Assistant Professor, Faculty of Engineering (Earthquake engineering & wooden structures)
SHIOMITSU Masashi

Seeking to reduce the number of lives lost due to earthquakes

Japan is an earthquake-prone country with frequent major earthquakes. Thus, reducing the number of lives lost due to earthquakes is an important topic. During the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, many people were killed by collapsing buildings. Therefore, making buildings stronger and more resilient, or earthquake-proofing, is an effective approach, but there are problems, such as cost, and many buildings still lack adequate seismic resistance. There is a method known as estimation of earthquake damage, which estimates where and how much damage was done to buildings immediately after an earthquake. If this can be done accurately, then it can aid in rapid
relief efforts.

Evaluation of the seismic performance of existing wooden buildings

In order to accurately estimate earthquake damage, the seismic performance of existing buildings has to be ascertained. Thus, we are examining the seismic performance of existing wooden buildings by removing a part of the building and conducting experiments to ascertain the seismic performance of that building.

Development of a model that can reproduce the behavior of buildings during an earthquake

In order to link experimental results to estimation of earthquake damage, an analytical model that can reproduce those results has to be developed. Therefore, we are creating an analytical model that can accurately reproduce the behavior of buildings during earthquakes, and we are developing a system to estimate earthquake damage using that model.