Workshop on buildings with thin walls

João Almeida and Angelica Rosso participated, between May 31 and June 2, in the 'CODEV EPFL - CEER: Thin Walls Workshop' in UniNorte, Barranquilla, Colombia. This event, which was organized within the setting of the VIII Colombian Conference on Earthquake Engineering, was the closing event for more than two years of joint collaboration between the EESDLab and investigators of the recently established CEER (Colombian Earthquake Engineering Research Center). The projects were financed by the EPFL-CODEV grants 'SEED Money 2015 Latin America' and 'SEED Money 2016'. During the workshop, 10 presentations by different researchers were made addressing the seismic behaviour of buildings constructed with thin walls. When single-layer low-ductility steel meshes are used, the walls are prone to out-of-plane instability and concentration of inelastic demands in single large cracks above the base, which can pose performance problems during earthquake response. A round table of discussion, sitting other several Colombian and international experts on thin-wall behaviour, was also held on June 2. Required future research on the topic was identified and opportunities for extending the collaboration were discussed.