Title: The C.A.S.E. project trial: technical investigation

Authors: Alessandro De Stefano

Addresses: Department of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 10129 Turin, Italy

Abstract: The C.A.S.E. project was a large engineering realisation, designed and built in very short time in L'Aquila after the strong earthquake of April 2009, to supply long-term provisional houses for people having lost their homes during the seismic event. Three-storey houses were built on about 180 reinforced concrete plates supported by concrete or steel columns and base seismic isolators (about 7000 curved surface sliding devices). The Court of L'Aquila opened a preliminary investigation to ascertain the consistency of complaints about the quality of the isolating devices with respect to the contractual agreement and the technical norms. The author of the present paper was in charge of the technical aspects of such preliminary investigation. A report on the project and execution of the technical investigation is subject of this contribution.

Keywords: forensic investigations; earthquake engineering; dynamic control; seismic isolators; experimental testing; Italy; L'Aquila; strong earthquakes; provisional housing; seismic events; reinforced concrete plates; concrete columns; steel columns; curved surface sliding devices; isolator quality; contractual agreements; technical norms; complaints; temporary housing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJFE.2017.082979

International Journal of Forensic Engineering, 2017 Vol.3 No.3, pp.216 - 234

Received: 23 Dec 2015
Accepted: 02 Jul 2016
Published online: 17 Mar 2017 *

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