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Minisymposium in "“Software Development in the Field of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics”

Minisymposium in ““Software Development in the Field of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics”

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

SUB

A minisymposium is organised in the framework of the 4th
International Conference on Computational Dynamics and
Earthquake Engineering – COMPDYN 2013
(www.compdyn2013.org)
:

“Software Development in the Field of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics”.
 

Organizer:  Anastasios Sextos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
 
e-mail:  asextos@civil.auth.gr
 description:  The mini-symposium
will focus on recent advances in software development for
Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics purposes. More specifically, it will encourage contributions that
will demonstrate new
software applications, web-based engineering tools, frameworks for
hybrid simulation and distributed computing, knowledge-based & expert
systems, finite
element programs, numerical analysis pre- and post- processing
front-ends, data and metadata dissemination and management
systems, high performance, parallel and cloud computing schemes,
applications for mobile devices and tablets as well as GIS-based
visualization tools. Emphasis will be primarily (but not
exclusively) given to the application of the above software
systems towards the
mitigation of seismic risk, the design and assessment of
earthquake resistant buildings and bridges, the assessment of
special and monumental structures, system identification and structural health
monitoring, performance-based engineering, seismic
isolation and control of structures, dynamic soil-structure
interaction, strong ground motion selection and scaling as well as
seismic wave propagation through the soil media. It is envisioned that the Symposium will constitute a forum
on the recently developed earthquake-engineering-related software
that will facilitate the dissemination of knowledge and promote the
interaction and cooperation between the developers and the
end-users.

A complete list of other interesting Minisymposia can be found here 

IN ORDER TO SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT PLEASE USE MINI-SYMPOSIUM CODE: MS-25-CZ

Seventh National Seismic Conference on Bridges & Highways (7NSC) “Bridge Resilience for Earthquakes and Other Natural Hazards”

Seventh National Seismic Conference on Bridges & Highways (7NSC) “Bridge Resilience for Earthquakes and Other Natural Hazards”

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

Oakland,
California has been selected as the site of the Seventh National
Seismic Conference on Bridges & Highways (7NSC). The event will be
held May 20-22, 2013 at the Oakland Marriott City Center. The conference
theme is “Bridge Resilience for Earthquakes and Other Natural Hazards,”
indicating a broad scope. There will be presentations and discussions
of multiple hazards that may affect the performance of highway
infrastructure. California was chosen by the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) to host this conference based on the state’s past
experience with earthquakes and the Department of Transportation’s
(Caltrans) leadership in the field. D2BS98J4TVJZ
Co-organizers
of the conference are USDOT Federal Highway Administration,
Transportation Research Board, American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials’ Subcommittee on Bridges and Structures
(AASHTO), and earthquake research centers PEER-UC Berkeley, and MCEER,
University at Buffalo.
The
2013 conference builds upon previous successful meetings that have been
held in San Diego, Sacramento, Portland, Memphis, San Mateo, and
Charleston, SC. Based on past trends, attendance is expected to exceed
400 and will include representatives from private engineering practice,
government, construction, academia, and industry. This conference is a
premier gathering of transportation officials responsible for addressing
and mitigating the impact of all hazards on our highway infrastructure.
On
Sunday May 19, 2013, an optional pre-conference technical workshop will
be held. The main program will be held over the next 2½ days with over
75 oral and poster presentations, discussion panels, and a student
design competition. Several internationally renowned keynote speakers
are being invited to share information about some of the major
earthquakes that have occurred in other parts of the world in recent
years. In addition, a special session is planned that will highlight the
design and construction of the soon to be complete San Francisco –
Oakland Bay Bridge, with emphasis on the unique self-anchored suspension
span. An optional technical tour will also be provided.
In
the days prior to the 7NSC, FHWA is planning to hold the First
International Bridge Seismic Workshop, also in Oakland. Dr. W. Phillip
Yen, FHWA Principal Bridge Engineer – Structural Dynamics, is Chairman
of the 7NSC and the International Workshop.

For more information, visit the conference web site.

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Symposium on “Seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges”

Symposium on “Seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges”

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

Symposium on “Seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges” is being organized by Prof. Andreas Kappos, within the framework of the COMPDYN 2013 conference http://www.compdyn2013.org/ that is organized under the auspices of the European Community on Computational Methods in Applied Sciences (ECCOMAS) and the International Association for Computational Mechanics (IACM). This is the fourth conference in the COMDYN series and will take place from 12 to 14 June 2013 at the Kos International Convention Centre (KICC) in the beautiful island of Kos.

An abstract of no more than an A4 page can be submitted by 29 October 2012, following the instructions given at the Conference website (see address above) and making sure that you indicate that the abstract is submitted for MS14 (Mini-Symposium 14)

The Symposium will focus on the seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges, with emphasis on analytical/computational methods that fit well the scope of COMPDYN, but relevant experimental studies will also be welcome; presentations will include, among others, recent work carried out on this topic by members of two international groups dealing with this issue, the EAEE Task Group 11 ‘Seismic design, assessment, and retrofit of Bridges’(http://eaee-tg11.weebly.com), and the IABSE Working Group 7 ‘Earthquake Resistant Structures’ (http://ftpiabapp1.fishtech.net/imis15/IABSE/IABSE_Association/Committees/Technical_Groups/Working_Groups/WG7/IABSE/association/Committee_files/Technical/WG/WG7.aspx?hkey=b469e271-7732-480c-94dd-22e2d3f6f7f3).

It is aimed that the Symposium will constitute a forum for the exchange of research results and ideas on currently available procedures and their applicability to the seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges. As such, pertinent issues such as modelling of bridge members strengthened using different techniques, modelling of interfaces, calibration of models against tests results, etc, will be amongst the topics open to debate and scrutiny. Hence the Symposium will provide a valuable contribution to the further development and implementation of methodologies for the seismic assessment and retrofit of bridges and contribute to risk reduction in these critical structures.

Impressive new exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco

Impressive new exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

Director Stephen Mahin’s recent research test for the NEEStips project at the nees@berkeley lab is featured in a new exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.  The new exhibit, called “EARTHQUAKE: Life on a Dynamic Planet,” explores the seismic science that has shaped Earth’s evolution and continues to impact our lives today.

A key feature of the new exhibit is the Earthquake planetarium show, in the largest all-digital planetarium in the world.  The show explores the forces that transform the earth’s surface by examining the San Andreas Fault and San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake.  The show concludes with a focus on how engineers today help buildings resist earthquake shaking safely and highlights the benefits of earthquake resisting features, such as seismic isolation.

The nees@berkeley staff and researchers worked closely with the California Academy of Sciences to film the seismically isolated two bay, two story specimen that was being tested on nees@berkeley’s new hybrid shaking table.  The final resulting footage used in the planetarium show depicts the specimen being shaken as it zooms into a close up to one of the isolators.  If you go to see the planetarium show, be sure to look for the nees@berkeley team in the credits!

For more information about research highlighted in the planetarium show, watch an interview with Professor Mahin about the NEEStips testing at UC Berkeley.  Professor Keri Ryan of University Nevada, Reno is the PI of the NEEStips research program.

For more information about the California Academy of Science exhibit, visit the “EARTHQUAKE: Life on a Dynamic Planet” website.

To watch the Academy’s “Science in Action” video trailer highlighting the filming process and the importance of earthquake engineering research at PEER and nees@berkeley, visit the ScienceToday website.

