DesignSafe Radio

Specializing in geotechnical engineering and coastal science, Nina Stark studies soil mechanics and soil responses to coastal and riverine stresses -- like hurricanes and related flooding. During hurricane season, you will find her in the field, collecting perishable data with NSF-supported extreme events reconnaissance teams. Today, she talks about recon missions, the importance of good datasets, and the types of data EER teams collect, including erosion, scour and sediment deposition, and water levels. 

Johns Hopkins earthquake engineer and cold-formed steel researcher Ben Schafer introduces the NHERI CFS10 project underway at the NHERI UC San Diego shake table facility. Tara Hutchinson, Schafer’s co-PI on the project, is a research engineer at UC San Diego. (We will meet Hutchinson in an upcoming episode.) The CFS10 shake table experiment caps off a long-term collaboration between NSF researchers and industry. The goal: to understand seismic performance of taller cold-formed steel buildings. The structure on the shake table mimics an apartment building or hotel; it exceeds current height and system limits – which will help the team unde...

The seemingly outsized strength of cold-formed steel is not well-known. In this episode, earthquake engineer Ben Schafer, Johns Hopkins University, describes a research-industry collaboration with the automotive industry resulting in code changes for high-strength sheet-steel. Sheet steel has also been successfully tested in flooring systems. The upcoming CFS10 shake table test at UC San Diego is the high-rise building test for cold-formed steel. Schafer addresses misconceptions that structural engineers have regarding CFS: Basically: cold-formed steel looks too thin to be strong. However, with high-strength sheet steel, deformations do not correlate to lack of strength, which is something that automotive...

Meet Johns Hopkins University engineer Ben Schafer, authority on cold-formed steel (CFS), also known as sheet steel or thin steel. Schafer explains that CFS is both strong and ductile – and therefore a remarkably high-performance structural framing material. Builders use CFS in a variety of ways – including as building-frame members, much like timber. Schafer’s research centers on CFS as structural framing to resist wind and earthquake loading. Thin and lightweight, CFS members comprise relatively little material; in the US, all cold-formed steel is made from recycled materials.

Research engineer Erica Fischer wraps up by noting that engineers, such as those in the NSF NHERI natural hazards community, are working on multiple fronts to leverage their skills and knowledge to reduce damage from future urban-wildland conflagrations.

Follow Erica Fischer on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fischererica/

And on the X platform:
https://x.com/erica_fischer

On the policy level, states first must define and map the wildland-urban interface; then states formally define risk-categories and mitigations required. Examples: clearing combustible material within five feet around the house and updating roof and siding with non-combustible materials. Fischer details these steps and ways research engineers seek to simplify risk-reduction for homeowners. 

To understand damage, engineers examine things like water-system piping. To understand the fire itself, they gather physical clues that help them determine “heat flux,” or fire intensity. They collect data such as distance and direction between structures, siding and roofing material, and the constituency of vegetation or structures adjacent the house. 

Interview with Oregon State University research engineer Erica Fischer. As wildfires increasingly affect communities and civil infrastructure, structural engineers apply their expertise in interdependent lifeline systems and structures. Fischer says engineers are primed to investigate “urban conflagrations” in all phases, including community adaptation and mitigation. She cites research findings from the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, CA, which led to valuable new understandings about water pipeline contamination.

University of Florida engineer Brian Phillips describes the procedure for installing the Sentinel mobile weather station directly on the beach. Assembly starts with drilling a 20-foot auger hole. Once the foundation is secure, the team raises the 33-foot carbon-steel-fiber mast, fully instrumented. The setup resists wind and wave impacts. During the hurricane, the station sends data in real time to servers at University of Florida. This year, the team deployed the Sentinel during Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Thanks to NSF MRI funding, the team will continue improving the design and build several more Sentinels.

