Center for Railway Earthquake Engineering Research

Profile

In massive earthquake, the risk of disaster tends to be wide and complicated. To realize safer and more secure railway, it is important to summarize resources about seismic design, seismic diagnosis, earthquake countermeasures, and early warning system. Our mission is to be only one base of railway earthquake engineering in Japan.
Our division is composed of three laboratories, Seismic Data Analysis, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, and Structural Dynamics and Response Control.

Introduction

Since full-scale seismic design was introduced in Japan as a result of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, researches in the seismic engineering field have made remarkable progress, and safety of railway system against earthquakes has become to be secured. However, from the experience of the 2011 Great Tohoku Earthquake, we learned that there was a residual risk. The research and technology to cope with anticipated huge earthquake is an urgent issue.
To achieve safer and more secure railway systems, the Center for Railway Earthquake Engineering Research (CREER) was established on April 1, 2014. The CREER is aiming to realize a railway which has both "the strength to withstand earthquakes" and "the ability to recover quickly even if it suffers a disaster". Therefore, the CREER consolidates research resources related to earthquake engineering and is promoting R&D from both hardware and software. In addition, as the unique "base site" for information related to earthquakes, the CREER is creating a mechanism to provide various information in real time.

Laboratories and their field