ICUS NEWSLETTER
International Center for Urban Safety Engineering

Institute of Industrial Science
The University of Tokyo

VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3
OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2005

International Center for
Urban Safety Engineering

FROM GROUND SHOCKS TO AIR BLASTS:
MULTIPLE-HAZARDS PROTECTION OF BUILDINGS
By
TSO-CHIEN PAN *
Reflecting the rapid economic
growth and development, manyhigh-rise buildings and complex
infrastructure systems have been
constructed in recent decades inalmost all Mega Cities of Asia. Of
concern is the high concentrationof population and commercial
activities taking place in thesecities. Therefore, the consequencesof even a moderate disaster may beenormous in these cities. Recent
technological development has
motivated the devising of new
methodologies for sustainable
development of Asian Mega Cities
with adequate safety and security.
The importance of using advanced
tools in urban safety has beenrecognized by the International
Center for Urban Safety
Engineering (ICUS). This is theMap of epicentermotivation for ICUS to organize aseries of symposium in the AsianRegion. These symposiums
encourage trilateral communication
among researchers, practitioners
and policy- makers, whereby the
epicenter of this is evidently human
lives. Any improvement of urban
safety serves to better protect thecore of a community – human
lives.

Republic Plaza

page 2

Numerically determined displacement compared with recorded displacement
T h e Fo u r t h I n t e r n a t i o n a l
Symposium on New Technologies
for Urban Safety of Mega Cities in
Asia (USMCA 2005) was held in
Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore, during October 18-19,
2005. It was co-organized byProtective Technology ResearchCenter, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, and ICUS,
IIS, University of Tokyo, Japan.
About 100 participants fromvarious countries were present. The
countries included Australia,
Thailand, Bangladesh, China, Japanand Singapore. The participants
included engineering researchers,
defence scientists, design engineers
a n d m e m b e r s o f g ove r n m e n torganizations. The variation of theparticipant’s background supports
the philosophy of ICUS’s intent for
t h e s e s y m p o s i u m s . Fo r t h i s
symposium, the areas discussed
include safety assessmentand monitoring of existing
infrastructure, threat reduction
and consequence management,
structures subjected to seismic,
shock and impact loads,
environmental impact assessmentof urbanization, tsunamis, flood andenvironmental risk assessments.
During the symposium, the two cochairmen of the symposium, Prof.
Kimiro Meguro and Prof. Pan TsoChien, were interviewed by the
Channel News Asia Television
Station. During the interview, boththe co-chairmen emphasized theneed for the balance between
engineering solutions and theenforcement of these solutions.
Within the Singapore community, the concerns about urban
safety include: (a) the response ofbuildings subjected to far-f ield
earthquake ground motions; (b)ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

damage assessment of buildings
subjected to ground shocks; and (c)blast response of buildings.
FAR-FIELD EARTHQUAKEMOTIONS
Singapore is located in a low
seismicity region of Sunda plate.
The Sumatran fault and theSumatran subduction zone, arelocated more than 350 km away.
While earthquakes have neverp o s e d a ny r e a l p r o bl e m s f o r
Singapore, previous large
earthquakes have induced tremors
felt in Singapore. Like other mega
cities, the lack of free surface land
has prompted the construction oftaller buildings. These taller andflexible buildings may respond
more significantly to long period,f a r- f i e l d e a r t h q u a k e g r o u n dmotions.
On 26 December 2004, theGreat Sumatra-Andaman Islands
Earthquake (Mw = 9.0) occurred
off the northwest coast of Sumatra,Indonesia. The epicenter of thisearthquake is about 916 km westnorthwest from Singapore (figure
in previous page).
Since 1996, one of the tallest
buildings in Singapore, theRepublic Plaza shown in previous
page has been instrumented to
study buildings responses due towinds and far-field earthquakes.
The Republic Plaza is a 66-storey,
280 m high tower consisting of aframe-tube structural system with acentral core wall, in turn connected
to a ring of external columns by ahorizontal steel framing system at
every floor. From ambient vibration
tests, the predominant frequenciesof the building are found to be 0.19
H z a n d 0 . 2 0 H z , i n t h e t wo
horizontal directions.