University of Florida engineer Brian Phillips updates us on NSF-funded efforts to capture vital data during landfalling hurricanes. For decades, UF researchers have deployed mobile weather stations. Now, Phillips describes the newly designed Sentinel weather station. The 33 feet tall tower, anchored 20 feet into the shoreline, can withstand a Category 5 hurricane, including 16-foot surge and breaking waves. During Hurricane Helene, the Sentinel gathered data on wind speeds, surge, and the water’s chemical and biological constituency.

The goal of the proposed NICHE facility: To understand the joint destructive forces of wind and waves —at full scale — in order to design infrastructure capable of resisting damage from hurricanes, tornadoes, surge flooding, and related natural hazards. Among its capabilities, NICHE will enable: testing full-scale residential structures to failure; testing protective capabilities of natural elements such as vegetation; testing of “gray” structures structures like seawalls and breakwaters; investigations and modeling of coastal processes, including sediment transport. This future NSF-funded research laboratory is called the “National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events,” or NICHE.

Plans are afoot to build the world’s largest wind-wave research lab, capable of generating 200 MPH hurricane winds and 5-meter-high waves. This NSF-funded facility will enable full-scale investigations into structural and coastal resilience — and a secure future in the face of destructive natural hazards. On today’s show, Florida International University wind engineer Arindam Chowdhury joins us to describe this facility, the National Full-Scale Testing Infrastructure for Community Hardening in Extreme Wind, Surge, and Wave Events — or NICHE, for short.

About NICHE. The NICHE lab will have a 20-fan array capable of generating 200 MPH winds, that’s a Cat 6 hurric...

Geotech engineer Diane Moug is an authority on microbially induced desaturation, known as “MID.” This technique, developed at Arizona State University, prevents soils from liquefying in an earthquake. Moug describes how microbes desaturate soils, the benefits of the process, and her own, ongoing experiments underway in the Pacific Northwest. These include a site in Oregon’s Critical Energy Infrastructure hub – which is dangerously situated on liquefiable soil.

Obtaining an NSF CAREER Award is a milestone for academics in the sciences. Early-career geotechical engineer and researcher Diane Moug shares her experiences writing and applying for – and then (finally) successfully winning, a CAREER Award.

The cone penetration test (CPT) is a standard tool for geotechnical engineers; it's used for measuring soil sheer strength, stress history and type. Leveraging her NSF CAREER award, Portland State U researcher Diane Moug plans to improve the CPT, so engineers can make better interpretations of CPT data. Moug will employ NHERI at UC Davis centrifuges, numerical modeling, and lab experimentation.

CHEER researchers focus on understanding decision-making among all the players involved in sustaining a resilient coastal community. Davidson details how stakeholders – insurers, government agencies, and residents -- have different, reasonable, and conflicting goals. CHEER’s goal is to find policy solutions that will manage hazard risks as well as ensure economic development in coastal communities vulnerable to hurricanes. It’s a new approach to building a sustainable disaster risk management system in the U.S.

Subscribe to the CHEER newsletter https://www.drc.udel.edu/cheer-chronicle-announcement-june-2024/

Follow CHEER on LInkedIn https://www.link...

Working with the NHERI SimCenter and DesignSafe, the CHEER team is developing a software framework called Stakeholder-based Tool for the Analysis of Regional Risk, or STARR. STARR modeling extends regional loss models like R2D, INCORE, and Hazus to include a focus on decision making. STARR models describe the complex and often conflicting ways that stakeholders in vulnerable coastal areas make decisions. Stakeholders are households, insurers, and government agencies. If policies can account for positive outcomes for all stakeholders, they’re more likely to be implemented and sustained.

Learn more about the CHEERHub https://www.drc...

Rachel Davidson is a research engineer at the University of Delaware and principal investigator for the “Coastal Hazards Equity, Economic Prosperity, and Resilience Hub,” or CHEERHub. The five-year, $16M, NSF-funded, multi-disciplinary research network is tackling the complexity of coastal resilience by focusing on stakeholder decision making. Davidson introduces CHEER and explains why so many good ideas for managing disaster risks do not get implemented.

