Mahmood Hosseini

Towards resilient communities in developing countries through education of children for disaster preparedness

In developing countries, educating all levels of the society for disaster threats is not always possible due to lack of expertise and educational materials. Consequently, one of the best ways of publicising awareness programmes can be the integration of these initiatives into childrens activities. Since over half of the population in many developing countries is under 18 years of age, it is possible to convey vital information to most of the population via the knowledge, skills and enthusiastic motivation of children. They are able to disseminate messages throughout their societies, starting with their parents. Fortunately, the level of acceptance in parents from their children is generally high in these countries. The first objective of this paper is to look at awareness-raising as a core to all disaster mitigation programmes. The paper then focuses on earthquake education through children. The study will also illustrate this process through a selection of examples of educational campaigns in different developing countries resulting in successful public awareness-raising for children. These programmes strengthen resilience among communities by enabling them to withstand shocks, cope with emergencies when they occur and bounce back from disaster impact.

Earthquake disaster risk management planning in schools

Purpose – This paper aims to develop an appropriate earthquake disaster management system for Iranian schools with a main focus on non‐structural problems of schools during disasters.Design/methodology/approach – A framework is proposed for disaster management planning regarding earthquakes in three phases: before, during, and after an earthquake. A detailed description of the proposed management system is also presented with special application to schools, focusing mainly on non‐structural problem.Findings – There is a need to emphasise on a national‐level contingency planning that includes developing and designing detailed plans for a proper response and training of relevant personnel. Another important issue, which needs special attention is the material which should be taught to the commanders of emergency activities at various levels in order to help them to control an effective emergency situation.Practical implications – By using the “emergency management system” proposed in this paper for Iranian ...

Training emergency managers for earthquake response: challenges and opportunities

Purpose – This paper aims to highlight the crucial role of decision makers and emergency managers in reducing the unpleasant consequences of disasters.Design/methodology/approach – An attempt has been made to clarify the measures for planning and implementation of training issues in earthquake emergency response for the emergency managers as an essential part at various managerial levels.Findings – The paper reveals that, although the high‐level managers such as ministers are authoritative bodies for managing the routine problems of the country, in situations such as a “major emergency”, specific knowledge and experience of emergency issues are required for the emergency management to be successful. It also explores the ways and opportunities for achieving successful training programmes for the emergency managers.Research limitations/implications – The existing challenges, including the lack of adequate background knowledge and experience in emergency management, insufficient time to train, the inadequacy...

Sustainable neighbourhood earthquake emergency planning in megacities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the main prerequisites which are deemed for successful disaster mitigation activities in megacities by considering various aspects related to disaster risk reduction.Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a general background with regard to the social and cultural patterns for involving local people to participate in the activities related to awareness raising before, and saving their lives and properties after the earthquakes. It then defines what is required for preparing disaster scenarios.Findings – Prerequisites of comprehensive response plans, to be used in the aftermath of earthquakes in large cities, are discussed.Research limitations/implications – There is a lack of complete information, with regard to various social, and cultural aspects of disaster mitigation, in developing countries, such as Iran.Practical implications – By following the steps mentioned and discussed in the paper for disaster mitigation planning and appl...

A quick method for estimating the lateral stiffness of building systems

This paper presents a quick method for estimating the lateral stiffness of building structures, including regular and irregular moment frames, braced frames as well as frames with shear walls, which can be used for preliminary analysis and especially final check purposes. The method can be utilized for the calculation of the building displacement at different levels under lateral loads, the contribution of various lateral resisting systems to carrying the lateral loads, and finally the natural frequencies of the system. The basic idea of the method is based on some facts about the lateral deformation and stiffness of building structures, which make it possible to consider an equivalent single-bay single-story frame module for every story of the real multi-bay multi-story frame. This leads to a 3-diagonal or banded stiffness matrix in most cases. Even in the cases resulting in a full stiffness matrix the proposed method does not require solving a system of simultaneous equations for obtaining the lateral displacements. Several numerical examples show the higher efficiency and precision of the proposed method in comparison with the Kan method. The use of the main concepts of the proposed method for preliminary design purposes is also possible as a secondary application. Copyright

Behavior of Nonstructural Elements in the 2003 Bam, Iran, Earthquake

Regarding the importance of nonstructural elements in the vulnerability of buildings and their seismic safety level, on one hand, and the extensive damage to some of these elements in the 26 December 2003 Bam earthquake, on the other, this paper reviews the particular features of nonstructural elements in Iranian buildings and then presents the results of a thorough survey of their behavior and the damage they sustained in the city of Bam. Finally, based on the results of this survey, some recommendations are made that will be useful for modification of the “Guidelines for the Seismic Retrofit of Existing Buildings,” which is the only official reference on this topic used currently in Iran.