Accelerometers are installed at
the basement level and the roof
level, along the two principle
directions of the building. The
accelerometers recorded thebuilding vibration during the Great
Sumatra-Andaman Islands
earthquake. The ground signals
recorded at the basement were usedas the input to the finite element
model of the Republic Plaza. Whensubjected to this input groundmotion, the response resultso b t a i n e d n u m e r i c a l ly we r ecompared with the recorded
responses shown in above figure.
At the roof level, the displacement
response obtained by the numericalmethod is reasonably similar to thatof the recorded response.
GROUND SHOCKS
Most mega cities have limited
free space. Singapore’s national
effort is to intensify its land use.
This has prompted under-groundspace development, leading to the
housing of ammunition storages
underground. As a result, groundshocks due to accidental
underground explosions and theireffects on surrounding buildings
are investigated.
Ground shock characteristics
can be segmented into two parts:
the major shock duration (Phase 1)
and the ensuing duration (Phase 2).
I t wa s s h ow n t h a t t h e h i g hfrequency nature of a ground shockleads to a large shear force withsmall deformation during Phase 1,
f o l l owe d by s i g n i f i c a n t
deformation during Phase 2. In
Phase 2, the responses of global
modes are signif icant, and thiswo u l d p o s s i bly c a u s e b e a m column joint failure.

page 3

Damage characteristics of a 6-storey RC frame to ground shocks
For non-seismically designed
beam-column sub-assemblies, it
has been experimentally observedthat the beam-column joints may
fail at an inter-storey drift ratio of
about 3 % of the storey height.
A non-seismically designed 6storey reinforced concrete (RC)frame was subjected to a simulated
ground shock. For the simulated
ground shock, the peak groundacceleration (PGA) is 124 gal, thepeak particle velocity (PPV) is 0.9
m/s and principal frequency isabout 200 Hz. By considering the
failure mechanisms of flexural
failure (FF), diagonal shear failure(SF) and joint failure (JF), thedamage for the 6-storey RC frame
subjected to the simulate groundshock was assessed.
A parametric study was
undertaken which involved thescaling of the PGA, PPV andprincipal frequency of thesimulated g round shock. The

Stresses and deformation for
short standoff

characteristics of the scaled groundshock leading to the various failure
mechanisms, are shown in theabove Figure.
AIR BLASTS
Effects of an air blast explosion
on a high-rise commercial RC
building resulting from a vehicle
bomb at the ground level area,
were investigated. The objective
was to investigate the effect ofstandoff distance on building
damage. The high-rise commercial
building selected for the study wasa 30-storey RC structure withframes and a shear wall core.
For a long standoff distancecase, the defor mation wasconcentrated at the ground column
and the beams of the second andthe third storeys. The beam
deformation was focused at its
ends where local damages
occurred like as the figure below.
However, for a short standoff

Stresses and deformation forlong standoff

distance, the dynamic deformation
was localized at the blastloaded
columns spanning the first and thethird storeys. The beams connectedwith these columns might thus
be damaged. Large residual
deformations were observed forthe blast-loaded columns and thebeams connected to them. Thus,
the beams connected to thesecolumns might be damaged asshown in the figure.
Compared with the case of longs t a n d o ff d i s t a n c e , t h e g l o b a l
response hardly existed in thes h o r t s t a n d o ff d i s t a n c e c a s e .
Furthermore, compared with thecase of long standoff distance, thedamage in the case of short standoff distance was more localized.
CONCLUSIONSIn summary, there is a need toinvestigate systematically theeffects of multiple hazards which
may include both natural and manmade events. In this article, themultiple hazards investigatedcomprised the effects of longdistance major Sumatra earthquakes, ground shocks, and air
blasts. The dynamic response of
the non-seismically designed
building structures in Singapore tothese multiple hazards has shown
varying characteristics.
This will pose a challenge tothe engineering community whomust strike a balance between
safety and economy in designingand constructing a building
structure to resist multiple hazards.
The consequences from any
extreme event of multiple hazards
could be devastating to mega-cities
due to the high concentration of
population and also the high-valueof commercial and f inancial
activities. However, it is importantto realize that the dynamic effects
o f t h e s e eve n t s h ave va r y i n gcharacteristics and frequency ofoccurrence.
* Director, Protective Technology
Research Centre, Nanyang
Technological University,
Singapore

