October 22, 2019

Identifying Waterfront Design Solutions for Urban Resilience

By: William Bruin
Located in harsh marine environments, coastal and waterfront developments require special attention to improve resilience over the project’s design life. Material selection, siting questions, protective coatings, waterproofing detailing, and drainage are all important considerations for the design team.
Markets:Ports & Terminals
Keywords:Extreme Environments/Structures, Flood, Marine Engineering, Resiliency
October 22, 2019

Excavation Risks Adjacent to Existing Structures in Illinois and Urban Environments – Identifying and Managing Technical and Legal Issues

By: Scott DiFiore, Matthew Johnson, Gregory Meeder, James Chivilo

New construction in metropolitan areas has direct impacts on immediate neighbors and abutters. While noise and dust are generally nuisance concerns, demolition, vibrations, excavation, and dewatering can cause structural damage to...

Keywords:Adjacent Construction, Building Settlement, Condition Assessment, Damage, Demolition, Dynamic/Vibration, Excavation, Excavation Support, Foundation, Geotechnical, Groundwater, Monitoring, Monitoring, Construction, Settlement, Shoring/Temporary Structure, Underpinning
October 21, 2019

Building Enclosure Design of Exterior Soffits

By: John Sekel, John Karras

Commercial building designs have long incorporated exterior soffits, better known outside of the building design and construction industry as the underside of any projecting building feature. Aside from soffits at the eave or rake edges of a...

Services:Building Enclosure Design
Keywords:Performance-based, Thermal and Moisture Drive
October 17, 2019

San Francisco Nonductile Concrete Buildings Part II: Analysis, Assessment and Comparison of Older San Francisco Concrete Buildings

By: Keith Palmer, Scott Darling, Sunny Nguyen, Megan Pouliot, Pearl Ranchal, Erick Gerardo Garcia Chavez, Duke Crestfield, Stephen Kadysiewski, Robert Kraus, Katie Wade

The building stock of large metropolitan areas comprise buildings of various materials constructed over the course of many years. A significant number of these buildings utilized concrete construction with details drastically different than...

Keywords:Concrete, Seismic Engineering and Retrofit
October 17, 2019

Using Computer Automation to Simplify Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings

By: Kevin Moore, Pearl Ranchal, Ayush Singhania

Several commercially available software packages automate the structural design process for new buildings, allowing engineers to deliver projects with unparalleled efficiency. These software packages contain structural engineering standards (e.g...

Keywords:Concrete-Reinforced, Frame Moment, Metal-Steel, Seismic Analyses
October 17, 2019

San Francisco Nonductile Concrete Buildings Part I: Building Inventory

By: Keith Palmer, Pearl Ranchal, Kari Klaboe, Duke Crestfield, Stephen Kadysiewski, Laurence Kornfield, Robert Kraus

Over the years, there has been much focus within California on seismically vulnerable building types, with the ultimate goal being to reduce life safety risks, improve community resiliency, or achieve a balance of both objectives. In San...

Keywords:Concrete, Seismic Analyses
October 17, 2019

Existing Buildings and the “10% Rule”: Survey Results, Opinions, and Recommendations

By: Kevin OConnell, Russell McLellan, Daniel Zepeda, Garrett Hagen, Jonathan Buckalew, Ali Sumer

Additions, alterations, and voluntary seismic improvements to existing buildings can be challenging to implement in California. Our 2018 paper presented this issue and surveyed engineers throughout the state to determine if there is uniformity in...

Keywords:Codes & Standards, Seismic Engineering and Retrofit
October 17, 2019

Suggested Improvements on Mandatory Wood “Soft Story” Retrofits

By: Russell McLellan, Keith Palmer, Kenneth Tam, Daniel Zepeda, Michael Mehrain, Garrett Hagen, Jonathan Buckalew, Milad Oliaee

The “soft story” wood frame retrofit ordinances adopted by many California cities including Los Angeles and San Francisco are the largest of their kind. These ordinances mitigate a deficiency known to cause collapse in past...

Keywords:Ordinance, Retrofit/Upgrade, Seismic Engineering and Retrofit, Soft Story
October 17, 2019

SEAOC Resilience Committee Update and Report to the Membership

By: Ronald Mayes, Jonathan Buckalew, Anna Lang, Katie Wade

The engineering community has made great progress on improving building performance. Performance based design is now widely accepted in national standards. New tools (FEMA P58 and SP3) have been developed to evaluate the impacts of earthquakes on...

Keywords:Resiliency
September 26, 2019

Combating Condensation at the National Air and Space Museum

By: Brian Rose, Richard Renaud

This article discusses the condensation analysis and CFD modeling that SGH performed for the ongoing revitalization project at the National Air and Space Museum.

It is ...

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