Seismic Resilience of Existing Infrastructure: Mitigation Schemes for Soil–Structure Systems Subjected to Shaking and Faulting, and Crisis Management System

Major seismic events in populated areas may result in severe direct and indirect losses. Infrastructure damage can have a direct impact on the quality of life and the economy of the affected region. Even if new infrastructure could be constructed to be immune to natural disasters, the vast majority of existing networks would be operating at sub-standard—if not unsafe—service levels, calling for immediate to enhance the resilience of existing infrastructure systems. Within this context, the chapter presents some recent advances in the development of innovative seismic hazard mitigation solutions. Focusing on the enhancement of resilience of existing infrastructure, it deals with three different components of the seismic problem: (a) seismic shaking; (b) seismic faulting; and (c) post-seismic crisis management. In the first case, a novel seismic retrofit technique is presented, taking advantage of nonlinear soil-structure interaction to increase seismic resilience. In the second case, the resilience against large tectonic deformation is enhanced by installing “smart” barriers and sacrificial members. In the last case, a rapid response system is outlined, aiming to enhance post-seismic resilience by allowing optimized response and swift post-seismic recovery.