecnico di Milano), Mehmet Celebi (Earthquake Science Center, USGS)

During the last two decades, due to a need and a growing interest in both research and application, seismic structural health monitoring (SHM) has evolved. Numerous monitoring systems installed in structures in various seismic-prone countries utilize real-time or near-real-time responses recorded during strong earthquakes to make informed decisions related to the health of their structures. These data have a strategic importance both for the advancement of knowledge on the behavior and performance of structures under strong seismic actions and for the calibration of realistic and reliable numerical models that are aimed to reproduce the structural behavior and to formulate a diagnosis about possible damages. Furthermore, the possibility to assess the seismic vulnerability based on data recorded on the monitored structure opens new avenues in maintenance policies, shifting from a traditional ‘scheduled maintenance’ to a ‘condition-based maintenance’, carried out ‘on demand' or ‘automatically’, basing on the current structural condition. The aim of this Special Session is to report recent advances in this field and successful applications for civil infrastructures including critical components: buildings, bridges, historical structures, dams, wind turbines, pipelines. The session deals with theoretical and computational issues and applications and welcomes contributions that cover, but are not limited to, seismic SHM algorithms to be applied for identification loading conditions and resulting damage to be detected, requisite strong motion arrays and real time monitoring systems and projects, instrumentation and measurements methods and tools, optimal sensors location, experiments, integration of seismic SHM into concepts and procedures for risk assessment and emergency management.

Such a session will provide a venue for exchange of information to ongoing developments and assess the successes and limited successes of SHM regarding the application addressed.