20140531

Presentation(s) on observed wind damages due to Typhoon Yolanda

I have made about three presentations now on the same topic above. One is at the UPD-ICE* Forum on Earthquakes and Typhoons (Jan 2014):

20140501

It's risky to miscommunicate risk

In a previous post, I asked that we take caution how we communicate a certain risk. That example talked about the location of the "Valley Fault System," previously called the Marikina Fault, which obviously presents a certain disaster risk. One problem was that risk wasn't quantified then -- how close should one be to the fault lines to be at risk? It wasn't very clear, but people could readily assume that if they are clearly not along the fault lines, they should be safe. If they're not sure, they should consult PHIVOLCS (not PHILVOLCS, by the way), who can provide information on distance of a certain property from the nearest fault line.

20140314

Metrology is not the same as meteorology #didyouknow

I know that the word "meteorology" is difficult to pronounce and sometimes even spell. But some, whether unintentional or otherwise, pronounce it like "metrology," or its descriptive form "meteorological" as "metrological." It might be all right, because not so many people know about metrology, and even some spell checkers think it is a misspelling. But in fact, this is how it is defined:

20140213

Damping in buildings for wind-resistant design based on a stick-slip model

I am posting a download link to a copy of my dissertation here for those of you who are interested.

Title:

DAMPING IN BUILDINGS FOR WIND-RESISTANT DESIGN BASED ON A STICK-SLIP MODEL

Abstract:

Damping is said to be one of the most important parameters in the wind-resistant structural design of buildings. But, damping is also known to have high uncertainty, which leads to low reliability in the design. Current estimation formulas and early research on structural damping, particularly, are associated with stick-slip mechanism. But these current models have only shown this qualitatively. In the end, these models fitted formulas to databases of full-scale experimental data. This dissertation therefore aims to quantitatively study the stick-slip mechanism itself to derive a theoretical expression, and finally, to apply the derivation to actual physical structure data to illustrate that stick-slip damping is indeed a valid model. The study starts from a very simple one-degree-of-freedom (1DOF) system with one stick-slip component (1SSC), to a more complicated 1DOF system with a large number of SSC (NSSC). The study also briefly touches on the damping of SSC inside MDOF systems. The study of MDOF with NSSC systems is necessary because actual physical structures are such.