Learn more about the CHEERHub https://www.drc.udel.edu/cheer/

Read about the NHERI-CHEER partnership

https://www.designsafe-ci.org/community/news/2024/july/nheri-partners-cheer-hub-hurricane-decision-making-framework/

Mentoring at UC Davis

How do geotech students gain experience? Laura Luna and José Luis Caisapanta discuss the UC Davis Geotechical Graduate Student Society, a nationally respected mentoring program. In an intentional “laddering” fashion, grad students new to the UC Davis program learn from more experienced grad students and – in turn – pass their knowledge to undergrads and K-12 students. Luna and Caisapanta share their experiences as members of the GGSS.

UC Davis GGSS website:

https://ggss.ucdavis.edu/

Geo-Institute winning video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

Civil engineering grad students from NHERI UC Davis join Dan Zehner to discuss research at the renowned Center for Geotechnical Modeling, a geotech lab equipped with a nine-meter centrifuge. Master’s student Jose Louis Caisapanta describes soil experiments with the centrifuge – which can deploy a shake table during its 50G spins. PhD student Laura Luna explains building physical models in the centrifuge. She uses resulting data to create a computer model that will predict soil behavior beneath a structure during an earthquake.

About the equipment and people at the NHERI UC Davis laboratory:

https...

In our final episode with FIU meteorologist Erik Salna, we learn about the Wall of Wind Challenge, an annual event for high school students. NHERI researchers provide a specific wind mitigation challenge. Student teams design and build a protective structure, and then get the chance to test their designs in the Wall of Wind. It’s an exciting competition, which is judged by engineers who are Wall of Wind alums! See below for links to the 2024 event and Salna’s template for conducting this popular STEM competition for high schools.

NHERI Wall of Wind website: https://fiu.desi...

FIU-based meteorologist and educator Erik Salna relates some unusual but important WOW experiments to test the effects of wind loading on civil infrastructure such as construction cranes and electrical power towers. One unique project used flying debris in the wind tunnel to derive an algorithm for determining wind speeds in video captures.

Wall of Wind debris experiments to build an algorithm that will calculate wind speeds from social media-derived video: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2053935&HistoricalAwards=false

Research on transmission towers: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID...

Meteorologist and educator Erik Salna provides nitty-gritty details on the gigantic, NSF-funded wind research lab called the Wall of Wind, or WOW. Located at Florida International University in Miami, the WOW facility is part of the NSF-funded NHERI network. Each of WOW’s 12-fans are six feet in diameter and weigh nearly 15,000 pounds. Powered up together, the 720HP electric motors can reproduce category 5 hurricane wind speeds, 157MPH.

See the WOW in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkI0UjmFFDs

Visit the NSF-NHERI Wall of Wind website for details on research underway: https://fiu...

UC Davis professor Alejandro Martínez is moving his bio-inspired snakeskin piles into industry practice. The novel pile-surface employs “frictional directionality” characteristic of snakeskin. Field trials provided better than expected results, and Martínez is now working to get his new design into the hands of practicing geotechnical engineers. Much of his NSF-supported research took place at the NHERI at UC Davis Center for Geotechnical Modeling; the project is part of the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center, the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, CBBG, at Arizona State University.

Background info on Martínez’s snakeskin-inspired piles: htt...

UC Davis professor Alejandro Martínez explains how biogeotechnical engineers leverage solutions from lifeforms like worms, trees, and bacteria. It starts with fundamental, cross-disciplinary work with biologists. Then, at the UC Davis Center for Geotechnical Modeling (CGM), centrifuge tests fill an important gap between laboratory ideas and full-scale field tests. For instance, by replicating ground stress and increased gravity in a centrifuge, geotechs can model and test designs at greater soil depths and across soil types. The NHERI CGM facility functions as a testbed for the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) called the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, C...

Geotechnical engineer Alejandro Martínez joins us to discuss a new and multidisciplinary engineering subfield called biogeotechnics. “Bioinspired” research examines and mimics ways that plants, animals and bacteria successfully interact with soil. For example: how tree roots successfully resist wind loads. “Biomediated” research uses biological elements to improve soil. For example, byproducts of certain bacteria can cement and desaturate soil — potentially preventing liquefaction in susceptible areas.