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

page 44th International Symposium on New Technologies for
Urban Safety of Mega Cities in Asia at NTU, Singapore
On October 18-19, 4th International Symposium on New Technologies for Urban Safety of Mega Cities in
Asia was held at Nanyang Executive
Centre, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore. The symposium
was co-organized by ICUS andProtective Technology Research Centre,
School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Nanyang Technological
University, Singapore, and sponsored

by Center for Sustainable Urban
Regeneration, The University of Tokyo,
21st Century Center of Excellence
Program, Ministry of Home Affairs(Singapore), Shimizu Corporation,
CPG Corporation Pte Ltd. and Surbana
International Consultants Pte Ltd..
Seven keynote papers and 63
technical papers were presented. 97
delegates from 12 countries
participated in the symposium.

This symposium provided aplatform for sharing knowledge andforming a network among the Asian
researchers. The number ofparticipants are increasing and thequality of papers are improving at
each new symposium. The next
symposium will be held at Phuket,
Thailand on December 16-17, 2006.
Further details will be announced soon.
(by H.Kanada)

Number of participants per country

Number of presentation

Symposium participants pose for a group photo

RNUS Activities
RNUS Seminar
On October 20, RNUS organizedanother RNUS seminar on ‘Advanced
Technology for Urban Safety – Against
Disaster and Hazardous Environment’.
Four professors from the University ofTokyo were invited to give thepresentation. The presenters were Prof.
T. Uomoto, Prof. R. Amano, Prof. K.
Meguro,and AssociateProf.R.Ooka.
The content of this seminar covers
technologies applicable to prevent
various types of disaster and toevaluate hazardous environmental
condition. There were approximately
80 audiences in this seminar. Not only
staffs and students of AIT but thosefrom other institutes and engineersfrom construction companies alsojoined this event.
Field Trip to New Airport
RNUS held the field trip to the
new international airport of

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

Thailand on October19,2005.The on September 29, 2000 and aname of this new airport were foundation stone laying ceremony
conferred by H.M. the King as was held on January19,2002.
Suvarnabhumi or“GoldenLand”
The field trip which was led by
Dr. Tokuda began with a brief
introduction about the airport
construction and ended with a visit
to the construction of runways andterminals.
Suvarnabhumi airport has an
approximate area of 8,000 acres andis located around 25 km to the east
Prof.W. Kanok-Nukulchai gavea present to Prof. T. Uomoto
from the downtown Bangkok.
There are two 60-m wide parallel
runways (4,000 and 3,700 m.
respectively). Two parallel taxiways
were designed to accommodate
simultaneous departures andarrivals. The annual passenger
capacity is expected to be 45 million
at opening day and 100 million upon
Dr.Tokuda:Chief of Thai Obayaattaining the full capacity.
shi Corp in Suvarnabhumi Airport(by R. Sahamitmongkol)

ICUS PARTICIPA-

page 5

Pakistan and India was Struck
by a M 7.6 Earthquake on October 8, 2005
On October 8, 2005, at 3:50
(UTC), a magnitude 7.6 earthquake,with a focal depth of 26 km, struck the
North of Pakistan and North West ofIndia. Most damaged area is North
Western Frontier Province (NWFP),
and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)in Pakistan. Many cities, towns andvillages were heavily damaged.

Casualties in Pakistan and India(as of November 20, 2005
by UN OCHA Relief Web)

Casualties at schools in AJK,
Pakistan (as of November 20,
2005 by UN OCHA Relief Web)

Damaged buildings in Pakistan(as of November 20, 2005
by UN OCHA Relief Web)

Damaged school buildings in AJK,
Pakistan (as of November 20, 2005
by UN OCHA Relief Web)The statistics of humancasualties and structural damage areprovided in the following tables. Dueto this earthquake, approximately
75,000 people and 77,000 were killed
and injured, respectively. Mainly all
types of masonry structures weredamaged during this earthquake.
This earthquake occurred in a
mountainous area like the 2004 Mid-