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First International Conference on Performance-based and Life-cycle Structural Engineering

First International Conference on Performance-based and Life-cycle Structural Engineering

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

The First International Conference on Performance-based and Life-cycle Structural Engineering (PLSE 2012) organized by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University will be held in Hong Kong on 5-7 December 2012. The following nine world-renowned researchers have agreed to deliver Keynote Lectures at the conference:
Professor Nick BUENFELD, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Professor Oral BUYUKOZTURK, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Professor Gregory G. DEIERLEIN, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, United States
Professor Filip C. FILIPPOU, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, United States
Professor Dan FRANGOPOL, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Lehigh University, United States
Professor Koichi MAEKAWA, Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan
Professor Jin-Ping OU, School of Civil Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China
Professor Frieder SEIBLE, Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California, San Diego, United States
Professor Surendra P. SHAH, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, United States
  
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The Third International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, Grid and Cloud Computing for Engineering

The Third International Conference on Parallel, Distributed, Grid and Cloud Computing for Engineering

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

PARENG2013
The Third International Conference onParallel, Distributed, Grid and Cloud Computing for Engineering
Pécs, Hungary25-27 March 2013.
Abstracts of papers to be presented at the above conference may now be submitted via the conference website: http://www.civil-comp.com/conf/pareng2013.htm
Young Researcher Best Paper Competition: To encourage young researchers to attend the conference a 1000 Euro Young Researcher Best Paper Prize will be awarded to the best paper presented at the conference.  (For further details please see the conference website).

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Seismo-Artif: a new freeware for generating artificial earthquake accelerograms

Seismo-Artif: a new freeware for generating artificial earthquake accelerograms

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

Seismosoft has announced the release of SeismoArtif, an application capable of generating artificial
earthquake accelerograms matched to a specific target response spectrum
using different calculation methods and varied assumptions. In other
words, the ideal companion tool of SeismoMatch, to be used in those cases where spectrum matching of real accelerograms is not pursuable.

In
tandem with this new release, Seismosoft has also published new versions of
SeismoSignal, SeismoSpect and SeismoMatch. In the News
 section of the official website it is possible to get a glimpse of the novelties and
improvements introduced in these programs, which can all be downloaded
from here
. 

NEEShub Release 4.0

NEEShub Release 4.0

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

The NEEScomm IT Team announced Release 4.0, a major NEEShub
Release.  Release enhancements are related to the Project Warehouse, Project Reviews, Data Status Report Generation, Digital Object Identifiers and Project Warehouse and Project Editor support for Simulation and Hybrid Simulation Experiments. They are described in detail in http://nees.org/announcements/neeshubrelease40

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Web-based statics course

Web-based statics course

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

OLI Engineering Statics
is a freely available, on-line Statics course coauthored by Anna Dollár
and Paul Steif. The course is part of a suite of cognitively informed,
web-based introductory level undergraduate courses that were developed
at Carnegie Mellon University under the Open Learning Initiative.
The initial development of this course was supported by the William
and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Further development of the OLI Engineering
Statics course has been supported by the National Science Foundation
under grant DUE 0918271.

The OLI Engineering Statics course contains many interactive
elements, including: simulations, “walk-throughs” that integrate voice
and graphics to explain an example of the procedure or a difficult
concept, and, most prominently, computer tutors in which students
practice problem solving, with hints and feedback. The course is built
around a series of carefully devised learning objectives that are
independently assessable.While individual learners can and do use OLI Engineering Statics, it
is also increasingly used in Statics courses led by instructors. In
different settings it: replaces the textbook, acts as a supplement to
the textbook, or functions as the primary instruction in a
instructor-led, distance course. When a group of students enter OLI
Engineering Statics using an instructor-generated course key, then the
instructor has full access to those students’ activities in the course,
including graded quizzes, and can leverage that knowledge to improve
classroom instruction. Information about the Open Learning Initiative generally may be found here. The Open and Free version of the OLI Engineering Statics may be found here.

Information for instructors who are interested in setting up an
academic section of OLI Engineering Statics for their students and
blending OLI into their class may be found here.

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OpenSees Days 2012

OpenSees Days 2012

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

PEER and NEES will host OpenSees Days 2012 on August 15-16 at the
Richmond Field Station, an off-campus facility of the University of
California, Berkeley.  Students, researchers, and practitioners are
welcome to attend any of the days.

Wednesday, August 15: Getting Started With OpenSees
The annual one-day training workshop on how to use OpenSees will be
more hands-on this year. This workshop is intended for beginning users.
This workshop will introduce users to the tcl scripting language, and
basic modeling and analysis techniques using OpenSees.

Thursday, August 16: OpenSees: Beyond the Basics

Seal of the University of California, Berkeley
Seal of the University of California, Berkeley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This workshop is intended for intermediate users and those who have
attended the Getting Started Workshop. The workshop will focus on
structural and geotechnical modeling using OpenSees, and how to extend
OpenSees for your own research needs.  The afternoon sessions will be
devoted to presentations from industry and research representatives who
will discuss how OpenSees has been used and extended to further their
work.

**Anyone from industry or academia interested in presenting on August 16th is encouraged to send a short abstract to Frank McKenna before July 1, 2012.**

The event is free, but registration is required because space is
limited to the first 100 applicants.  Registration closes on August 10,
2012.

Registration and additional program information can be found the OpenSees Days 2012 website.

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Earthquakes and Megacities: A Free Webinar on Thursday, May 31

Earthquakes and Megacities: A Free Webinar on Thursday, May 31

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

A
one-hour live-streaming webinar on the topic of Earthquakes and
Megacities will take place Thursday, May 31, 2012, at 8:00 a.m. PDT. To
access the webinar, visit http://wms.fccn.pt/15wcee.*

Speakers:

The Organizing Committee of the 15th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (15WCEE) is hosting the webinar.

*MAC users: Install Flip4Mac plugin
*Mozilla Firefox users: Install Media Player Firefox plugin

Earthquake in northern Italy

Earthquake in northern Italy

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

MIRANDOLA, Italy (AP) — A powerful earthquake killed at least 15 people
as it rocked a swath of northern Italy on Tuesday. Factories and
churches collapsed, dealing another blow to a region where thousands are still homeless after a stronger quake just nine days ago.
The 5.8 magnitude quake added to the misery being felt in the Emilia
Romagna region of towns north of Bologna, one of Italy’s most
agriculturally and industrial protective areas.
The quake hit just after 9:00 a.m. with an epicenter 40 kilometers (25
miles) northwest of Bologna, according to the U.S. Geological Survey —
just a handful of (miles) kilometers away from where the deadly May 20
quake was centered.
The quake was felt from Piedmont in northwestern Italy to Venice in the
northeast and as far north as Austria. It was followed by many
aftershocks, some registering more than 5.0 in magnitude.

Hybrid Simulation Workshop at NEES@Berkeley - June 28 & 29

Hybrid Simulation Workshop at NEES@Berkeley – June 28 & 29

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

The NEES site at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) will host the annual Hybrid Simulation Workshop June 28 and 29, 2012, at its Richmond Field Station.

This
year’s Hybrid Simulation Workshop emphasizes real-time loading,
including demonstrations of our new “smart” dynamic platform. Attendees
will:
·Learn the basics of hybrid simulation methods
·Learn about the basic tools OpenSees and OpenFresco
·Conduct several real-time hybrid simulation demonstrations at the NEES@Berkeley equipment site
·Be able to use hybrid simulation in your NEES and non-NEES projects
·Prepare to develop new hybrid simulation tests and algorithms
·Learn
about pros and cons (accuracy, limits, ease of use, field applications
in damage assessment) of modern non-conventional monitoring and
measuring techniques.

The registration deadline is June 15.  This workshop is offered at no cost to participants.

Limited
travel support is available for graduate students, post-doctoral
researchers, or tenure-track faculty at US schools.  Please register and
apply for travel support using the online registration form at the  Hybrid Simulation Workshop web page.

Discovering OpenSees: Surfing the Waves of OpenSees

Discovering OpenSees: Surfing the Waves of OpenSees

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

“Parallel & Grid Computing” on May 31 & June 1

The next seminar in the web-based Discovering OpenSees: Surfing the waves of OpenSees
learning series will occur on May 31 and June 1. The session will be
broadcast twice at times that will allow users in all time zones around
the world to participate. This 1-hour session is titled “Parallel &
Grid Computing” and will occur on May 31 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time &
on June 1 at 10:00 am Pacific Time.

This seminar will provide a brief introduction to Parallel and Grid
Computing with OpenSees using the resources made available to users
through NEEShub.

This seminar covers:

  • Introduction to Parallel & Grid Computing
  • Parallel Computing With OpenSees
  • Running Parallel Examples on NEEShub
  • Grid Computing Using Pegasus, the Open Science Grid and OpenSees
  • Q&A with web participants

How can I join the seminar?
Register for the seminar on May 31 at 4:00 pm Pacific Time
Register for the seminar on June 1 at 10:00 am Pacific Time

Once registered, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions
for joining the meeting. More information will be posted at the Discovering OpenSees Wiki page.

The Fourteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing

The Fourteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

The Fourteenth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing
3-6 September 2013 – Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
http://www.civil-comp.com/conf
This is the fourteenth in the CIVIL-COMP series of conferences concerned with the application of computers to civil, structural and environmental engineering. The first Civil-Comp Conference was held in 1983. The conference will provide a forum for the presentation and dissemination of recent developments in the use of computers in civil, structural and environmental engineering. A major objective of the conference will be to link research and innovative ideas to engineering practice. Short to medium length papers describing the application of computers to civil, structural and environmental engineering projects will be particularly welcome. In addition, it is hoped that significant research and review papers on civil, structural and environmental engineering computational research topics will be presented.

The Third International Conference on Soft Computing Technology in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering

The Third International Conference on Soft Computing Technology in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

The Third International Conference on Soft Computing Technology in Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering 3-6 September 2013 – Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy
http://www.civil-comp.com/conf

Topics: Soft computing technology includes aspects of computer science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, evolutionary based methods and tools. Many of the methods employed by soft computing technology are computationally intensive and should therefore only be employed on complex problems that have traditionally proved intractable using more conventional solution methods. The key areas of soft computing covered by this conference include but are not limited to: neural networks; fuzzy systems; genetic algorithms; ant colony optimization; evolutionary algorithms; simulated annealing; harmony search; cellular automata; swarm intelligence; Bayesian networks; chaos theory; data mining; meta-heuristic methods. Papers describing the application of the above techniques to all branches of civil, structural and environmental engineering may be submitted to the conference.

New Oakland Bay Bridge

New Oakland Bay Bridge

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

 

SAN FRANCISCO — Venture deep inside the new skyway of the San
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and it becomes clear that the bridge’s
engineers have planned for the long term.