Read up on Professor Martínez’s research at UC Davis:
https://faculty.engineering.ucdavis.edu/martinez/

Follow Alejandro Martínez on X: @MartVAlejandro

Back...

Meet Nurullah Bektaş, engineering PhD candidate and research chair with the NHERI Graduate Student Council. He talks with Dan Zehner about the virtual GSC Mini Conference, slated for May 31, 2024. Bektaş, who is earning his PhD from Széchenyi István University in Hungary, encourages grad students in natural hazards get involved in sharing research and conducting post-event reconnaissance. He relates his own field experience helping householders in Turkey after the devastating 2023 earthquake series in Turkey and Syria.

Find out about the GSC Mini Conference: https://bit.ly/2024NHERIGSCMiniConference

Get details about the NHERI Gradu...

Episode 3: Sustainable Functional Recovery: A New Engineering Design Paradigm

The novel Converging Design research project merges post-earthquake functional recovery with sustainability. Project PI Andre Barbosa discusses potential results from this effort, such as building code updates and new building products. Other tangible outcomes: successful industry-academia partnerships — and a cohort of engineering students who will take lessons about _sustainable functional recovery_ into the future. Barbosa welcomes individuals curious about sustainable design to contact or visit to the Tallwood Design Institute, located on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.

Find out...

Episode 2. Shake-Table Testing Earthquake-Resistant Building Components

Earthquake engineer Andre Barbosa joins us to describe the fascinating NHERI Converging Design project, currently testing earthquake-resilient building components on the NHERI at UC San Diego shake table. Barbosa describes U-shaped flexural plates (UFPs), which can deform and dissipate energy – and with post-tensioning rods, recenter. Also, the team is testing buckling restrained braces, which function like replaceable “structural fuses.” Lastly, the project is examining traditional steel moment frames coupled with braced frames that include energy dissipating (“yielding”) fuse-like elements. These tests will guide the future of resilient structural design in earthqua...

Andre Barbosa

Professor, Structural Engineering

Oregon State University

Episode 1. The NHERI Converging Design project merges functional recovery with sustainability. Project PI Andre Barbosa of Oregon State University joins us to discuss how the shake table experiments at UC San Diego shake table will lead to improved building codes in seismically vulnerable zones like the Pacific Northwest.

Get background info on the multi-institutional NHERI Converging Design project: https://tallwoodinstitute.org/converging-design-home-5663/

Read up on Professor Barbosa’s research at OSU: https://web.engr.oregonstate.edu/~barbosa/

Alia Amer

Postdoctoral Researcher

NHERI Lehigh Facility

ATLASS Research Center

Lehigh University

Hybrid simulation at Lehigh tests structural resilience In our second episode with NHERI Lehigh engineer Alia Amer, find out how this engineering lab performs real-time hybrid simulation, RTHS. This sophisticated, cost-effective testing method connects a numeric model of a substructure — with a physical model or device. Then researchers apply a natural hazard – wind, earthquake or waves – to test device resilience.

Lehigh website: https://lehigh.designsafe-ci.org/facility/overview...

Alia Amer

Postdoctoral Researcher

NHERI Lehigh Facility

ATLASS Research Center

Lehigh University

Research engineer Alia Amer gives us an overview of ATLSS research center, core of the NHERI facility at Lehigh University. Amer shows examples of complex, large-scale tests – multi-hazard simulations – at Lehigh. The lab designs accurate, complete simulations, including soil-structure-interactions, of natural hazard events such as earthquakes and windstorms. Dynamic, quasi-static, and hybrid simulations!

Lehigh website: https://lehigh.designsafe-ci.org/facility/overview/

Follow NHERI Lehigh on X: https://twitter.com/NHERIL...

