This open access book originates from an international workshop organized by Turkish Natural Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) in November 2019 that gathered renown researchers from academia, representatives of leading international reinsurance and modeling companies as well as government agencies responsible of insurance pricing in Turkey. The book includes chapters related to post-earthquake damage assessment, the state-of-art and novel earthquake loss modeling, their implementation and implication in insurance pricing at national, regional and global levels, and the role of earthquake insurance in building resilient societies and fire following earthquakes. The rich context encompassed in the book makes it a valuable tool not only for professionals and researchers dealing with earthquake loss modeling but also for practitioners in the insurance and reinsurance industry.

1.1. SAFETY OF CIVIL STRUCTURES Society expects that the failure of civil structures is extremely rare and relies on the care and expertise of the professionals involved in the design, construction and maintenance of structures. This is in particular true for public technical systems such as transportation or energy supply systems and structures such as bridges. Structural safety may be defined as follows: “Adequate safety with respect to a hazard is ensured provided that the hazard is kept under control by appropriate measures or the risk is limited to an acceptable value. Absolute safety is not achievable.” It is thus not the structure as such that is designated safe but rather the people, goods and the environment in its surroundings. The continued use of existing structures is of great importance because the built environment is a huge economic and political asset, growing larger every year. Nowadays evaluation of the safety of existing structures is a major engineering task, and structural engineers are increasingly called upon to devise ways for extending the life of structures whilst observing tight cost constraints. Also, existing structures are expected to resist against accidental actions although they were not designed for. Engineers may apply specific methods for evaluation in order to preserve structures and to reduce a client’s expenditure. The ultimate goal is to limit construction intervention to a minimum, a goal that is clearly in agreement with the principles of sustainable development.

A comprehensive resource that builds a bridge between engineering disciplines and the building sciences and trades, Forensic Engineering: Damage Assessments for Residential and Commercial Structures provides an extensive look into the world of forensic engineering. With a focus on investigations associated with insurance industry claims, the book describes methodologies for performing insurance-related investigations including the causation and origin of damage to residential and commercial structures and/or unhealthy interior environments and adverse effects on the occupants of these structures. Edited by an industry expert with more than 30 years of experience, and authors with more than 100 years of experience in the field, the book takes the technical aspects of engineering and scientific principles and applies them to real-world issues in a non-technical manner. It provides readers with the experiences, investigation methodologies, and investigation protocols used in, and derived from completing thousands of forensic engineering investigations. It begins with providing a baseline methodology for completing forensic investigations and closes with advice on testifying as an expert witness. Much of what must be known in this field is not learned in school, but is based upon experience since recognizing the cause of a building system failure requires a blending of skills from the white collar and blue collar worlds. Such knowledge can be vital since failures (e.g., water entry) often result from construction activities completed out of sequence.. This book details proven methodologies based on over 7,000 field investigations, methodologies which can be followed by both professionals and laymen alike.

In Structural Condition Assessment, editor-in-chief Robert T. Ratay gathers together the leading people in the field to produce the first unified resource on all aspects of structural condition assessment for strength, serviceability, restoration, adaptive reuse, code compliance, and vulnerability. Organized by the four main stages of a structural evaluation, this book provides an introduction to structural deterioration and its consequences, the business and legal aspects of conducting an evaluation, initial survey and evaluation techniques for various structures, and specific tests for five of the most common structural materials (concrete, steel, masonry, timber and fabric.)

Any structural system in service is subject to age-related deterioration, leading to potential concerns regarding maintenance, health & safety, environmental and economic implications. Condition assessment of aged structures is an invaluable, single source of information on structural assessment techniques for marine and land-based structures such as ships, offshore installations, industrial plant and buildings. Topics covered include: - - Current practices and standards for structural condition assessment - - Fundamental mechanisms and advanced mathematical methods for predicting structural deterioration - - Residual strength assessment of deteriorated structures - - Inspection and maintenance of aged structures - - Reliability and risk assessment of aged structuresProfessionals from a broad range of disciplines will be able to gain a better understanding of current practices and standards for structural condition assessment or health monitoring, and what future trends might be. - Single source of information on structural assessment techniques for marine and land-based structures - Examines the residual strength and reliability of aged structures - Assesses current practices covering inspection, health monitoring and maintenance

This book covers some of the most recent developments and application potentials in structural health assessment for non-experts in the subject. Among topics addressed are sensor types, platforms and data conditioning for practical applications, wireless collection of sensor data, sensor power needs and on-site energy harvesting, long-term monitoring of structures, uncertainty in collected data, and future directions in structural health assessment.

