FEUP participates in European project to minimize damage in the event of earthquakes
INNOVATION AND FUTURE
With 5 million euros of funding, the LIQUEFACT project has enabled the development of innovative solutions to deal with soil liquefaction induced by seismic activity.
FEUP HIGHLIGHTS 2020 FACULTY OF ENGINEERING - UNIVERSITY OF PORTO
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Text: Raquel Pires Photo: reserved rights
T
he shocking figures do not deceive: in the last decade alone, earthquakes have been the deadliest of all European disasters, causing almost 19,000 deaths and direct economic losses of approximately 29 billion euros. Soil liquefaction induced by seismic activity results in the loss of rigidity and resistance of the massive blocks that support the foundations of buildings and transport infrastructures, protective dikes, bridge abutments, and pipes carrying water, hydrocarbons, sewage, and so on. This in turn has a dramatic effect on the resumption of activity for the populations affected by such disasters, that is, loss of resilience. The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), under the leadership of António Viana da Fonseca, Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, formed a consortium with five other European partner countries - Slovenia, the UK, Italy, Norway and Turkey - and set up the LIQUEFACT project, which met with the highest approval rating. The project has received over five million euros in funding (of which 500 thousand were distributed to FEUP) through the European program Horizon 2020. Research began in May 2016 and was conducted over 42 months, with a systematic macro-level analysis of the European territory in danger of seismic liquefaction as well as detailed micro-zoning studies of four critical regions in Slovenia, Italy,
Turkey and Portugal. Here, the test case selected was the left-bank region of the River Tagus in the Municipalities of Benavente and Vila Franca de Xira, as they were both heavily affected in the 1909 earthquake. This project has seen the development of innovative procedures to be able to identify clearly and efficiently the vulnerability (fragility) of built structures and infrastructures and to suggest advanced engineering solutions, with an optimized cost-benefit ratio, to maintain their activity, as well as assess the viability of new investments, taking this risk into account. A digital platform tool was created to apply these procedures. The more holistic and general approach taken by LIQUEFACT allows for a more comprehensive understanding of EILDs (“Earthquake Induced Liquefaction Damages”) adapted to each specific scenario, with regard both to Europe and the rest of the world. Reaching completion at the end of October 2019, the project was considered to have been extremely positive. The project team and its assessors believe that effective application of the tools developed, both in Europe and abroad, can improve societal resilience in an upcoming earthquake-induced liquefaction event. This will be the case as long as the public bodies responsible and companies involved in public safety and welfare fully digest these findings. liquefact.eu
