Program Overview
Overview
Kobe University has continually provided technological support for region-based earthquake recovery, as a national university located in the region devastated by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that struck in 1995.
From the “planning” perspective, Kobe University has been deeply involved in long-term post-disaster recovery planning research and practice following the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and has formed a research center that focus on disaster reduction research.
From the “hardware/physical” perspective, Kobe University and National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) possess substantial research potential in regards to the clarification of the mechanisms of earthquake damage to full-size structures or to the development of high functioning vibration control structures, which are only possible in Japan. Examples include a high-function shaking table that can be used to perform on-line hybrid earthquake response testing (Real-time Hybrid Simulation (RTHS)) at Kobe University, or E-D efense, the world's largest full-size three-dimensional seismic testing table, which is operated by NIED.
In the United States, which is a world leader in cutting-edge research on earthquake disaster prevention and seismic engineering, on the other hand, researchers at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which has a large structure testing system, at the University of Southern California (USC) that has undertaken initiatives in next-generation vibration control research, and a research group at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and University of Washington (UW) are extremely interested in joint international research using Kobe University's RTHS or E-D efense and in the application of their test data. At the same time, a research team at Texas A&M University (TAMU), which has led a research on post-disaster recovery and planning for community resilience, has expressed its interest for international research collaboration with the Kobe University research team.
Research Goals
When we defines the goal of disaster reduction and recovery as enhancing resilience of our society, the built environment becomes one of the important target for research in order to understand its mechanism. Grand design for resilience on a million-year scale is essential for pursuing livable and sustainable cities. In light of past experience of recovery and restoration from mega disasters that have struck large cities, research on earthquake disaster prevention intended to build the society of the future will be achieved by two elements: “Planning for the built environment resilience” and “Resilient city infrastructures ”.
The goal of this research project plan is for Kobe University + NIED and top class researchers who study earthquake disaster prevention and seismic engineering, and disaster restoration in the United States to cooperatively form an advanced research community to study how to provide future urban societies with safe and secure functions by undertaking research on resilience in the built environments from mega disaster.
Final Objective
The final objective is to introduce initiatives to promote international research and at the same time, to gain the ability to propose international joint research through an international researchers' network by forming an “International Research Community” that will create the “Grand Design for Resilience of the Built Environment”, which has been formed through the execution of this project.