April 4, 2002, 4:00 pm EST,
|
 |
DANIEL P. ABRAMS Hanson Engineers Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering |
|
The Mid-America Earthquake Center is embarking on a newly directed research plan that shall ultimately reduce earthquake losses and thus risk. Intrinsic to the new plan is development of a new engineering approach to loss reduction, termed "Consequence-Based Engineering," which is a systems-based methodology for minimizing seismic risk through selective intervention to critical components of a respective system. A brief description of the new CBE approach will be given, followed by an identification of barriers that must be overcome for its development and subsequent implementation. These barriers help define the essential ingredients of a core research program directed at development of the new paradigm. A summary of this new research program will be given to demonstrate how a program of coordinated, systems-driven research can be applied towards development of a new engineering concept, and to help identify possible areas of mutual future collaboration with potential stakeholders, practitioners and other researchers. Consequence-Based Engineering is a sequence of processes and decisions that identify what consequences are possible from a probable hazard, and the impact of specific mitigation interactions on reducing these consequences across a system of interest. Initially, a rapid assessment is done to define the relevant system, approximate the probable hazard, project what consequences are likely and delineate what types of consequences might be acceptable. Then, a four-step decision tree is used to determine if: (a) estimated consequences are acceptable, (b) if acceptable consequences should be redefined, (c) if modeling parameters should be refined and (d) if further system interventions should be considered. If anticipated consequences exceed tolerable ones, and no further redefinition of acceptability is feasible, then parameters defining the hazard and built environment can be refined to reduce anticipated losses (assuming that the preliminary analysis were conservative), and/or system interventions can be prescribed to minimize anticipated losses. An interactive damage synthesis module developed with advanced data mining and visualization tools is used to determine and view consequences for various problem definitions and mitigation scenarios. Using this module iteratively, consequences can be estimated for a number of different system intervention strategies with various input parameters describing the hazard or the built environment.
|
||
|
CLICK HERE to view the lecture photo gallery! |
||
|
Available for download: (Presentation Poster, 139 KB) Abrams, Daniel, "Consequence-Based Engineering Approaches for Reducing Loss in Mid-America". (Paper, 484 KB) Abrams, Daniel, "Consequence-Based Engineering Approaches for Reducing Loss in Mid-America".
|
||
|
Biographical Sketch of Daniel P. Abrams: Daniel P. Abrams is a full professor of civil engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he holds the Hanson Engineers Professorship in Civil Engineering. After completing his Ph.D. in 1979, he joined the civil and architectural engineering faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1985, he returned to Illinois as a faculty member where he continues to serve the structural engineering undergraduate and graduate programs. He is a licensed professional engineer, has worked as a practicing structural engineer in Chicago and San Francisco, and continues to take part in consulting assignments with industry. Professor Abrams is active in structural engineering research, and has written over 120 papers or reports on seismic response of concrete or masonry buildings. He is the recipient of the 1996 TMS Scalzi Research Award, the 1996 TMS President's Award, and the 1992 Senior Xerox Research Award within the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. Dr. Abrams was responsible for writing the masonry chapter of the new NEHRP Guidelines for Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings (FEMA 273). He chaired the Building Seismic Safety Council's Technical Subcommittee 5 on Masonry Structures for the 1997 Update of the NEHRP Recommended Provisions for Seismic Regulations for New Buildings. He is also a past chair of the EERI Experimental Research Committee and the TMS Research Committee, and served on the Masonry Standards Joint Committee. He has testified at congressional hearings in support of the reauthorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act. He has served as a member of the Research Committee of the former National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, the chair of the ASCE Committee on Concrete and Masonry Structures, the chair of ACI-ASCE 442 Committee on Lateral Forces, the President of The Masonry Society (TMS), and the founding Program Manager of the TMS Investigating Disasters project. He is an Associate Editor of ASCE’s Natural Hazards Review, and a member of editorial boards for the Journal of The Masonry Society, the Journal of Earthquake Engineering, the Journal on Progress in Structural Engineering and Materials, and EERI’s Earthquake Spectra. He is a member of several engineering societies including a fellow of the American Concrete Institute and a member of an FIB (European concrete institute) task group on seismic analysis and retrofit of concrete buildings and bridges. Since 1997, Dr. Abrams has been the Director of the Mid-America Earthquake (MAE) Center. The MAE Center is one of three national centers for earthquake engineering research funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and industry. The Center is focused on the infrequent but high consequence seismic events that are typical in the eastern and central United States. Research is directed at a new paradigm for earthquake risk reduction known as "Consequence-Based Engineering" and includes development of enabling technologies to synthesize damage across regions, mitigation methods to minimize earthquake consequences and better definitions of seismic hazards. Under the leadership of Dr. Abrams, center research is coordinated among disciplines in the areas of seismology, geophysics, geotechnical and structural engineering, risk assessment, social science, urban planning and economics.
|
||
|
BACK
Page designed by Aaron M. Vorwerk (avorwerk@nd.edu). Artwork provided by Engineering Graphics. Last edited on Wednesday, March 13, 2002. Best viewed at a screen resolution of 1024x768. |
||