EPICentre team participating in the new UKIERI funded project "Seismic Design and Fragility Assessment of Retrofitted Structures"

Dr Fabio Freddi has been awarded a collaborative, international research grant UKIERI (UK-India Education and Research Initiative) in collaboration with Dr Jayadipta Ghosh (Indian Institute of Technology - IIT Bombay) to investigate the topic of retrofit methods for reinforced concrete structures accounting for the influence of aftershocks and parameters uncertainty.

The project is also supported by Dr Carmine Galasso from EPICentre and Dr Needhi Kotoky and Dr Meera Raghunandan from IIT Bombay.

This project aims to go beyond conventional approaches and defines optimized life-cycle cost design methods that are capable of maximizing the benefit-cost ratio of the retrofit and evaluate the efficacy of dissipative braces as structural retrofit measure. The uncertainty quantification and sensitivity analysis within the proposed framework will expand the knowledge for retrofit design able to reduce building vulnerability with minimum uncertainty. This project aims at delivering an integrated procedure for the design of energy dissipation devices for the seismic retrofitting of existing structures that has the potential to achieve high seismic resilience and simultaneous optimization of economic resources.Buildings designed prior to the introduction of modern seismic design principles are increasingly prone to damage following earthquake events that may lead to high direct and indirect losses. Mitigation of earthquake-induced damage in non-seismically designed structures is achieved using structural retrofitting, wherein key qualities of a good retrofit should include a high benefit-cost ratio from a vulnerability reduction and economic standpoint as well as minimization of output fragility uncertainty. However, some of these aspects are typically ignored in traditional retrofit strategies.

The proposed project provides the ideal platform to utilize the complementary expertise of the lead applicants and promote the mutuality of their respective institutions as well as the two nations - India and UK. Augmenting to the past UKIERI theme, this project provides an essential building block towards the collaborative research framework for structures subjected to extreme loads. Besides the short-term benefits, considering the strength of the two institutions in the field of resilience against extreme events, this collaborative venture fosters the development of long-term collaborations between the two institutes, University College London (UCL) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

The research is under the UGC-UKIERI Joint Research Programme (UKIERI-III) and funded respectively by the British Council and the University Grants Commission respectively for the UK and India side. Only 18 research proposals have been selected for the UKIERI-III call. The full list is provided in the following link: https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/8208920_UGC-UKIERI.pdf

The main goal of UKIERI is to enhance the educational links between India and the UK. UKIERI is being implemented with the aim to bring forth a unique initiative that strengthens the bilateral relationship between India and the UK to set an example of best practice in international collaboration. The initiative is working towards developing programmes that meets the priorities and needs of both India and the UK to bring about a systemic change in the educational sector of both India and the UK. UKIERI is a multi-stakeholder partnership programme supported by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Council, Department for Science and Technology, Department for Employment and Learning, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and University Grants Commission. 

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