Makris episode 2

Testing novel pressurized sand dampers at NHERI Lehigh

Nicos Makris explains his innovative protective damper system made with pressurized sand, which obviates problems presented by traditional dampers that use oil. In partnership with the NHERI Lehigh experimental facility, Makris is performing component testing and developing the numerical model in preparation for hybrid simulation testing, also at Lehigh. The cyber-physical tests allow researchers great flexibility when developing large-scale engineering devices.

#dampers #CLT #sustainabiility #crosslaminatedtimber #seismic #earthquakeengineering #hybridsimulation #RTHS #naturalhazards #engineering #LehighUniversity #SouthernMethodistUniversity #SMU

Read abo...

Nicos Makris,

Professor and Chair of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering

Southern Methodist University

Makris episode 1

Dampers: shock absorbers for buildings

Earthquake engineer Nicos Makris joins us to discuss protective dampers, large-scale devices that function like shock absorbers for buildings and bridges. Dampers built into a structure absorb and isolate earthquake, wind, and traffic vibrations. Prof Makris reveals a new type of damper he’s designed that uses pressurized sand to address hydraulic failures in oil-based dampers.

More info on Professor Makri...

Este episodio se publicó originalmente en 7 nobiembre 2023.

Formas de aprovechar las instalaciones financiadas por la NSF en la investigación sobre riesgos naturales

Acaba de publicarse la 3ª edición del Plan Científico del NHERI. Esta completa guía de investigación de 130 páginas describe las formas en que los investigadores pueden utilizar las instalaciones financiadas por la NSF para estudiar los daños causados por los peligros naturales y su prevención. El autor principal, Ian Robertson, ingeniero de investigación de la Universidad de Hawai, ofrece una visión general de e...

Special Episode 2

November 13, 2023

SCIENCE PLAN SPECIAL EPISODE: Moving civil engineering research into practice

Editor Ian Robertson provides details on using the NHERI Science Plan, Third Edition, as a practical guide to successful civil engineering research, including technology transfer and interdisciplinary research teams.

NEW in the third edition:

· NHERI SimCenter simulation software for estimating damage and simulating mitigation measures.

· NHERI CONVERGE social science resources, for incorporating social science methodologies.

· PLUS extreme events teams who conduct post-event reconnaissance missions.

Download the NHERI...

SPECIAL EPISODE! Introducing the NHERI Science Plan, Third Edition

Ways to leverage NSF-funded facilities in natural hazards research

Just released: the NHERI Science Plan, 3rd Edition! This comprehensive, 130-page research guide outlines ways researchers can use NSF-funded facilities to study natural hazards damage and prevention. With lead author Ian Robertson, research engineer with the University of Hawaii.

NEW in the third edition:

· NHERI SimCenter simulation software for estimating damage and simulating mitigation measures.

· NHERI CONVERGE social science resources, for incorporating social science methodologies.

· PLUS...

Episode 3 Understanding major storms: key to coastal resilience

Understanding the behavior of coastal systems requires specialized researchers, including engineers, to instrument shorelines before a major storm — and to collect and analyze the resulting data. Woods Hole scientist Britt Raubenheimer reiterates the vital importance of federal funding, including NSF funding, which allows for multidisciplinary teams like NEER to perform nested, coordinated reconnaissance missions with NHERI engineers and agencies like USGS and NOAA.

NEER website: https://neerassociation.org/ NHERI extreme events organizations: https://www.designsafe-ci.org/facilities/converge/

Follow Britt Raubenheimer on T...

Britt Raubenheimer, PhD

Senior Scientist, Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Principal Investigator, Nearshore Extreme Event Reconnaissance team, NEER

Episode 2 NEER: Nearshore breakwaters and unintended consequences

Coastal scientist Britt Raubenheimer describes NEER’s data reconnaissance missions before, during, and after Hurricane Laura, which struck southwestern Louisiana in 2020. NEER data revealed that breakwater structures could slow storm-surge inundation – but then they would also retain floodwaters passing through it, significantly slowing recovery of the shoreland marsh.

NEER website: https...