Expected benefits

The benefit from the proposed research will be significant at the local, national and international level. Most of the industrial facilities in Greece are located close to major Greek cities (oil refineries in Aspropyrgos, Elefsina and Thessaloniki, chemical factories near Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras etc), whereas two major power plants operate in Megalopoli and Ptolemais. In addition, the construction of oil & gas energy projects of great importance will start soon, such as the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline, together with the South Stream and IGI gas pipelines, which require the construction of oil & gas terminals, as well as several liquefied gas (LNG) facilities in Megara, Kavala or Crete. Possible failure of such systems will result to successive explosions threatening the operation and integrity of the entire facility and the safety of the nearby region, while a possible leak of toxic substances may have devastating consequences on the population and the environment in the general area. Moreover, earthquakes may interrupt the energy supply, oil, gas and electricity, resulting to severe damages and substantial financial losses for the local community and the country.

Project deliverables are directed to the research community, practicing engineers, industrial facilities owners and public authorities. It is one of the few worldwide attempts to systematically investigate the seismic risk mitigation of industrial structures. General recommendations that will emerge are expected to be internationally the first complete document addressing the aforementioned problem. Public authorities are expected to have great interest on the project results when planning future measures for such structures. Moreover, the project findings are expected to influence (or be adopted by) design standards and recommendation committees, while practicing engineers will be provided with a systematic methodology for modelling and assessing the capacity of these idiomorphic structural systems. The methodology will identify potential modes of damage and describe the development of models that can simulate and assess their seismic risk. The engineering research community will also benefit, since pioneering results in the fields of earthquake engineering, engineering seismology, computational mechanics and coupled problems will be produced.