Mihaela Kouteva-Guentcheva

University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy · Department of Computer-Aided Engineering & National Earthquake Engineering Center

Natural disasters, increasing in their frequency and complexity, damage infrastructure and hinder economic growth, cause death and injury, and increase the risk of infectious disease outbreaks. The Circum-Pannonian region is a well-defined seismically active region in Europe, and a single strong earthquake here may trigger a major catastrophe due t...

The earthquake record shows that the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria is exposed to a high seismic risk due to local shallow and regional strong intermediate-depth earthquake sources—this fact is considered by the Code for design and construction in seismic regions in Bulgaria. Many modern sophisticated buildings and structures need comprehens...

Възрастта на по-голямата част от сградния фонд и инфраструктурните съоръжения в Европейски мащаб, включително България, съпоставена с еволюцията на нормативите за проектиране и строителство на земетръсно устойчиви сгради и съоръжения, поставя редица сериозни предизвикателства пред инженерната колегия, свързани с оценка на кумулативния ефект на мина...

The energy-based design concept considers earthquake effect as an energy input and how this energy is distributed within the structure. The structural damage indicates that some of this energy was not duly dissipated by the structure. Realistic alternative time histories representation of seismic action is crucial for reliable assessment of the ear...

Modern societies need built-up environment and once built, the buildings are in operation for 25, 50, 70, 100 and even more years. Thus, the ratio between the numbers of new constructions created according to the latest advances in engineering science and construction technologies and existing older generation constructions is always and worldwide...

This paper discusses available geo-data sets and their use for disaster preparedness education in Bulgaria, which should be adapted to school and university education using advanced mapping and visualization methods. The younger generation of different ages can be included in process of data collection before, during and after disasters, as well in...

Building information modeling is an intelligent process based on the integration of a 3D geometric model of a building, facility or infrastructure object with a corresponding database. The construction industry faces the major task of collecting, structuring, harmonizing and sharing this information (data, drawings, text documentation) with stakeho...

This report considers some of the potential improvements of the construction and investment process by the application of Building Information Modelling. These potential improvements are drawn out through successful foreign experience in the application of similar techniques and implementation of conventional “BIM maturity levels” worldwide. BIM pr...

Multi-hazard, multi-sectoral and multi-level mapping of natural disasters contributing to the risk assessment is one of the high-priority areas for the international cartographic community. Natural disasters do not affect evenly the territory of Bulgaria and some of them have a trans-boundary impact. Different natural threats to the Bulgarian terri...

Natural disasters occurrence is difficult, even in many cases, impossible to be forecasted, but they surely can be mitigated taking proper measures in the all disaster cycle – pre-disaster phase, response during disaster, post disaster phase and long-term risk management. Contemporary engineers have at disposal advanced scientific and applied tools...

State of the art review of recent seismic hazard assessment studies related to the impact of the strong Vrancea earthquakes on the Bulgarian territory is provided. The regional danger due to these quakes requires particular engineers’ attention and care, especially with respect to the existing buildings. Some earthquake engineering aspects of these...

Millions of people are affected by natural and man-made disasters each year, among which women, children, elderly persons, people with disabilities or special needs, prisoners, certain members of ethnic minorities, people with language barriers, and the impoverished are the most vulnerable population groups in case of emergencies. Many national and...

The paper aims to call the public's’ attention to the importance of the earthquake risk mitigation problems and to indicate once again the increasing necessity to improve sharing of information and collaborative multidisciplinary efforts to assess the available databases and their harmonization in accordance with national and European legislation....

The territory of Bulgaria is exposed to numerous natural hazards. Among the various strong geological hazards (landslides, earthquakes, erosion and sea processes, loess collapsibility due to shallow ground water and liquefaction sands) manifested and mapped for the territory of Bulgaria, a key role is assigned to the earthquake risk mitigation in t...

According to recent decades statistics the earthquakes cause major damages and casualties among all natural disasters, followed by floods and tropical cyclones. The annual risk for victims of earthquakes all over the World is estimated at 10 000-15 000 people per year. Several damaging earthquakes that shake Bulgarian territory (1818, 1858, 1904, 1...

This book is devoted to current advances in the field of nonlinear mathematical physics and modeling of critical phenomena that can lead to catastrophic events. Pursuing a multidisciplinary approach, it gathers the work of scientists who are developing mathematical and computational methods for the study and analysis of nonlinear phenomena and who...

