Georgios Tsionis

• PhD
• European Commission

In order to promote an effective approach to the prevention of and preparedness for disasters, the countries participating in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism (UCPM) shall develop risk assessments, risk management capability assessments and disaster risk management planning at national or appropriate sub-national level. The European Commission...

The European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) offers leading researchers from across Europe and beyond access to its world-class facilities and laboratories, enabling cutting-edge experimental research, collaboration and capacity building with a European dimension. This is done through the JRC's Open Access to Research Infrastructures progr...

This report emphasizes the importance of standardisation in promoting circular construction and the circular economy. It discusses the need for future standardisation and pre-normative research for circular construction in terminology, metrology, performance characterisation, compatibility and operability assessments. The report identifies several...

The paper describes the results of an experimental campaign on the seismic behaviour of a full-scale concentrically braced steel frame designed according the EC8 and equipped with different types of passive fire protection. In this respect, fire protection boards made of calcium silicate and mineral spray-based fire protections were applied to diss...

The report identifies relevant characteristics to be considered for building stock deep renovation (such as number, age, energy saving potential, asbestos presence, and seismic risk) to unlock the quantification of wider benefits. For the first time, indications on the presence of asbestos in the residential building stock at EU regional NUTS3 leve...

Our buildings are ageing, posing an urgent need for renovation to achieve multidimensional European and international goals. Integrated renovation of buildings provides a unique opportunity to create a safe, sustainable and inclusive built environment, as it lies at the nexus between European policies on disaster resilience, energy efficiency, circ...

This report summarizes the discussion and the outcomes of a workshop held at the JRC in Ispra (Italy) on 6-7 June 2022, as part of the MITICA (Monitoring Transport Infrastructures with Connected and Automated vehicles) project. Considering the EU priority “A Europe fit for the digital age”, the workshop was dedicated to SHM and its application to c...

This science-for-policy report provides support to building renovation policies in the EU by promoting a holistic point of view on the topic. Integrated renovation can be seen as a nexus between European policies on disaster resilience, energy efficiency and circularity in the building sector. An overview of policy measures for the seismic and ener...

With the aim of promoting an integrated renovation approach according to the scope of this Pilot Project, this report provides an overview of collected implementing measures for the upgrading of existing buildings across 16 EU Member States. The review includes measures such as legislation, incentives and guidance for improving the seismic and ener...

The work presented in this report aims to provide scientific support to building renovation policies in the EU by promoting a holistic point of view on the topic. As part of the pilot project ‘Integrated techniques for the seismic strengthening and energy efficiency of existing buildings’, priority regions for building renovation across the EU-27 a...

The work presented in this report aims to provide scientific support to building renovation policies in the EU by promoting a holistic point of view on the topic. As part of the pilot project ‘Integrated techniques for the seismic strengthening and energy efficiency of existing buildings’, renovation scenarios are defined, and their impact is inves...

Approximately 80% of the buildings in Europe were constructed before 1990, when seismic and energy efficiency requirements were below today's standards. The energy performance of those buildings is unsatisfactory and damage due to earthquakes may result in significant human and economic losses. A European pilot project was launched to define soluti...

Strengthening of flat slab-column connections to resist imposed lateral drifts is often required for older reinforced concrete structures in which the flat slabs were typically designed to resist gravity load only or have been designed for less stringent requirements. The complex stress state around the columns means that strong experimental eviden...

In flat-slab frames, which are typically designed as secondary seismic structures, the shear failure of the slab around the column (punching failure) is typically the governing failure mode which limits the deformation capacity and can potentially lead to a progressive collapse of the structure. Existing rules to predict the capacity of flat slab f...

Full-scale testing of a two-storey flat slab structure is reported, undertaken in the SlabSTRESS research project; the construction and testing were planned and carried out at the ELSA laboratory of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. The dimensions are three bays by two, spans 4.5 and 5 m, slab thickness 0.2 m, interstorey height 3.2...

Many historical events have shown that, after an earthquake, fire may be triggered by seismic-induced rupture of gas piping, failure of electrical systems, etc. The current engineering design methods still ignores many aspects of multi-hazard and in particular fire following earthquake (FFE) analysis. In this respect, the aim of this paper is to st...

