Damage level classification is essential just after a damaging earthquake for decision of appropriate and necessary action in order to prevent from repeated damage due to after-shocks and future major earthquake, and to support well-organized recovery. Therefore, accurate and practical post-earthquake damage evaluation method has been studied and developed in Japan. This paper overviews state-of-the-art of post-earthquake damage and residual seismic capacity for reinforced concrete buildings in Japan. Japanese Damage Evaluation Guideline was originally issued in 1990 and revised in 2000 and 2015. Evaluation of residual seismic capacity of whole building was introduced in the 2000 revision, in which deterioration of each structural component is evaluated based on damage level considering residual crack, crush of concrete and so on. Total collapse mechanism and damage in non-structural concrete wall were taken into the scope in the 2015 revision. Recently, residual seismic capacity evaluation based on response spectrum method is studied by authors. Basic concept of these method and application example are presented.

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The Faculty of Architecture and Engineering Building at Tohoku University survived two strong ground motions. This is not surprising because the structure was stiff and strong. What is surprising is that the first ground motion did not cause severe structural damage but the second one caused so much structural damage that the building had to be evacuated and demolished. The damage occurred despite two key facts: (1) the intensities of the mentioned ground motions are understood to have been similar and (2) the building was strengthened after the first motion (and before the second) following stringent standards.