an earthquake with magnitude Mw = 6.4 occurred in the city of Durrës, with epicenter about 16 km southwest of Mamurras. This seismic event caused 51 loss of life, hundreds injured and hundreds of damaged buildings. One of the typified structures, identified by the authors with the most cases of damage or even collapse, is the structure Type no. 82/2 built in some areas of the city of Durrës, in the period 1983-1993. The purpose of this study is to analyze the behavior of this type of structure during seismic loading (for two cases, five and six storey, from the same typology), using the non-linear static procedure (Pushover). The obtained results are compared with the damages recorded in the field for these buildings, concluding with their main causes. According to this study it appears that the main cause of failures occurred in this type of building is the reduction of the reinforcement amount from the ground floor to the first floor by 35.5% and percentage of reinforcement required for the given section exceeds the requirements of design standards (Eurocode-2 and KTP-2-89) by around 30%. Also on these failures contribute the low strength of concrete used in construction of some of these buildings (the compressive strength results 50% less than required) and the use of smooth rebar.

On November 26, 2019, a magnitude 6.4 (Mw) earthquake occurred in Durrës, Albania, causing considerable damages to many surrounding buildings. In this paper, a six floor RC structure, with a frame system, located in Durrës is taken in consideration. The structure suffered significant structural damages due to strong ground motion. The institutions responsible for the situation assessment described it as a structure with the high-risk collapse. For this reason, on December 3, 2019, the engineer corps demolished this building with controlled explosion. The purpose of this study is to analyse the collapse mechanism of the six floor structure, based on well-established Finite Element Method. This structure will therefore be simulated with advanced modelling software, such as ETABS Ultimate. Analytical results, obtained by the numerical methods are then compared with the observed In-Situ damages.

The Mw = 6.4 November 26, 2019 02:54 UTC earthquake struck near the city of Durrës, Thumanë. Since the earthquake struck on 26 November, resulting in 51 deaths and up to 750 people injured. Many buildings in Durrës and Thumanë were collapsed and many more were seriously damaged. The inspection of the damaged buildings and declared uninhabitable, revealed many problems related to their design. After 1990 and especially after 2000 the construction of multistorey reinforced concrete buildings (9-12 floors) mainly for residential and service facilities was very intensive.These structures are mainly designed referering to old Albanian design codes KTP-89 and these structures are the ones most damaged by seismic event and are mainly related to bypassing the design codes and specific criterios for structures in seismic areas. But it should be noted that one of the reasons for their non-collapse is that they are designed as very elastic structures so consequently having reduced seismic forces, but not meet the requirements of Eurocode 8 and KTP-89 to other criterias. To illustrate the above problem,we will show the most common avoidances from general rules of design according to EC8. The fundamental periods of of 9-12 floors buildings are much larger that the values that should have these type of structures according to design codes. The factors related to the above are and cousing the damage, colapse of the filling and the partition walls and also creating panic and endangering the lives of residents are the element designs such of hidden beams in the slabs, lack of diaphragms and cores. Inadequate design of foundations cause the differentials settlements and inclination of objects as well. Another problem is incorrect dimensioning of seismic gaps between two structures.

Abstract:Recently based in the performance of tunnels under seismic movements a good progress is made in the seismic design of tunnels. The majority of problems in the tunnel structures take place in near fault conditions and in the case of great variation of rock properties. Not having a previous experience in the seismic design of the tunnels that pass through tectonic zones with very large heterogeneity (strong rock-soil or very poor rock that behaves like soil) this article presents the general aspects of seismic calculation of tunnels and application in a specific example. The article presents the methods of seismic input modeling, design and particularities of numerical calculations. The geological conditions in which the case study tunnel will be constructed are very common in Albanian territory and represent one of the most difficult cases for the construction of road tunnels. The applied approach for using the longitudinal models for generating time histories of acceleration that can be used as input for transversal models is very simple and will help the designers for the seismic analysis of other tunnels that will be constructed in Albania.

Nowadays cost of highway materials increase every year. In addition, use of marginal materials results in early development of pavement distress, requiring more frequent repairs also rehabilitation, associated lane closures, traffic congestion in high volume traffic areas which increases the potential for construction zone accidents and increased levels of environmental pollution related to automobile emissions. Therefore, there is a strong desire in our country to optimize the use of materials currently used for highway pavement construction and to seek advanced materials that are cheaper and environmentally friendly. It has now been recognized that the age of limitless construction materials and the use of conventional materials in their present form is fast coming to an end, and new technologies need to be developed to continue to support the rehabilitation and reconstruction of pavements. Today, concerns about limited availability and sustainability are driving the search for new and advanced materials for highway construction. In this pap er we describe the potential for considering the use of alternative materials, also encourage the industry to accelerate the development and implementation of products still under development. The materials range from materials under development to recently commercialized materials.