Events Calendar

Nature and Infrastructure Harmony – Reliable methods, resilient systems, and sustainable designs under extreme hazard events: Seismic Hazards

Speaker: Chukwuebuka C. Nweke, Ph.D., UCLA

Talk Title: Nature and Infrastructure Harmony -“ Reliable methods, resilient systems, and sustainable designs under extreme hazard events: Seismic Hazards

Abstract:
Natural hazards expose vulnerabilities in current civil infrastructure. This has been demonstrated over the years by earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, and tsunamis. The aftermath of seismic events in particular have been catastrophic in terms of socio-economic cost as evidenced by the 2010 -“ 2011 Canterbury Earthquake Sequence that devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, the September 2018 earthquake event that decimated Palu, Indonesia, and many other occurences. Potential solutions may exist at the intersection of Reliable, Resilient, and Sustainable (RRnS) engineering that may facilitate the development of a new generation of infrastructure that embraces rather than combats with nature and its uncertainties. Traditional design standards focus on life safety, but performance-based standards are being adopted, albeit slowly. Still, these performance-based engineering methods often utilize an ergodic (global) approach in contrast to a non-ergodic (site-specific) approach, potentially leading to systems with limited resilience and large uncertainties in design demand and capacity. My research efforts aim to investigate innovative means to characterize hazard demands and capacity through constitutive and empirical modeling, as well as provide adaptable (bio-inspired) solutions to improve infrastructure performance.


Host: Dr. Lucio Soibelman

Location: Ray R. Irani Hall (RRI) - 101

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Salina Palacios