For the 2017 edition of the workshop, which was held in Pisa, 16–18 March, we are publishing the contributions of the lecturers through a Special Issue of the open access Journal Buildings of the MDPI, in order to share the knowledge gained during the workshop.

Most of the contributions are going to be published in the next months and are currently under review. Some of them have been already published and can be found in:
Special Issue "Traditional and Innovative Approaches in Seismic Design"

We would like to thank the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for covering the costs of the open access publication, making knowledge available fot everyone.

After the end of the successful TIASD 2017 conference, involving ten universities from three European countries, Portugal, Italy and Germany, the organizational committee wants to sincerely thank all the students, lecturers, staff members and external auditors who actively participated to the event.  The workshop has been an extraordinary opportunity to share knowledge on earthquake engineering and create a stronger relationship between the involved universities, promoting the exchange of ideas in formal and informal situations. As soon as possible, we will send you the photobook of this year. See you next year with the third edition!

Seismic design of civil and industrial structures is an interdisciplinary task, which mainly involves themes related to structural analysis and dynamics, soil mechanics, strength of materials, design standards and numerical modelling. Engineers and architects need to have a strong competence in this field, in order to reduce the impact of earthquakes on civil buildings and infrastructures. Improving the seismic behavior of buildings is the key to avoid casualties and reduce structural damages as well as social and economic losses.
Unfortunately, every year new lessons are learned from the tragic consequences of worldwide earthquakes: the 2016 Taiwan earthquake, occurred in February, and the 2016 Ecuador earthquake, occurred in April, caused hundreds causalities, thousands injured and huge economic and social damages.
In Italy, seismic design constitutes a central subject in the master studies of civil engineering and it has become even more important after the 2009 L’Aquila and the 2012 Northern Italy earthquakes. During these two dramatic experiences, several casualties and significant damages to civil and industrial buildings were caused. In both cases, many historical buildings were strongly damaged, causing invaluable losses on architectural and cultural heritage. Italy confront everyday reconstruction problems and post-earthquake heritage deteriorations.
Germany is one of Europe's top research countries in technical fields. In civil engineering, research and teaching excels in technical mechanics, structural analysis, and computation engineering. These tools are fundamental to give students a strong preparation in the structural seismic design. Germany also exhibits a certain seismicity in the Rhine area, the Swabian Alb and the Eastern Thuringia and Western Saxony, including the earthquake swarm area of Vogtland. This generate a relevant interest of the German industry on new research developments in seismic engineering for different fields, such as wind energy, industrial facilities, tanks farm, etc…
Portugal has also a serious seismic history and a high seismic vulnerability, due to the large number of old masonry buildings and a fraction of reinforced concrete frames designed with limited lateral resistance. This background has motivated an intense research activity in Portugal in the last decades, especially in the field of experimental investigation of the structural aspects of existing and future buildings.
From this objective the idea of an international advanced seminar on “Traditional and Innovative Approaches in Seismic Design (TIASD)” for master and PhD students was born in 2014. In 2016 the DAAD supported for the first time the 1st TIASD Workshop hosted by the University of Munich and co-organized by the University of Sassari and the University of Pisa. Additional lecturers form Portugal were invited in order to promote a partnership between countries markedly involved in the field of structural analysis and seismic design. It was a great success and a strong motivation for continuing this initiative with a 2nd TIASD Workshop in Pisa in 2017.