THE JAPAN EARTHQUAKE & TSUNAMI AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR THE U.S. Written by Michael Mahoney, March 17, 2011 Geophysicist, FEMA, National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program (NEHRP) Coordinating Committee Member, FEMA, National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the multi-agency National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) joins with the […]
Category: Structural Elements
Open Letter to Editor:
Letter to Editor: Structural Engineers Call for More Stringent Building Standards After Quake in Japan. The world has once again experienced a devastating earthquake and its ensuing tsunami and aftershocks. Our thoughts and prayers go out to those who lost their loved ones, their livelihoods and their homes in one of the largest earthquakes in Japan’s […]
Steel Moment Frame Code Overview
Following is a brief overview of the governing code documents for seismic design of steel moment frames, intended to provide a brief, hierarchical, at-a-glance directory. 2006 International Building Code (IBC) Chapter 16—Structural Design Chapter 22—Steel 2005 American Society of Civil Engineers/Structural Engineers Institute (ASCE/SEI) 7: Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures including Supplement […]
Haiti Earthquake: January 12, 2010
I’ve had a lot of non-engineer co-workers in the construction field as well as laypeople ask me about the Haiti earthquake and whether we could learn a lot about construction from studying the collapses and structural failures there. First, a quick overview of the geophysical aspects of the earthquake: here’s an informative link USGS Haiti […]
Optimum Value Engineering (OVE)
Optimum Value Engineering (OVE) is a Next Generation, advanced framing technique for wood structures that results in lower material and labor costs and improved energy performance for the building envelope. Recent estimates have indicated that advanced framing techniques can reduce framing costs by as much as $1.20 per sq ft and reduce the amount of […]
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