January 2022 Chapter Meeting

Regional-scale seismic risk assessment of building structures using physics-based earthquake simulations

Speaker: Maha Kenawy, PhD | Engineering Consultant | Exponent

When: January 20, 2022 | 6:00 – 7:00 PM

Where: Virtual – Online Link Coming Soon

Engineers have studied the occurrence of earthquakes and their impacts on civil structures for  decades. Despite our increased knowledge and level of preparedness for earthquake events,  there is significant uncertainty surrounding our understanding of the potential impacts of large and  rare earthquakes, for which we do not have sufficient observational data. Such rare events may  cause significant damage to structures, and incur substantial economic losses due to interruption  of community functions. Because the timely recovery of communities following natural disasters  is a national priority, the 2018 U.S. Congress reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards  Reduction Program called for improving the seismic safety and recovery standards of critical  infrastructure. To achieve this goal, structural engineers must predict the performance of infrastructure under the expected ground shaking in future earthquakes. This seminar will discuss  the use of physics-based earthquake fault rupture simulations and high-performance computing  tools to assess the expected risks to building structures over entire geographical regions. 
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December 2021 Chapter Meeting

The Upper and Lower San Fernando Dams: 50 Years of Advances in Seismic Analysis of Dams Potentially Susceptible to Seismic Soil Liquefaction

Speaker: Ray Seed, PhD | Professor Emeritus | UC Berkeley

When: Thursday, December 2nd, 2021 | Noon – 1:30 PM

Where: Teams Meeting Link

The well-documented field performance case histories of the Lower San Fernando Dam (LSFD) and the Upper San Fernando Dam (USFD) during the February 9, 1971 San Fernando earthquake (Mw = 6.61) have been foundational to the development of the field of modern seismic geotechnical dam engineering, and to the inception of the U.S. national seismic dam safety programs still ongoing today. The liquefaction-induced upstream flow failure of the LSFD, and the only small to moderate deformations that occurred for the similarly constructed USFD, provide an unusually valuable pair of case histories for back-analyses of the behaviors of embankment dams subject to soil liquefaction and strong near-field seismic loading.
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