LiveTalk 2022-07-26 "Performance & application of seismic isolation in structures" with Tracy Becker

This LiveTalk has as speaker Tracy Becker, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Tracy Becker is an associate professor and the Ed & Diane Wilson Presidential Chair in Structural Engineering at University of California, Berkeley. She has expertise in the design, modeling, and experimental testing of high-performance structural systems used for limiting structural and component losses in seismic events. Her research has focused on expanding the use of seismic isolation to a broader category of structures, understanding ultimate failure mechanisms of isolated buildings to ensure robust designs, and improving existing control systems to further minimize structural responses in seismic events. As part of this work she conducted the first bidirectional tests of triple friction pendulum bearings, the first dynamic failure tests of double concave bearings, as well as multiple other experimental programs. The data from her work has been used to develop new models and propose new design guidance for these systems. She received her BS in Structural Engineering from UC San Diego followed by her MS and PhD in Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials from UC Berkeley. Afterwards she spent almost two years as a Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science post-doctoral researcher at the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University.
While major advances have been made in seismic design, there still exists a large disconnect between the performance level that buildings are designed to achieve and the performance level required for community resiliency. Although current building codes limit fatalities in new construction, they do little to limit socioeconomic losses. Annually, earthquakes result in billions of euros in losses with more costs due to downtime and loss of production. Protective technologies such as dampers, structural fuses, and seismic isolation deliver significantly increased performance both to the structure and the community as a whole. Furthermore, in recent years, researchers and practitioners have worked to make these systems higher performing, more affordable, and more reliable. This talk will discuss common isolation systems with their pros and cons, behavior of isolation systems when used in novel configurations such as on top of flexible bridge piers, and the reliability of isolated structures under design level and beyond-design level events. To do so, several case studies and experimental programs will be presented.