Past Projects

ERIES responded to the call INFRA-2021-SERV-01-07: Research infrastructure services advancing frontier knowledge, with the overall objective of providing transnational access (TA) to advanced research infrastructures in the fields of structural, seismic, wind and geotechnical engineering. Running from June 2022 to May 2026, the project brought together 13 partners from 8 countries to provide access to leading experimental facilities, enabling users to advance frontier knowledge and conduct curiosity-driven research towards the reduction of losses and disruption due to natural hazards, the management of associated risk, and the development of innovative and sustainable solutions to address them. Over its four-year lifetime, ERIES received 115 proposals from research teams across 18 countries. Of these, 69 user group projects were selected through a competitive evaluation process, engaging 518 researchers from 128 research institutes in 55 countries, representing 79 nationalities. Nearly half of all participating researchers (47%) were at an early-career stage, reflecting the project's strong contribution to training the next generation of scientists. A further 45 industry partners were involved across the user projects, connecting academia and industry throughout the programme. All experimental campaigns have now been concluded, and the resulting datasets are available through the ERIES Data Access Portal for use by the wider research community. ERIES offered access to the best European experimental facilities in earthquake, wind and geotechnical engineering, including new and unique infrastructures available for the first time in this programme, as well as key facilities in Canada. It built on the legacy of past European infrastructure projects — including SERIES and SERA — expanding access to new communities and disciplines. In doing so, it has provided authoritative input for stakeholders ranging from Civil Protection agencies to the committees responsible for the Eurocode seismic building standards, helped develop future standards for experimental techniques, and created a platform for innovative solutions and next-generation technologies. With all activities now complete, ERIES leaves a lasting contribution toward reducing losses, managing natural hazard risk, and building a greener and more sustainable engineering future in Europe.

ROSSINI places itself within the overall field of seismic risk-aware navigation systems. It describes the use of a sensor array for the integrated risk-aware navigation in industrial plants at risk of NaTech accidents, using an industrial plant facility in Italy as its pilot study. The integration of structural and environmental risks estimated and measured in different ways via a sensor array network is presented as part of an integrated risk identification and evaluation (RIE) module. This module is used to combine and map the possible risks spatially within an industrial plant’s layout and shown how this information can then be used to not only compute the safest path to safety for a worker located within such a plant but also how mobile communications can be used to aid and guide them in different scenarios.

The research activities associated with Line 3 envisaged a complete review of available seismic design and assessment methods currently employed. It focussed on issues related to problems with current code-based approaches and aimed to incorporate avant-garde approaches such as risk-based and loss-driven approaches in order to promote and more optimal use of available resources in the future with the overall goal of reducing seismic risk.

The objective of the project was to assess the seismic vulnerability of roadway networks taking into account ageing and deterioration effects of their bridge structures. It focussed on the collection of structure data in Italy, Israel and North Macedonia with the aim of engaging local practitioners and authorities to encourage the adoption of such assessment and prioritisation methodologies.

ERIES-ENFRAG advances state-dependent earthquake fragility assessment methodologies. The project focuses on masonry infill walls experiencing cumulative states of damage due to combinations of in- plane (IP) and out-of-plane (OOP) actions, commonly quantified through two different peak-based engineering demand parameters (EDPs). ERIES-ENFRAG explores the experimental validation of hysteretic energy-based fragility assessment approaches, which are: 1) currently based only on analytical and/or numerical validations; 2) only considering one type of action/damage mechanism. ERIES-ENFRAG will pave the way for similar cumulative-damage tests for different structures/structural components while providing experimental data on the IP and OOP response of masonry infills. ERIES-ENFRAG aims at a robust consideration of damage-accumulation, particularly relevant in mainshock-aftershock conditions, and will also shed further light on the appropriateness of IP and OOP loading protocols used in experimental testing.

The seismic retrofitting of existing masonry buildings has become a priority in seismically prone countries with significant cultural heritage. The proposed project aims to research the effectiveness of Composite Reinforced Mortars (CRM) in strengthening rubble stone masonry buildings. Full-scale tests will be conducted on piers with CRM applied to assess their behavior compared to non-retrofitted piers. The project will also investigate different aspect ratios and load rates. The data collected will contribute to future design guidelines for CRM as a strengthening solution, reducing vulnerability and losses after earthquakes.