Niigata Prefecture Earthquake, Japan.
So the geo-related damage waswidespread. Many roads were broken
and damaged. Therefore, many
people living in mountainous area
were isolated and could not evacuate
and get foods and tents. Military
carried affected people to refugeec a m p s o r m e d i c a l c e n t e r s byhelicopters. They made temporary
heliports at riverbeds and fields andused them.
One of the features of thisearthquake damage was that publicbuildings, especially school buildings
had heavy damage near the epicenter.
So many students and teachers wereaffected (see upper right table). School

Many public buildings were collapsed(Muzaffarabad)

Many large land slides were observed(Muzaffarabad)

Map of Damaged Area
(UN OCHA Relief Web)

Pancake collapse of building(Abbottabad)buildings located not near the
epicenter had also cracks in the walls.
As the earthquake occurred during
school time, students ran away fromclassrooms without their textbook,bags etc. After the earthquake, thestudents did not return to the schools
due to three reasons: “Students do notwant to come to school”; “Theirparents do not send them to school”;
and “Teachers do not want to go toschool”. So it is necessary to provide
psychological support to both students
and teachers and construct emergency
building for schools.
(by Shinya Kondo,
Researcher of Disaster Reductionand Human Renovation
Institution)

Temporary heliport set at dry riverbed(Alai)

Due to fear of earthquake, both students and teachers dislike attending
school even if the structural damage were not so severe (Mansehra)

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

page 6

Potential of Coastal Industry in Tsunami Disaster Reduction
A year has passed since the hugetsunami generated by a M9.0
earthquake off Sumatra devastated
Indian Ocean rim countries. The
number of victims by this event wasreported as over 300,000. However,the number is still unconfirmed evenafter one year due to lack of proper
identity check and a large number ofdead bodies being carried away byhuge waves. Affected countries areseeking a reasonable approach to
improve their preparedness against
tsunami disaster to avoid the sameconsequence in the future.
Most straightforward approachfor tsunami disaster reduction
would be setting back from the coastline. However, it is not always an
acceptable solution for everyone.
As shown in photos, theirlivelihood is inseparably linked toocean. Beach front location whichallows guests good access to waterpleasure, nice ocean view andcomfortable sound of waves is anindispensable factor for resort hotels.
Fishers tend to live just next toshore line. They use beach as adock to maintain fishing boats andequipments, an yard to process thecatch and meeting space withneighbors for f ishers. With thisreality, tsunami warning system(TWS) can be a most practicalsolution.
Meguro Lab., IIS, The Universityof Tokyo has proposed a sustainable

Concept of Sustainable Tsunami
Warning System using MultiPurpose Maritime Observation
TWS concept using Multi-Purpose
Obser vation Buoy Network.
Important characteristics of thissystem are its simplicity, economical
efficiency and daily-usability. Indian
Ocean rim countries have lessresource of technologies, researchersand experiences of tsunami disasters
compared with Pacific Ocean rim
countries. So, it is important formonitoring tsunami which occurs inaround 100-year period continuously
without any interruptions to developa scheme to use and maintain themonitoring system on daily basis.
Industries inherent in coastal area
have strong need to collect various
kinds of information as shown in
middle figure above.Promotion ofcoastal industries and continuous
tsunami monitoring can beaccomplished by adding tsunami
monitoring function on the systemcollecting daily use information.
Minimum unit of the system is
one or two multi-purpose observationb u oy s o p e r a t e d by o n e b e a c hsociety. The cost to maintain thesystem should be shared by the beachleft: resort beach in PhiphiIs., Thailand right: a fishing village in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka

