The European Manual for in-situ Assessment of the Earthquake Resistance of Important Existing Structures consists of Part I: Training and Part II: Practical Application and focuses on state of the art methods and innovative procedures for the assessment of the following important existing structures:
• Buildings whose integrity during earthquakes is of vital importance for civil protection, e.g. hospitals, fire stations, power plants, telecommunication facilities, etc. (importance class IV according to EN1998-1:2005)
• Bridges of critical importance for maintaining communications, especially in the immediate post-earthquake period, bridges where failure is associated with a large number of probable fatalities and major bridges, where a design life greater than normal is required (importance class III according to EN 1998-2:2005)
• Buildings whose seismic resistance is of importance in view of the consequences associated with a collapse, e.g. schools, assembly halls, cultural institutions, etc. (importance class III according to EN1998-1:2005)
• Industrial facilities, where secondary risks exist, e.g. the risk of release of toxic and/ or explosive materials
• Cultural heritage These structures must remain greatly undamaged and serviceable after an earthquake.
In order to achieve this goal a pre-earthquake phase involving investigations, structural analysis and safety assessment is required. The results of this activities provide the “state of consistence” of the structure and allow to plan and undertake measures for seismic upgrading in due time, if necessary. Normally the highest level of knowledge is necessary to afford safety assessments for such structures and it is attained by setting a detailed, often 3D, structural model, based on careful surveys and updated by using measured insitu dynamic properties. It is one of the basic ideas of SP5 to integrate experimental techniques into the assessment procedure, which is an advantage one has in the case of existing buildings