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

The Center for Railway Earthquake Engineering Research (or CREER) has been established to aim at a consolidated research organization relevant to earthquake engineering for railway systems. Many researchers with different majors such as civil, architectural, geophysical, vehicle, electrical, and information engineers get together in the CREER and promote various research to mitigate the damage due to vast and devastating earthquakes in the future.
Considering earthquake countermeasures in the timeline before and after an earthquake, they are classified into four phases: (1) countermeasures in advance, (2) immediate response soon after an earthquake takes place, (3) initial reaction, and (4) support for restoration and reconstruction. Consequently, we engage in the respective R&D activities such as 1) formulation and maintenance of earthquake design standards, developments of seismic reinforcement and ground improvement methods; 2) early earthquake warning systems; 3) rapid estimation of the spatial earthquake intensity and corresponding structural damage using the Damage Information System for Earthquake on Railway (DISER); and 4) proposal of new structures with higher resilience, application of the seismic isolation and vibration control devices enabling the quick recovery after severe earthquake.
We are also engaged in various consultations related to earthquake countermeasures for railway systems, such as analysis and experimental evaluation of new seismic countermeasure methods, facilitating the seismic design for difficult-to-reinforce structures, and damage assessment for possible future earthquake scenarios such as Nankai and Tounankai earthquakes.
As described above, we would like to make perpetual efforts on research and development to realize a safer and more secure railway system.

Laboratories and their field