Architecture Commons^™

A Review Of Current Construction Guidelines To Inform The Design Of Rammed Earth Houses In Seismically Active Zones, David Thompson, Charles Augarde, Juan Pablo Osorio

Articles

Sustainability in the materials we use for construction is a prime concern, focusing on reducing the embodied energy and carbon footprints of the materials used. The cement used in concrete products is responsible for a significant proportion of Man's CO2 emissions and its production requires substantial energy input, as do fired clay products. For this reason, products formed from unfired earthen materials are of increasing interest and the current challenges include devising means of robust design for strength and to address durability concerns. One form of earthen construction that employs an in-situ method is rammed earth, and it is a …

Structural Problems Of Latin American Cities 450 Years After Caracas’ Foundation, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro

Faculty Publications

Latin American cities face many problems that compromise them from different angles such as lack of infrastructure, government fragmentation, and environmental degradation. At the same time, each city tries to come up with its own solutions, but there are so many difficulties that in many cases it is difficult to keep attention and efforts focused on all these directions. For these reasons, this research aims to define some of the most common problems faced by cities in Latin America. Disseminating these similarities could help to face those problems, since, if local governments recognize that they face the same situations as …

Investigation, Study And Seismic Hazard Analysis For Urban Zone Montith, Shemsi Mustafa, Visar Krelani, Lulzim Beqiri, Besian Sinani

UBT International Conference

T

he general goal of earthquake engineering is identification and mitigation of seismic hazards. Seismic microzonation is the generic name for subdividing a region into individual areas having different potentials for hazardous earthquake effects, defining their specific seismic behavior in order to facilitate engineering design and land-use planning.

In seismic regions, the aspect of seismic risk must be taken into account in the first stages of projects, thus enabling the realization of a structural and quality system, within acceptable costs, satisfying the basic design requirement of a building, based on the seismic parameters of the ground.

Seismic and geophysical studies …

Analysis Of The Implementation Of Fluid Viscous Dampers In A Steel Special Moment Frame, Brad D. Weber

Architectural Engineering

This report examines the effects of adding fluid viscous dampers to a steel special moment frame through a series of analysis methods. Simple analysis procedures are first carried out and described, including a linear static procedure and a linear dynamic procedure. Then further analysis is carried out using a nonlinear dynamic analysis procedure. Multiple parameters are modified throughout the analysis processes to determine the impact on results and the data from all the analysis methods are compiled and used to demonstrate the overall impact of the use of fluid viscous dampers in a steel special moment frame.

Structural Reconnaissance Findings Of The 2017 Mexico City Earthquake, Rachel Garcia Chandler

Architectural Engineering

The author of this document is an undergraduate student at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) who was deployed to Mexico City to participate in reconnaissance efforts October 27^th to November 4^th, 2017 as part of a larger group of academics and professionals. The work was funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant #1811084 “The Effects of the 2017 Central Mexico Earthquake on Reinforced Concrete Buildings” with the overarching objective of collecting data on reinforced concrete building damage for understanding and further improving the seismic performance of these structures and the resilience …

Fault, Katharine Fritz

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

3,000 people died, 80% of the city was destroyed. On the morning of April 18, 1906 an estimated 7.9 magnitude earthquake echoed through the city of San Francisco. Waterlines, having been destroyed during the quake, resulted in a fire that engulfed the city and burned for 3 days after.Its epicenter was 3 miles off the coast of city surging waves of destruction from this center, this is the site of the first phased memorials designed along the San Andreas Fault system. This kinetic landscape of the San Andreas Fault stretches the length of californias coast continuously destroying and taking lives, …

Hyperelastic Structural Fuses For Improved Earthquake Resilience Of Steel Concentrically-Braced Buildings, Francys López-Mosquera

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Improving structural resilience (i.e., reducing service interruptions and improving rapidity of function restoration) following extreme events is one of the primary contemporary challenges in structural engineering. While massive casualties have successfully been avoided through the adoption of modern building codes, the sole codified performance objective has been limited to the life safety/collapse prevention range of response. Christchurch, NZ, highlighted the insufficiency of this approach, with large sections of the city nonfunctional after a major earthquake, and with subsequent collapses induced by significant aftershocks. Engineering advances to improve building and community resilience are necessary to mitigate hazards from becoming disasters. This …

Construction Training Facility (Essu Philippines), Omar Ramirez

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this project was to work hand in hand with engineers and construction managers from the non-profit organization Build Change in order to construct a training facility in the Philippines. The training facility would educate the locals how to build safer structures that would be more effective during earthquakes.

The focus of this report is to elaborate on the process of the project, the difficulties encountered, and the benefits of the overall project when completed.

Evaluating The Vegetation Recovery In The Damage Area Of Wenchuan Earthquake Using Modis Data, Wei-Guo Jiang, Kai Jia, Jian-Jun Wu, Zhenghong Tang, Wen-Jie Wang, Xiao-Fu Liu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

The catastrophic 8.0 Richter magnitude earthquake that occurred on 12 May 2008 in Wenchuan, China caused extensive damage to vegetation due to widespread landslides and debris flows. In the past five years, the Chinese government has implemented a series of measures to restore the vegetation in the severely afflicted area. How is the vegetation recovering? It is necessary and important to evaluate the vegetation recovery effect in earthquake-stricken areas. Based on MODIS NDVI data from 2005 to 2013, the vegetation damage area was extracted by the quantified threshold detection method. The vegetation recovery rate after five years following the earthquake …

Architectural Engineering Earthquake Shake Table, Garrett Gudgel, John Whitmer, Brandan Williams

Mechanical Engineering

The Architectural Engineering Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, owns and operates a single-axis earthquake shake table that previously was only capable of basic wave motion. After implementing a computer based interface to the existing system, Mechanical Engineering student seniors were able to create control algorithms that can take existing or user created acceleration data from earthquakes as well as any user defined position data to be accurately run on the earthquake shake table.

Structural Engineering Students For Haiti: A Student-Run, Student-Initiated Organization For The Benefit Of The Haitian People, Andrew Jimenez, Alex Daddow

Architectural Engineering

On August 2nd 2012, a group of 10 students from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo traveled to Léogâne, Haiti to construct a bell tower for the Saint Rose de Lima Parish. The trip consisted of four days of construction, and three days of touring. The seven days in Haiti were a result of three months of planning by a student-run, student-initiated group called Structural Engineering Students for Haiti, or SESH. The following report documents the planning, execution and lessons learned from this trip. The planning included everything from fund raising to disease prevention. The trip was successful because the bell …

After Earthquake Damage And Behavior Of Buildings In Gjilan Region, Bajram Shefkiu, Burbuge Shatri, Vlora Shatri

UBT International Conference

Various types of structures were assessed after an earthquake that struck Gjilan on April 24th 2002 with a purpose of identifying seismic deficiencies that might impact the general stability of the buildings located within the downtown City. The overall seismic performance goal identified by our team for these buildings is life safety. To achieve this goal, partial collapse of structure and/or of any cladding element that could result in a life safety concern should be prevented during a major earthquake. The largest issue identified is the unreinforced or inadequately reinforced brick masonry construction and those combined with skeletal, particularly buildings …