Networked Multipurpose
Buoy Systemsociety, who will receive the mostbenefit from the system. When manybeach societies install the system andjoin the multi-purpose observationb u oy n e t wo r k b eyo n d t h eadministrative or internationalboundary, it must be possible togather marine information neededon daily basis in much larger scale
and to get more advantage before
tsunami arrival even in case oftransoceanic tsunami.
Understanding and cooperationof local leading industries andg ove r n m e n t s a r e e s s e n t i a l t oimplement this kind of plan. We
had opportunities to talk with resort
hotel owners, managers and local
government officers in our fieldsurveys. It was found that hotel
owners and managers who did notreceive physical damage on theirp r o p e r t i e s b u t s u ff e r e d f r o mdecline of guests with harmful
rumors tends to have a strong
interests on our concept. We wish
to implement our concept incooperation with those local
stakeholders and contribute to thetsunami disaster safety in theircountries.
For further information: see
ICUS Report, Report on the 2004
Sumatra Earthquake and Tsunami
Disaster, 2005- 01.
(by Masasuke Takashima,
Lecturer of FujiTokoha University)

INTER MAINTECH 2005
Inter Maintech 2005 was heldfrom November 15 to 18 at Tokyo
International Exhibition Center. This is
the only trade show in Japan which
focuses on diagnosis and repair as wellas maintenance related management
technology from industrial facilities tosocial-capital infrastructure related
facilities such as concrete and steel
structures.
ICUS set up booth and presented
the following research topics;
1. Diagnosis software for concrete
structures (concrete bridges, piled

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

3. Online monitoring system for aging
piers, tunnels)
concrete bridges
2. Development of new technique toOver 400 specialists visited our
detect deleterious substances ofconcrete using NIR spectral imaging booth and were interested in exhibits.
Various publications from ICUS weresystemalso distributed there. Stock ran out due
to heavy demand of ICUS publications.
ICUS will make a presentation at
The 10 Earthquake Technology EXPO
scheduled to take place at PACIFICOYOKOHAMA from February 2 to 3,
2006.Please come and visit our booth.
(by H. Kanada)
Booth of ICUS

ICUS PARTICIPA-

page 7

Open Campus of IIS Chiba Experiment Station
The Institute of Industrial Science(IIS) of the University of Tokyo
organized an open house at its Chiba
Experiment Station on November 11,
2005. There were 651 participants inthis event.
ICUS also participated in thisevent and presented its research
activities. The ICUS topic was“Towards Safety Improvement in
Mega Cities.” Research associate ofI C U S , D r. E n d o g u i d e d a n d
explained the research works to theparticipants.
Elementary school students
from near the experiment station
visited the facilities. They listened
to Dr. Endo intently. They attended
and drew picture on concrete blockat the Uomoto laboratory.
Professor Uomoto, the head of
Chiba Experiment Station gave a
special lecture on “Urban Safety on
Concrete.”(by R. Ooka)

Guidance by Dr. Endo

Special lecture by Prof. Uomoto

ICUS New Staff
ICUS is glad to welcome its new
staff, Dr. Raktipong Sahamitmongkol
who joined ICUS as Researcher from
October 1st, 2005.
He received his Ph.D degree fromthe school of civil engineering, theUniversity of Tokyo in September,2005. During his doctoral study, healso got the outstanding presentation
award at the annual meetings of Japan
Concrete Institute (JCI) and Japan
Society of Civil Engineering (JSCE).
His research interests are the usage of
expansive agent to prevent cracking
or to control cracking condition in
RC structure.
In his research, it was found thatthe expansive additive with suitablereinforcement not only induces
beforehand the compressive stress inconcrete, but it can also enhance theductile behavior of concrete. As aresult, the cracking of RC structure canbe effectively prevented. This
technique is proved advantageous toDr. Raktipong Sahamitmongkol

elongate the service life of important
infrastructure.
He has been assigned to station at
the Regional Network for Urban
Safety (RNUS) which locates in the
Asian Institute of Technology (AIT),
Thailand to activate morecollaborative research with other Thai
organizations.
Recently, he started more research
program including the study about theapplication of ferrocement to protect
the structural element in building
from bomb blasting, bridge inspection
in Bangkok Metropolitan Area, andthe application of NDT to inspect thecondition of concrete structure.
(by T. Uomoto)

