Earthquake Engineering on a Global Scale

The following website documents all earthquake-related damages, much like VORTEX-WINDS intends for wind-related typhoon/hurricane damages.

Document Typhoon Damages!

Typhoon hit your town and you want to help?  Go out, bring your camera, point and shoot, then log-on at http://www.vortex-winds.org/ and document damages.  We need to better understand what causes wind-related damages so that we can design better structures in the future!

You can also contribute in other ways to wind engineering by joining a "virtual organization" at the same website (http://www.vortex-winds.org/).

CE 256 Part 2 (Wind Effects) - Session 1

Today I gave Session 1 of my part, talking about typhoon damages, typhoon engineering, why it is important, and a little bit about meteorology.  Actually, I was not able to cover everything so next session I will still be talking a little bit more about meteorology and typhoon engineering before I move on to my official Session 2, which is about "Defining the Wind" and the basic wind loading equation which stems from fluid mechanics.

What does performance-based design mean to you?

I have some background only in performance-based structural/seismic evaluation and design of buildings.  I do think in wind design performance-based design (PBD) is already being done for tall buildings particularly those which undergo wind climate studies and wind tunnel testing for structural loading, cladding design, and occupant comfort checking.  This is how I see what PBD is in general, to apply to any field (and it is just what I think).

I think...

APEC-WW in Taipei, Taiwan, 2009

The 5th workshop on harmonization of wind loading and wind environment specifications in Asia-Pacific economies was held at Tamkang University, Yi-lan campus, Taiwan from 13-14 November 2009 after an opening ceremony right after the APCWE-VII.  The workshop has now gone beyond wind load coding issues over to wind-related disaster risk reduction.  As such, our country report made mention (again) of the efforts of the PICE-DMAPS committee.

7th Asia-Pacific Conference on Wind Engineering (APCWE-VII)

I am probably the very first delegate to a regional or international conference on wind engineering who is directly from the Philippines.  Other Filipino wind engineering colleagues who have attended such conferences were either PhD students or employees at foreign universities or consulting firms.  Thus my presentation focused less on technical details but more on what's happening in the Philippines in terms of wind engineering, research, and disaster risk reduction.  I presented on the 3rd day of the conference on 11 November 2009 at the Wind Coding Issues session.

Multi-Tiered Evaluation of Existing Structures

If you are familiar with FEMA publications related to seismic evaluation of existing buildings, you may have heard of the terms "Rapid Visual Assessment," "Tier 1 Screening Procedure," "Tier 2 Evaluation Procedure," and "Tier 3 Detailed Evaluation Procedure," and even "Seismic Rehabilitation."

Looking at these different types of "assessment" procedures together, I would consider them to be a 6-step overall process of seismic evaluation and rehabilitation design for existing buildings:

CE 256 - Structural Design for Dynamic Effects

This semester I am lecturing at the Institute of Civil Engineering, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City.  The course number is CE 256, and the course title is "Structural Design for Dynamic Effects."  The course is divided into three parts, namely: Structural Dynamics Review (2 sessions), Wind Effects (7 sessions), and Earthquake Effects (5 sessions).  The very last session is going to talk about structural design considering both wind and earthquake effects (i.e. the case in the Philippines).  I am lecturing the second part on Wind Effects.

The main outline of the Wind Effects part is as follows: