Special issue: 2010 los angeles tall buildings structural design council—2010 magnitude 8·8 chile earthquake

Abstract

It is a pleasure to present the seventh annual issue developed by the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council. This two part issue is devoted to the Offshore Maule earthquake that shook Central Chile earlier this year. These two issues represent significant lessons learned from this earthquake. This earthquake is very significant as it presents a unique opportunity to study the effects of a true mega earthquake (with moment magnitude of 8·8) on modern tall buildings designed with contemporary building codes and constructed with modern construction methods. The building codes and construction methods are similar to those used in the USA so this event should be of interest to all structural engineers. This earthquake occurred on the South American subduction zone, which has uncanny similarities to other similar subduction zones around the world including the Cascadia subduction zone off the coast of the Pacific Northwest of the USA and Southern British Columbia, Canada; other subduction zones include those off of Alaska, Japan, Philippines and Indonesia. Thus, this earthquake gives us the first opportunity to develop an understanding of the behaviour of tall buildings to subduction zone events. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.