The 2017 revised editions of the Standard for Seismic Evaluation of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings, Guidelines for Seismic Retrofit of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings, and Technical Manual for Seismic Evaluation and Seismic Retrofit of Existing Reinforced Concrete Buildings (three volumes in all) were published by the Japan Building Disaster Prevention Association in July 2017. This marks the third revision of these standards, originally published in 1977, and previously revised in 1990 and 2001 in response to the transition to the current Japanese seismic design standards since 1981. These standards are used nationwide as guides for the seismic evaluation and retrofitting of buildings in accordance with the “Act on Promotion of Seismic Retrofitting of Buildings” that came into effect in December 1995. Since the publication of these revised editions, seminars and the like for seismic performance evaluation engineers have been held nationwide. This paper explains the main points of these revised editions for general engineers including those working in the field of civil engineering.

Research on ecological concrete has focused mainly on concretes that use cement equivalent to type C blended cement that enormously reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However, such concretes often presents restrictions in terms of production, construction and application locations, which makes them difficult to use for general purposes. This paper describes an investigation of concrete that uses cement equivalent to blast furnace cement type A consisting of a blend of ordinary portland cement and blast furnace cement type B and was found to produce desirable characteristics in terms of fresh concrete properties, strength development, durability, and carbon dioxide reduction effect.

Technology for the seismic retrofit of RC structures with post-installed plate-anchored shear reinforcement has steadily built up a track record since first being put into practical use in 2006. As the number of construction projects using this technology has been increasing, various improvements to existing technology and development of new technology have been achieved to meet an array of needs such as extension of the diameter range of applicable reinforcement, size modification of end plates to improve constructability, and application to deep beams. This paper describes the state of development of technology for the seismic retrofit of RC structures with post-installed plateanchored shear reinforcement.