ICUS Activities
Seminar at AIT (Oct 20-21).
• Project team was formed toconsider the role of The University • Prof. Meguro attended RNUS
Seminar at AIT (Oct 20-21), Worldof Tokyo Hospital in a time ofSeismic Safety Initiative board
disaster. The joint working groupmeeting in Singapore and visited
meetings are regularly convened.
Islamabad to investigate the• All ICUS members participated indamage due to northern Pakistan
the 4th International Symposium
earthquake (Oct 22-Nov 1).
on New Technologies for Urban
Safety of Mega Cities in Asia at • Dr. Ooka attended RNUS Seminar
at AIT (Oct 20-21), International
NTU, Singapore (Oct 18-19).
S y m p o s i u m o n S u s t a i n abl e• Second student seminar was held
D ev e l o p m e n t o f A s i a C i t yand 25 students in ICUS reported
Environment 2005 in China (Novtheir current research results
23-27).
(Dec 9).
• Prof. Uomoto attended RNUS • Dr. Oki attended The Second PostGAME Planning Workshop in
Seminar at AIT (Oct 20-21) and
Thailand (Nov 4-7) and The Second
13th general meeting and working
Post-GAME Planning Meeting inof ISO/TC71 in Seoul (Nov 27-30).
Thailand (Nov 19- 24).
• Prof. Amano attended RNUS

• Dr. Kato stayed at Asian Instituteof Technology for his research
work and teaching duties at
RNUS (Sep 19-Dec 9) anda t t e n d e d a c o n fe re n c e o n
D u rab i l i t y o f R e i n fo rc e d
C o n c re t e u n d e r C o m b i n e d
Mechanical and Climatic Loads
in China (Oct 26-31) and visited
Vietnam Institute for Building
S c i e n c e & Te ch n o l og y t oexchange views (Nov 10-13).
• Dr. Yoshimura attended RNUS
Seminar at AIT (Oct 20-21).
• Dr. Sahamitmongkol stayed at
Asian Institute of Technology for
his research work and teaching
duties at RNUS (Oct 5- Dec 18).

AwardsThree graduate students; D. Itoh, Takeshita (Kato lab.) won the
T. Nanjyo (Meguro lab.) and N. excellent presentation award at 60th

annual meeting of Japan Society of
Civil Engineers (Dec 26).

ICUS Newsletter Vol. 5, No. 3

page 8
Editor’s Note
In November 2005, a big shock
struck Japanese society throughnewspapers, radio and TV. Mr.
Hidetsugu Aneha, a first-classcertified architect confessed that hefaked records to make substandard
buildings look like they met Japan's
anti-earthquake requirements. In thecommittee of Japanese parliament,
he mentioned that he began faking
earthquake safety data around 1998,
when a developer asked him to
reduce costs by decreasing theamount of steel reinforcements below
the compulsory minimum in a Tokyo
apartment project. He mentionedthat he was under heavy pressure
from the developer to reduce steel
reinforcements. Initially he refused
the request because of his pride as afirst-class certified architect. But
considering the reduction inconstruction cost and pressure fromthe developer, altimately hesuccumbed. The newspapers
mentioned that at leat 88 structures(as of December 28, 2005) which hehas designed may collapse in amoderate earthquake tremor.

Keio Presso Inn, Gotanda
has been closed for demolition
due to lack of adequate
earthquake resistanceSuch news were never reported inJapan until now. The person, whobought the houses paying a large
amount of money, lost everything
except the loan which was lent to him
by the banks. If such a disaster iscaused by the natural hazards(earthquake, tsunami, flood, fire, etc.),
people and Japanese government may
try to help the victims by all means.
But in this faked design case, it may
not be easy to request the people ofour country to support the victims.
The systems now being used in ourcountry are all based on Japaneseculture and ethics that people will not

International Center for Urban Safety Engineering, ICUS
Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo
4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan
Tel: (+81-3)5452-6472, Fax: (+81-3)5452-6476
E-mail:icus@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp
http://icus.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/

International Center for
Urban Safety Engineering

try to do things bad, unless by accident.
But this news gave us a big warning toour culture: Ethics is no longer
efficient and “Learning makes a goodman better and an ill man worse” (Seethe above figure). “Safety” is now
becoming one of the most important
requirements in urban area, and ICUS
has been working to prevent andreduce the natural disasters for morethan 5 years. May be we at ICUS haveto widen our researches to man madedisasters, not only natural hazards andterrorism but also to the faked works
which have not been exposed yet.
(by T.Uomoto)

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