Our society — our way of life — depends on a complex network of infrastructure systems: e.g. the lifelines that provide transportation and communication services, a supply of energy and fresh water, and the disposal of wastewater and waste products. Among the oldest of these lifelines are our transportation systems — highways, railroads, mass trans...

This study is related to the particular strong intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes. Its purpose is to confirm once again the significant influence of the seismic source mechanism to the seismic input at a given site through estimates of different engineering parameters, used to describe the damage potential of the ground motion due to an earthqu...

The results of the study on the seismic site response of a part of the metropolitan Sofia are discussed. The neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment procedure has been used to compute realistic synthetic waveforms considering four earthquake scenarios, with magnitudes M=3.7, M=6.3 and M = 7.0. Source and site specific ground motion time histori...

Rapidly evolving processes of globalization and recent climate change manifestations led to increased risk of natural disasters. Sustainable development of different scale administrative-territorial units (ATU) requires an adequate comprehensive risk assessment due to relevant natural hazards, considering the links between the risk sources and elem...

This paper describes the outcome of the advanced seismic hazard and seismic risk estimates recently performed for the city of Sofia, based on the state-of-the-art of knowledge for this site. Some major results of the neo-deterministic, scenario-based, seismic hazard assessment approach (NDSHA) to the earthquake hazard assessment for the city of Sof...

Strong shallow and intermediate-depth scenario earthquakes for two major cites in Bulgaria are discussed. The contribution of the earthquake source and the local site geology to the seismic input is illustrated. Due to the lack of strong motion records a neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment procedure is used to generate synthetic seismic sig...

The earthquake record and the code for designing and constructing buildings in seismic regions in Bulgaria have shown that the country is exposed to a high seismic risk due to local shallow and regional strong intermediate-depth seismic sources and that the available strong-motion database is quite limited and therefore not at all representative of...

Recently published data on seismic hazards due to strong, intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes in the area around the city Recently published data on seismic hazards due to strong, intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes in the area around the city of Russe is summarized including a review of analyses of available data, both macroseismic and instr...

The earthquake record and the Code for design and construction in seismic regions in Bulgaria have shown that the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria is exposed to a high seismic risk due to local shallow and regional strong intermediate-depth seismic sources. The available strong motion database is quite limited, and therefore not representative...

A review of the recent achievements of the innovative neo‐deterministic approach for seismic hazard assessment through realistic earthquake scenarios has been performed. The procedure provides strong ground motion parameters for the purpose of earthquake engineering, based on the deterministic seismic wave propagation modelling at different scales...

A deterministic analytical procedure for ground motion modelling, combining both modal summation and mode coupling techniques has been implemented to obtain synthetic seismic signals at Russe, NE Bulgaria, due to one of the strongest Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes, which occurred during the last century, May 30, 1990. The frequency content...

— The city of Sofia is exposed to a high seismic risk. Macroseismic intensities in the range of VIII – X (MSK) can be expected in the city. The earthquakes that can influence the hazard in Sofia originate either beneath the city or are caused by seismic sources located within a radius of 40 km. The city of Sofia is also prone to the remote Vrancea...

An approach, capable of synthesising strong ground motion from a basic understanding of fault mechanism and of seismic wave propagation in the Earth, is applied to model the seismic input at a set of 25 sites along a chosen profile at Russe, NE Bulgaria, due to two intermediate-depth Vrancea events (August 30, 1986, Mω=7.2, and May 30, 1990, Mω=6.9...

The project addressed the problem of pre-disaster orientation: hazard prediction, risk assessment, and hazard mapping, in connection with seismic activity and man-induced vibrations. The definition of realistic seismic input has been obtained from the computation of a wide set of time histories and spectral information, corresponding to possible se...

An analytical deterministic technique, based on the simultaneous account of the fault mechanism and seismic wave propagation, has been applied to generate synthetic seis- mic signals at Russe, NE Bulgaria due to the strongest intermediate-depth Vrancea earthquakes, which occurred during the last century (1940, 1977, 1986 and 1990). The computations...

An advanced procedure for ground motion modelling, capable of synthesizing the seismic ground motion from basic understanding of fault mechanism and seismic wave propagation, is applied to the case studies of Bucharest, Romania and Russe (NE Bulgaria), exposed at Vrancea seismic hazard. Synthetic seismic signals along predefined geological cross se...