Often the masonry is covered with a smooth layer of plaster, which provides a nice finished surface and hides potential poor quality blocks and bad construction details. The engineers are encouraged to be building detectives, looking for clues that provide information on what lies beneath the plaster. For example, this picture shows a house where the interior wall was removed. The underside of the slab shows the lack of positive connection when the wall was in place, which is ...
Posted by Gordon Wray on January 30, 2012 5:38 PM
Today wraps up a week of training the newly hired engineers of Build Change, Haiti in earthquake engineering, and building evaluation and retrofit procedures. The week started off with nine new engineers in my class and on Wednesday I got six more. The first nine engineers split into sub-groups on Wednesday and today they will complete their training with presentations on the example buildings for which they had to evaluate and design retrofits. The example buildings were ...
Posted by Lizzie Blaisdell on January 27, 2012 6:40 PM
Cale Ash has been chosen as one of EERI's Housner Fellows in the 2012 inaugural class. The leadership program targets young to mid-career professionals and academics from around the world and equips them with the training and skills required to become effective advocates for earthquake safety.
Please join me in congratulating Cale on this achievement.
Posted by Alethea Odell on December 16, 2011 6:56 PM
A year and a half ago, the earthquake in Haiti crippled the already troubled nation’s infrastructure. The 7.2 magnitude earthquake displaced over 3 million residents and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of buildings – both commercial and residential - in the main capital of Port-Au-Prince, as well as its surrounding towns.
Posted by Lana on November 16, 2011 8:32 PM
November 8, 2011
PORTLAND, Ore. — Degenkolb Engineers Principal Kent Yu starts his two-year term as Chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Committee (OSSPAC) this month. In this role, Dr. Yu leads disaster recovery and preparedness planning in the state of Oregon for OSSPAC.
OSSPAC promotes earthquake awareness and preparedness through education, research and legislation at the federal, state and local levels. The organization consists of an 18-member commission, representing the fields of engineering, transportation, education, housing and emergency response ...
Posted by Lana on November 14, 2011 8:22 PM
A team of U.S. and Japanese researchers conducted a five-day field inspection of the of tsunami borne debris and its effects on structures following March’s magnitude 9 earthquake and ensuing tsunami off the northeast coast of Honshu, Japan.
Posted by Lana on November 14, 2011 5:33 PM