The SlabSTRESS project investigated the behaviour of a full-scale Reinforced Concrete flat slab building under both gravity loads and seismic lateral actions. The two-storey structure had 9.0 m × 14.5 m plan dimensions, three bays in the loading direction and two orthogonally. This layout enabled to test simultaneously three types of slab-column co...

The European Commission‘s Joint Research Centre (JRC) gives leading researchers from across Europe and beyond access to its world-class facilities and laboratories, enabling state-of-the-art experimental research, collaboration and capacity building with a European dimension. It does so through the programme for open access to JRC research infrastr...

The report summarises the work prepared to date within the scope of the Pilot Project “Integrated techniques for the seismic strengthening and energy efficiency of existing buildings”, and presented during a Joint Research Centre (JRC) homonymous workshop that took place online on 16–19 November 2020. The objective of the midterm workshop was to im...

Flat slab buildings for commercial, office and residential use are built in many countries. Yet, their behaviour under seismic and gravity actions is still not very well understood. Many studies have been carried out in North America but European research is lagging behind and currently Eurocode 8 does not cover the design of buildings with flat sl...

The EQUFIRE project aims to study the post-earthquake fire performance of steel frame structures and is part of the Transnational Access activities of the SERA project (www.sera-eu.org) at the ELSA Reaction Wall of the European Commission-Joint Research Centre. As it has happened in many historical occasions, after an earthquake, earthquake-induced...

The work outlines recent EU policies supporting the sustainability and climate resilience of infrastructure and buildings. It evaluates the expected variations in climatic factors causing corrosion, provides a state of the art review on climate change induced corrosion of reinforced concrete and steel structures, and presents recent works on the c...

Earthquake is the fourth most common hazard assessed in the recent national risk assessments prepared by the countries participating in the Union Civil Protection Mechanism. Indeed, 19 countries performed risk assessment for earthquakes and some considered cross-border and cascading effects, such as tsunami, landslides, disruption of infrastructure...

The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has developed a number of methods and tools that contribute to better resilience of urban regions. Although the tools originally have not been thought for aspects of crisis management cycle they can make essential part of a resilience tool suite for national authorities, critical infrastructure owners...

Exposure data for buildings have been collected from different sources and for various uses. The databanks created for seismic risk assessment comply with the desired taxonomy of exposed buildings for vulnerability studies, but are often developed for specific urban areas. National censuses take place at regular time intervals and collect exhaustiv...

Earthquakes represent a serious threat for several European countries, particularly for Mediterranean bordering countries, where seismic events have been triggering significant destruction and loss over the last decades. Since the early 1970's, when the first studies on seismic vulnerability assessment of buildings at large geographical areas were...

This report summarises the activities of the JRC institutional work package related to the resilience of the European building stock. It covers the fundamental components of seismic risk assessment studies, namely hazard (national design codes and recent research results), exposure (inventory of the European building stock) and vulnerability (fragi...

Earthquakes continue to represent a serious threat for some European countries, particularly for Mediterranean bordering countries, where these events have been triggering significant destruction and loss over the last decades. Despite the unpredictable nature of earthquakes, seismic risk assessment should be addressed having in mind the main cause...

Critical infrastructures are the backbone of modern society and provide many essential goods and services to urban areas. Given the risks associated with the impact of natural hazards on critical infrastructures, the move towards safer and more resilient cities requires the development and application of an improved risk assessment framework to add...

Support to the implementation, harmonization and further development of the Eurocodes

A novel seismic retrofitting method for an RC column is proposed in this paper. In the proposed retrofit method, both ends of an RC column are actively confined with steel plates and pretensioned high-strength external hoops. Then, a steel brace and the RC column are connected together to increase the lateral strength. The effectiveness of the retr...

This Chapter presents a literature review of seismic fragility functions for reinforced concrete road and railway bridges. It first covers the main issues in fragility analysis, such as the systems for classification of bridges, methods for deriving fragility functions, intensity measures, damage states and damage measures. A section is dedicated t...