This volume contains the proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Damage Assessment of Structures DAMAS 2019, 9-10 July 2019, Porto, Portugal. It presents the expertise of scientists and engineers in academia and industry in the field of damage assessment, structural health monitoring and non-destructive evaluation. The proceedings covers all research topics relevant to damage assessment of engineering structures and systems including numerical simulations, signal processing of sensor measurements and theoretical techniques as well as experimental case studies.

Inspection is crucial to the management of ageing infrastructure. Visual information on structures is regularly collected but very little work exists on its organised and quantitative analysis, even though image processing can significantly enhance these inspection processes and transfer real financial and safety benefits to the managers, owners and users. Additionally, new opportunities exist in the fast evolving sectors of wind and wave energy to add value to image-based inspection techniques. This book is a first for structural engineers and inspectors who wish to harness the full potential of cameras as an inspection tool. It is particularly directed to the inspection of offshore and marine structures and the application of image-based methods in underwater inspections. It outlines a set of best practice guidelines for obtaining imagery, then the fundamentals of image processing are covered along with several image processing techniques which can be used to assess multiple damage forms: crack detection, corrosion detection, and depth analysis of marine growth on offshore structures. The book provides benchmark performance measures for these techniques under various visibility conditions using an image repository which will help inspectors to envisage the effectiveness of the techniques when applied. MATLAB® scripts and access to the underwater image repository are included so readers can run these techniques themselves. Practising engineers and managers of infrastructure assets are guided in image processing based inspection. Researchers can use this book as a primer, and it also suits advanced graduate courses in infrastructure management or on applied image processing.

Serving as a comprehensive resource that builds a bridge between engineering disciplines and the building sciences and trades, Forensic Engineering: Damage Assessments for Residential and Commercial Structures, Second Edition provides an extensive look into the world of forensic engineering. Focusing on investigations associated with insurance industry claims, the book describes methodologies for performing insurance-related investigations, including the causation and origin of damage to residential and commercial structures and/or unhealthy interior environments and adverse effects on the occupants of these structures. Edited by an industry expert with more than 40 years of experience and contributors with more than 100 years of experience in the field, the book takes the technical aspects of engineering and scientific principles and applies them to real-world issues in a nontechnical manner. The book provides readers with the experiences, investigation methodologies, and investigation protocols used in and derived from thousands of forensic engineering investigations. FEATURES Covers 24 topics in forensic engineering based on thousands of actual field investigations Provides a proven methodology based on engineering and scientific principles, experience, and common sense to determine the causes of forensic failures pertaining to residential and commercial properties Includes references to many codes, standards, technical literature, and industry best practices Illustrates detailed and informative examples utilizing color photographs and figures for industry best practices as well as to identify improper installations Combines information from a multitude of resources into one succinct, easy-to-use guide This book details proven methodologies based on over 10,000 field investigations in which the related strategies can be practically applied and appreciated by both professionals and laymen alike.

A critical review of key developments and latest advances in Structural Health Monitoring technologies applied to civil engineering structures, covering all aspects required for practical application Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) provides the facilities for in-service monitoring of structural performance and damage assessment, and is a key element of condition based maintenance and damage prognosis. This comprehensive book brings readers up to date on the most important changes and advancements in the structural health monitoring technologies applied to civil engineering structures. It covers all aspects required for such monitoring in the field, including sensors and networks, data acquisition and processing, damage detection techniques and damage prognostics techniques. The book also includes a number of case studies showing how the techniques can be applied in the development of sustainable and resilient civil infrastructure systems. Structural Health Monitoring of Large Civil Engineering Structures offers in-depth chapter coverage of: Sensors and Sensing Technology for Structural Monitoring; Data Acquisition, Transmission, and Management; Structural Damage Identification Techniques; Modal Analysis of Civil Engineering Structures; Finite Element Model Updating; Vibration Based Damage Identification Methods; Model Based Damage Assessment Methods; Monitoring Based Reliability Analysis and Damage Prognosis; and Applications of SHM Strategies to Large Civil Structures. Presents state-of-the-art SHM technologies allowing asset managers to evaluate structural performance and make rational decisions Covers all aspects required for the practical application of SHM Includes case studies that show how the techniques can be applied in practice Structural Health Monitoring of Large Civil Engineering Structures is an ideal book for practicing civil engineers, academics and postgraduate students studying civil and structural engineering.