Recent strong earthquakes across the Asia Pacific region have once again pROVided alert notifications to the public inasmuch devastation images of the 921 earthquake, which occurred on September 21, 1999 in Chi-Chi, Nantou County, Taiwan, have faded into the history. 

Nonetheless the 10th anniversary of the 921 earthquake has galvanized the public conce over how the school buildings weathered the quake and should be retrofitted to be quake-resistant or asiesmatic in technical terms.

In the past ten years after the 921 earthquake, much effort has been taken in seismic performance analysis, aseismatic strengthening and seismic retrofitting of school buildings. Nevertheless, the endeavor was often on the hos of a dilemma. 

School administrators and parents anticipated to replace the aging and quake-weakened buildings with the new and asiesmatic ones. However, for the govement to foot that exorbitant bill was insurmountable. Under such circumstances, structural reinforcement of existing buildings was only option. But even such alteative entailed not only technical expertise in earthquake engineering but also colossal manpower and other resources.

Against overwhelming odds, the NARL's National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE), in partnership with other research institutions in Taiwan, has devised the in-situ pushover test based on the ratio of the lateral load capacity in predicting seismic capacity of the school buildings. And the NARL-NCREE staff and partners by employing this method have found that even though some school buildings may not well-engineered or somehow weaken by the earthquakes, they still have strong structures for the preemptive reinforcement to endure the future earthquakes. Thus the in-situ pushover test is shown to be superior to the prevailing methods of testing construction elements in the laboratory, and allows the researchers to precisely measure the aseismic performance and reinforcement needs of the quake-affected buildings. full story