Geotechnical Factors in Recent Earthquake-Induced Structural Failures in Greece

A review is made of geotechnical factors that played an important role in three recent earthquake-induced failures, two of which were deadly. The first two catastrophes concern two five-storey hotels that collapsed during the “Alkyonides earthquake” of 24 February 1981 (M=6.7) and the “Egion earthquake” of 15 June 1995 (M=6.2). The third failure is the collapse of a multi-storey factory caused by the “Athens earthquake” of 7 September 1999 (M=5.9). In the first two catastrophes, ground subsidence was estimated by two different methods and was found to be of the order of 0.13 to 0.46 m. These estimates are based on tentative assumptions that should be reviewed and possibly revised. Considerable differential settlements must have existed before the earthquake, as there were no basements that would have attenuated vertical loading and so even a moderate additional differential settlement could cause failure. In the third case, the structure was built near the edge of a steep slope of clayey soil. The co-seismic shear displacement caused the footings resting on the sliding mass to settle, thus causing severe distortions to the structure

Controlled vinyl-type polymerization of norbornene with a Nickel(II) diphosphinoamine/methylaluminoxane catalytic system

A novel nickel-based complex coordinated with an asymmetric diphosphi-noamine ligand was synthesized and fully characterized. Single crystals of good quality were also obtained, and the solid-state structure of the complex was studied via X-rays diffraction. The catalytic activity of this Ni(II) complex in the vinyl-type polymerization of norbornene was studied with methylaluminoxane (MAO) as the cocatalyst/activator. The influence of the reaction time, the equivalents of MAO used, and the concentration of the monomer on: (i) the activity of the catalytic system; (ii) the isolated yield of the polymer; and (iii) the molecular weight and molecular weight distribution of the polymer were investigated. The isolated polynorbornene (PNB) yields are significantly higher compared with those reported for other similar nickel-based systems. The as-obtained PNBs are characterized by high molecular weights and relatively narrow and monomodal molecular weight distributions (amongst the narrowest reported in the literature). The linear dependence of the molecular weight of the obtained PNB on the concentration of norbornene points toward a controlled polymerization reaction. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc