News

Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has joined PEER as an educational affiliate. CMU faculty have expertise mutually beneficial to the PEER community in the following topics:

  • post-earthquake building damage diagnosis and loss estimation

Key Lessons

❏   At the end of October, three significant fires took place in California, namely the Kincade Fire in Northern California and the Tick and Getty fires in Southern California, fueled by high speed winds with heated air blowing from inland to the ocean. California Governor Gavin Newsom declared statewide emergency due to fires and extreme weather conditions (CA Gov, 2019). PG&E shut down power for an estimated 2.35 million people across 38 counties at the same time increasing the severity of the situation.

PEER has just published Report No. 2019/06: "Fluid-Structure Interaction and Python-Scripting Capabilities in OpenSees." It was authored by Minjie Zhu and Michael H. Scott, School of Civil and Construction Engineering Oregon State University

Visit the PEER publications page to download a free color pdf of the document.

Abstract

The impact of a PEER funded research project "Establishing Bridge Column Capacity Limit States through Modeling and Simulation" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigator (PI) is Sashi K. Kunnath, Professor of Civil Engineering, UC Davis. The research team includes Jin Zhou, Graduate Student Researcher, UC Davis.

Download the Research Project Highlight which includes the abstract. (PDF)

Research Impact:

The Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at University of Nevada, Reno is currently seeking applicants for Ph.D. Fellowships related to the theme Rebuilding the Nation’s Structural Infrastructure for Resilience to Extreme Events, for a start date of January 2020 or August 2020. Fellowships are funded through the Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program.

The impact of a PEER funded research project "Bridge Functionality Instead of Component Damage as PBEE Metric" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigators (PIs) are Michael H. Scott, Professor of Structural Engineering, Oregon State University and Kevin R. Mackie, Professor of Structural Engineering, University of Central Florida.

Download the Research Project Highlight which includes the abstract. (PDF)

Research Impact:

PEER Request for Proposal: Solicitation PEER-TSRP 19-01

Deadline to submit: 11:59pm (PDT) Thursday, October 31, 2019

The PEER Researchers’ Workshop was held on August 26-27, 2019, at UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station.

PEER is pleased to announce that Norman Abrahamson, Adjunct Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Departments at UC Berkeley and UC Davis, is taking the leadership role of the PEER Lifelines Research Program.

The impact of a PEER funded research project "New Seismically Resilient System for HSR, Ports and Vehicular Transportation Systems: Reducing Downtime, Construction Cost and Post-Earthquake Repair" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigators (PIs) are Dawn Lehman, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, and Charles Roeder, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Washington. The research team includes Zhao Muzi, Ph.D. Candidate.

The impact of a PEER funded research project "DEM Modeling of the Influence of Depositional Fabric on the Mechanical Properties of Granular Sediments using XRT Data" is highlighted below. The project Principal Investigator (PI) is Nicholas Sitar, Edward G. Cahill and John R. Cahill Professor, UC Berkeley. The research team includes Fernando Estefan T. Garcia, Post-doctoral student, UC Berkeley.

Download the Research Project Highlight which includes the abstract. (PDF)

The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center is pleased to offer exciting opportunities for students to explore new directions in earthquake engineering studies and research.

The Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network has issued a Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR) for M 6.4 and M 7.1 Ridgecrest, California, earthquakes that occurred July

The Structural Engineering Association of Northern California (SEAONC) honored three PEER research colleagues during the SEAONC June Awards dinner meeting:

• SEAONC Honorary Member: Norm Abrahamson, Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley and UC Davis
• SEAONC Helmut Krawinkler Award Co-Recipients: Jack Baker, Associate Professor at Stanford University, and Curt B. Haselton, Associate Professor at Chico State University

SEAONC Honorary Member
Norm Abrahamson, Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley and UC Davis

The Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network has issued an Event Briefing for the June 17, M6.0 earthquake in Sichuan, China.  Event Briefings  are typically released within 48 hours of an event for which StEER will not deploy virtual or field assessment teams, but still warrants some commentary. This briefing summarizes the event characteristics and key lessons learned.