Background
Preparatory work for drafting the forthcoming major revisions to Eurocode 8 began some time ago, with the formal establishment of CEN Project Teams to carry the process forward expected to take place early in 2014.  It will take at least six years before an agreed version of the standard is ready to be ratified; however, the broad outlines and scope of the work are already defined in the proposals that CEN has submitted to the European Commission.  Moreover, recognising the need and desire by practising engineers for stability in code provisions, there is a general desire by CEN to limit the extent of revisions to the Eurocode suite at this time.  However, EC8 is in many ways a special case among the Eurocodes, because the underlying practice of earthquake engineering is evolving much more rapidly and radically than is the case for practice applying to the other Eurocodes.

It is therefore likely that the adopted version of EC8 which results from the evolution process in around 2020 will fall some way short of both the state of the art and state of practice in earthquake engineering at that time.  There is a need to look beyond the forthcoming evolution process to define a direction for EC8 which includes a longer timescale than the current enquiry period, and which is not limited by the current CEN proposals.  The task of the proposed working group would be to set out the broad characteristics of EC8 for the year 2025.  The working group would comprise a small group of academic engineers and design practitioners, drawn from both high and low seismicity regions of Europe.  A similar review was carried out by Californian earthquake engineers in 1995, to produce the Vision 2000 report (SEAOC, 1995) which successfully set out a path for radical revisions to the US seismic codes of the 21^st century.

The issues involved are discussed further by Booth& Lubkowski (2012) and Booth (2013), which will be attached.

Terms of reference

1)      Review state of practice and state of art methods in the design of new seismic resistant buildings currently employed by European engineers, and identify the ways in which EC8 currently does not address these methods.

2)      Set out a long term vision for EC8 for the year 2025.

3)      In the light of the CEN proposals for the current evolution process, propose the changes toward achieving the long term vision which would be feasible within the current process.

4)      Recommend changes to EC8 to take place during the subsequent evolution period, in order to achieve the long term vision more fully.

5)      Prepare  notes on additional aspects to consider for the seismic resistant design of non-building structures (bridges, towers & chimneys, pipelines, tanks, silos)

6)      Prepare  notes on additional aspects to consider for the seismic retrofit of buildings (but not bridges??).

7)      Deliver the report on the Working Group’s findings and recommendations to the EAEE executive committee, with a copy to CEN sub-committee TC250/SC8.

Method of working and timescales

1)      The terms of reference and membership of the Working Group should be finalised by the end of 2013, with its first meeting to take place in January 2014.

2)      The Working Group will have one physical meeting immediately before the EAEE Istanbul conference in ?September 2014, to consider a draft of its final report.

3)      Other meetings will take place by video conference.

4)      The Working Group requests the opportunity to present its draft findings to an open session at the Istanbul conference.

5)      The final version of its report will be delivered to the EAEE executive committee by the end of 2014, in time for the first meeting of that committee after the Istanbul conference.

Membership

The following people have agreed to serve on the Working Group.

Michael Fardis (fardis@upatras.gr)
Peter Fajfar (peter.fajfar@ikpir.fgg.uni-lj.si)
Alain Pecker (Alain.pecker@geodynamique.com)
Timothy Sullivan (timsul05@unipv.it)
Damian Grant (damian.grant@arup.com)
Hervé Degée (H.Degee@ulg.ac.be)

Katrin Bayer (Katrin.Bayer@epfl.ch)
Helen Crowley (helen.crowley@eucentre.it)
Edmund Booth (edmund@booth-seismic.co.uk)

 The Working Group may wish to invite others to join it.

References
Booth E. and Lubkowski Z.A. (2012).  Creating a vision for the future of Eurocode 8. Paper 3501, 15^th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Lisbon, September 2012.
 
Booth E (2013).  Future development of the European seismic code, Eurocode 8.  Structural Engineering and Mechanics Conference (SEMC) Cape Town.
 
SEAOC (1995).  Vision 2000 Report: Performance-based Seismic Engineering of Buildings.  Structural Engineers Association of California, Sacramento, CA, USA