The Effect of Corrosion on the Seismic Behavior of Buried Pipelines and a Remedy for Their Seismic Retrofit

The effect of corrosion phenomenon has been investigated by performing some sets of 3‐Dimensional Nonlinear Time History Analysis (3‐D NLTHA) in which soil structure interaction as well as wave propagation effects have been taken into consideration. The 3‐D NLTHA has been performed by using a finite element computer program, and both states of overall and local corrosions have been considered for the study. The corrosion has been modeled in the computer program by introducing decreased values of either pipe wall thickness or modulus of elasticity and Poisson ratio. Three sets of 3‐component accelerograms have been used in analyses, and some appropriate numbers of zeros have been added at the beginning of records to take into account the wave propagation in soil and its multi‐support excitation effect. The soil has been modeled by nonlinear springs in longitudinal, lateral, and vertical directions. A relatively long segment of the pipeline has been considered for the study and the effect of end conditions ...

Simplified Formulation for Modeling the Nonlinear Behavior of Confined Masonry Walls in Seismic Analysis

Past earthquakes have shown the vulnerability of masonry of buildings in several cases; however, experimental results represent ductile behavior of structural elements of such buildings, specifically confined masonry walls. Design of buildings of this type is usually performed in a prescriptive manner without numerical modeling and performed out of the framework of an analysis-designing process. The purpose of this research is to identify the major factors affecting the behavior of the confined walls against lateral and vertical forces and to then present a simplified behavioral model precise, as much as possible, and simple enough to be used by professional engineers. The proposed model can show the wall behavior before and after cracking. A series of nonlinear static analyses in parametric form has been performed using a wide range of effective factors on confined masonry walls with or without opening. Then, based on the numerical results, some simple formulas have been proposed to express the relationships between the lateral strength of the confined wall and the wall specifications, including the initial stiffness, the secondary stiffness after cracking, the ultimate strength, and ductility, to be used in engineering programs such as SAP, which are widely implemented in engineering firms, by practicing engineers.

Axisymmetric analysis of a thermoelastic isotropic half-space under buried sources in displacement and temperature potentials

ABSTRACT Analytical and numerical investigations have been made to determine the solution of a thermoelastic isotropic half-space under buried mechanical load and heat flux based on Biot’s coupled thermoelasticity. Using a scalar potential function, the coupled governing equations have been uncoupled and a sixth order partial differential equation that governs the potential function is received. Applying the Hankel transform to suppress the radial variable, a sixth order ordinary differential equation with respect to depth is received. Solving that equation and utilizing the boundary and continuity conditions, the potential function is derived and displacements, temperature, and stress components are derived in the transformed domain in two regions. Applying the inverse Hankel transform, responses are derived in the physical domain as line integrals. The line integrals are calculated numerically through Mathematica software. Numerical results are depicted graphically for different cases of vertical load and heat flux. Effects of elastic and thermal properties as well as the depth of buried loads and frequency of excitation are investigated. Numerical evaluation shows that the agreement between the results of this study for surface excitation and the results reported in the literature is excellent.

A More Realistic Lateral Load Pattern for Design of Reinforced Concrete Buildings with Moment Frames and Shear Walls

In this research it has been tried to find a more realistic distribution pattern for the seismic load in reinforced concrete (R/C) buildings, having moment frames with shear walls as their lateral resisting system, by using Nonlinear Time History Analyses (NLTHA). Having shear wall as lateral load bearing system decreases the effect of infill walls in the seismic behavior of the building, and therefore the case of buildings with shear walls has been considered for this study as the first stage of the studies on lateral load patterns for R/C buildings. For this purpose, by assuming three different numbers of bays in each direction and also three different numbers of stories for the buildings, several R/C buildings, have been studied. At first, the buildings have been designed by the Iranian National Code for R/C Buildings. Then they have been analyzed by a NLTHA software using the accelerograms of some well‐known earthquakes. The used accelerograms have been also scaled to various levels of peak ground acc...