A literature review on the seismic strengthening of reinforced concrete buildings, using steel bracings, infills and shear walls, is presented. Extensive experimental testing and numerical analyses of elements and structures have demonstrated the feasibility and effectiveness of all three measures for the increase of global strength and stiffness....

The seismic vulnerability of stone masonry buildings is studied on the basis of their fragility curves. In order to account for out-of-plane failure modes, normally disregarded in past studies, linear static Finite Element analysis in 3D of prototype regular buildings is performed using a nonlinear biaxial failure criterion for masonry. More than 1...

Fragility curves are constructed for prototype regular RC frame and wall-frame buildings designed and detailed per EC 2 and EC 8. The aim is to evaluate how the Eurocodes achieve their seismic performance goals for RC buildings designed to them. These goals seem to be met in a consistent and uniform way across all types of buildings considered and...

Nonlinear response-history analyses (NLRHA) are performed for 16 five- or eight-storey prototype regular reinforced concrete wall-frame (“dual”) buildings designed to Eurocode 8 for ductility class (DC) M (Medium) or H (High), in order to evaluate the higher-mode inelastic magnification of shear forces in the walls. The percentage of the total base...

Closed-form solutions are developed for the elastic response of symmetric bridges, continuous over two, three or four spans, for unidirectional earthquake perpendicular to the deck, i.e., in the transverse or the vertical direction. The ends of the deck are restrained along the earthquake component, but free to rotate within the plane of bending. T...

It is an essential step in urban earthquake risk assessment to compile inventory databases of elements at risk and to make a classification on the basis of pre-defined typology/taxonomy definitions. Typology definitions and the classification system should reflect the vulnerability characteristics of the systems at risk, e.g. buildings, lifeline ne...

Fragility curves are constructed for a portfolio of prototype regular RC frame and wall-frame buildings designed and detailed to EC2 and EC8. The aim is to use EC8’s own seismic performance assessment methods and criteria for existing buildings to evaluate how EC8 achieves its performance goals for new RC buildings. The overall conclusion is that t...

: Fragility curves are developed for stone masonry buildings with rigid or flexible floors and varying number of storeys, plan dimensions, number of interior cross-walls, storey height, percentage of side length of exterior walls taken up by openings and wall height-to-thickness ratio. Linear Finite Element analysis in 3D is performed and a nonline...

The seismic design of multi-storey precast structures is at present not covered by specific provisions of the European seismic codes. To fill such gap, capacity design criteria for multi-storey precast concrete frames with hinged beams are presented. Based on the same approach prescribed by the codes for monolithic cast-in-place frames, a distribut...

The research presented in this article deals with the seismic retrofit of bridge piers with rectangular hollow cross-section using fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) jackets. A two-level numerical approach that combines finite element method (FEM) analyses and fiber modeling is proposed. The FEM is used to study the effect of FRP jackets on the propert...

Pseudo-dynamic tests on a large-scale model of an existing six-pier bridge were performed at the ELSA laboratory using the substructuring technique. Two physical pier models were constructed and tested in the laboratory, while the deck, the abutments and the remaining four piers were numerically modeled on-line. These tests on a large-scale model o...

Cyclic tests on two large-scale models of existing bridge piers with rectangular hollow cross-section were performed in the ELSA laboratory. The prototype structure is an existing reinforced concrete highway bridge constructed in Austria in 1975. The piers presented several seismic deficiencies and consequently they showed poor hysteretic behaviour...

On 31 October and 1 November 2002, two earthquakes took place in the Italian region of Molise. 29 deaths were reported, while many buildings collapsed or suffered major damage. The tectonics of the earthquakes and historic seismicity of the area are briefly described. The distribution of damage and macroseismic intensity are confronted with the cur...

Within the VAB research program, pseudodynamic tests on a large-scale model of an existing bridge were carried out in the reaction wall of the ELSA laboratory of the Joint Research Centre, applying the substructuring method. Asynchronous input motion, generated for the bridge site, was considered at the base of the piers and abutments. Non-linear s...

This paper presents a simplified method for the capacity design of multi-storey precast concrete frames with hinged beams. A parametric study shows that in the field of ordinary and less flexible structures, the proposed simplified method can be applied with full reliability, in the same way as prescribed by the seismic codes for monolithic cast-in...