ABSTRACT
The effects of climate change, man-made, and natural hazards in several setups have led to major damage and in some cases to the collapse of structures. This is more pronounced in the existing buildings and infrastructure facilities, especially in bridges, due to the increased freight transportation. The question which arises is how to apply different codes of design to existing structures when there are so many unknowns, like the lack of design documentation, unknown properties of built-in materials, degradation of the materials, etc. A catastrophic event that woke up and shook the engineering profession and scientific community regarding the safety of structure was the collapse of bridges in Italy (e.g., Morandi Bridge in Genoa). It is believed that poor maintenance was one of the elements that caused the failure of the Morandi Bridge. But we need to ask ourselves is this the only reason? This kind of event will definitely have economic and social consequences.
On the other hand, natural hazards, like earthquakes, most often cause damage to wider society and not only to one or several structures. Drastic effects on communities were noted in recent history due to earthquake actions, some examples are the 2009 earthquake in Italy (L’Aquila), earthquake in New Zealand in 2011 (Christchurch), earthquakes in Albania in November 2019. This kind of damage has a wider impact on the entire society from the economy, culture to social aspects, and may reduce to a high degree the functionality of the entire community. The lack of resilience can lead to complete loss of performance which can be a complete destress. In this sense, resilience, as the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties, is extremely important.
The chapter presents basic historical information regarding different design philosophies and focuses on the resilient-based design with several applications and provides information regarding the PEOPLES model.
