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 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
Day 4: One last look at Ercis
On our last day, we decided to head toward the City of Ercis since the first day was raining it was very difficult to take photos and notes. With rescue operations transitioning to clean-up, the residents of the city were trying to access their apartments and businesses. We observed at least 20 collapsed buildings during our walk through the city. Collapsed buildings ranged from those more than 15 years old (noted by the use ...
Posted by Ricardo Hernandez on November 3, 2011 6:15 PM
Day 3: Industrial Facilities and the Port
Rafael and I wanted to observe the performance of the industrial facilities and ports. With the exception of the sugar plant near Ercis, all of the industrial facilities, including the port, were near the city of Van. We were pleasantly surprised to see very little damage, if any, at these facilities despite the purported ground shaking.
Photo #1: Ferry Pier at the City ...
Posted by Ricardo Hernandez on November 3, 2011 6:12 PM