At intervals inside the elevated roadway’s box girders — which have the
closed-in feel of a submarine, if a submarine were made of concrete —
are anchor blocks, called deadmen, cast into the structure. They are
meant to be used decades from now, perhaps in the next century, when in
their old age the concrete girders will start to sag. By running cables
from deadman to deadman and tightening them, workers will be able to
restore the girders to their original alignment.
The deadmen are one sign that the new eastern span
of the Bay Bridge, which includes the skyway and a unique suspension
bridge, is meant to last at least 150 years after its expected opening
in 2013. (The existing eastern bridge, which is still in use, will then
be torn down.)
But to make it to the 22nd century, the new span may at some point have
to survive a major earthquake, like the one that destroyed much of San
Francisco in 1906 or the one that partly severed the Bay Bridge in 1989.
With two faults nearby that are capable of producing such large quakes,
survival is no simple matter.
Say what you want about the project — and as the construction timeline
has lengthened past a decade and costs have soared over $6 billion,
plenty has been said — keeping the bridge intact in an earthquake has
always been the engineers’ chief goal.
And to meet that goal, they are going with the flow: designing flexible
structures in which any potential damage would be limited to specific
elements.
“We wanted to make this bridge flexible so that when the earthquake
comes in, the flexibility of the system is such that it basically rides
the earthquake,” said its lead designer, Marwan Nader, a vice president
at the engineering firm T. Y. Lin International.
That contrasts with another potential approach: making the bridge
structures large enough, and rigid enough, to resist movement. “Massive
and stiff structures would look absolutely ugly and be very, very
expensive,” said Frieder Seible, dean of the Jacobs School of
Engineering at the University of California, San Diego, who tested many
elements of the bridge design.
That design includes a 525-foot-tall suspension bridge tower made up of
four steel shafts that should sway in a major earthquake, up to about
five feet at the top. But the brunt of the force would be absorbed by
connecting plates between the shafts, called shear links.
The bridge’s concrete piers are designed to sway as well, limiting
damage to areas with extra steel reinforcing. And at joints along the
entire span there are 60-foot sliding steel tubes, called hinge pipe
beams, with sacrificial sections of weaker steel that should help spare
the rest of the structure as it moves in a quake.
“At the seismic displacement that we anticipate, there will be damage,”
Mr. Nader said. “But the damage is repairable and the bridge can be
serviceable with no problems.”
Emergency vehicles and personnel, at the least, should be able to use
the bridge within hours of a major earthquake, after crews inspect the
structure and make temporary fixes, like placing steel plates over
certain joints. Given that the Bay Area’s two major airports would be
expected to be out of service after such a disaster, this bridge and the
Benicia-Martinez Bridge, another seismically secure span about 20 miles
to the northeast, would be “lifeline” structures to bring assistance to
the stricken region from an Air Force base inland, said Bart Ney, a
spokesman for the California Department of Transportation.
It was an earthquake that made this replacement span, which runs for 2.2
miles between Oakland and Yerba Buena Island in the middle of San
Francisco Bay, necessary. The Loma Prieta quake of 1989, the first to
occur along the San Andreas fault zone since the 1906 disaster, caused
part of the existing steel-truss span to collapse,
killing a motorist. The bridge was closed for a month. That quake, with
a magnitude of 6.9, caused strong shaking that lasted about 15 seconds
and movement far greater than the 1930s-vintage bridge had been designed
to handle.
Πηγή: New York Times
NEES "Research to Practice" Webinar "Assessment of Seismic Performance of Masonry-Infilled Reinforced Concrete Frames"

NEES “Research to Practice” Webinar “Assessment of Seismic Performance of Masonry-Infilled Reinforced Concrete Frames”

Written by nisida on . Posted in Νέα.

“Assessment of Seismic Performance of Masonry-Infilled Reinforced Concrete Frames” is the sixth in a series of Research to Practice webinars
co-produced by the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)
and the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) is Tuesday,
May 22, 2012.
There is no cost to attend this webinar. To register go tohttps://nees.org/webinar.  
Reinforced
concrete and steel frame structures sometimes include unreinforced
masonry infill walls as interior and exterior partitions. Such
construction can be found in many old buildings in the western United
States, such as pre-1930’s buildings in California, and is still being
used for newer buildings in the midwestern and eastern parts of the
country. Even though unreinforced masonry infill walls are usually
considered as non-structural elements, they interact with the bounding
frames when subjected to earthquake loads. This interaction may result
in unintended failure mechanisms, such as shear failures of reinforced
concrete (RC) columns and the crushing of the masonry infill. The
seismic performance and safety of infilled frames have received much
attention because of their mixed performance in past earthquakes. The
lateral load resistance of an infilled frame highly depends on the
frame-wall interaction and the specific failure mechanism that may
result. This presents a major challenge for the performance assessment
of these structures.

A
research project was sponsored under the Network for Earthquake
Engineering Simulation (NEES) program of NSF to develop reliable
analytical methods for assessing the performance of masonry-infilled RC
frames, and also effective retrofit methods for enhancing the seismic
safety of these buildings. The analytical and retrofit methods were
validated with quasi-static and large-scale shake-table tests. The
research was a collaborative effort of UC-San Diego, the University of
Colorado, Boulder, and Stanford University. This webinar will provide a
brief overview of the research project, and present the simplified as
well as refined analytical methods that were developed in this project.
Current efforts to improve the performance assessment methods in ASCE 41
for this type of structures will be discussed. The presentation will be
given by Professor P.B. Shing and Dr. Ioannis Koutromanos of UC-San
Diego, and Professor Andreas Stavridis of the University of Texas,
Arlington.