Shaky Research Brings Solid Results for USU Engineering Professor

Large earthquakes can have catastrophic consequences. Collapsing buildings, road and bridge damage, landslides, fires and lack of basic necessities necessary for human survival can ultimately lead to loss of life.

USU structural engineering professor Keri Ryan is looking for solutions to minimize the impacts of earthquakes on society through research funded by the National Science Foundation and the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. NSF gave Ryan a $1.5 million grant to lead a team of researchers who are focused on studying seismic isolation.

Seismic isolation is a way of improving a structure’s performance during an earthquake. Seismic isolation systems consist of rubber pads or friction bearings placed underneath a structure that allow it to move above the isolation system during and earthquake.

“By making the structure more flexible, we decrease the input forces to a structure which allows it to deform elastically, and remain damage free in an earthquake,” Ryan said. “Earthquakes can be very disruptive to our society and the seismic isolation we are studying could help ease that disruption because it gives a building a much higher structural performance, thus lessening the chance of impact to humans following an earthquake.”

In order to understand the exact nature of how elastomeric bearings perform during an earthquake, Ryan went to Japan where scientists and engineers have built thousands of structures using isolation technology. Japan has studied the technology so thoroughly it has the largest shake table testing site in the world. Called E-Defense, the facility allows for full-scale replicas to be built on top of a shaking device that simulates an earthquake. E-Defense allows researchers, builders, engineers and architects to see how large structures using elastomeric bearings handle earthquakes.

The technology Ryan is studying is not new to earthquake engineers and has, in fact, been around for about 30 years.

“What Utahns will find interesting is that the City County building in downtown Salt Lake City was the first building in the United States to be retrofitted with elastomeric bearings in the late 1980s,” Ryan said. “The technology is currently being used to renovate the state capitol.”

However, Ryan said that for the most part, isolation bearings are not widely used in the states.

“Stricter design requirements, higher building costs and non-accommodating business practices are reasons this technology is not used more often,” Ryan said.

One of Ryan’s research goals is to work with regulatory agencies, designers and builders to allow a greater understanding of the technology so it might become a more standard way of building in the future.

Ryan said using the technology can definitely add to building costs, and part of her research is looking for ways to cut those costs through smart design solutions.

“Currently, most isolation systems are located at the foundation level and the foundation has to be specially designed to incorporate the bearings,” Ryan said. “We are now looking for ways to possibly place the isolators at the top of the first story to help cut costs.”

After graduating with a master’s and doctorate in structural engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, Ryan was offered a job at USU in 2004. Shortly after arriving, she received a USU ADVANCE grant funded by NSF to begin working on her research. ADVANCE grants fund female professors conducting research in science, technology, engineering and math areas. Ryan said the grant allowed her to make contact with a structural engineering professor at Berkeley who would eventually become part of her research team.

Ryan is now collaborating with researchers from Japan, U.C. Berkeley, State University of New York University at Buffalo and University of Wisconsin Green Bay. The group is funded through the NSF grant and is called Tools for Isolation and Protective Systems (TIPS).

The Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation also co-sponsors the research. NEES is a shared, national network of 15 experimental facilities, collaborative tools, a centralized data repository and earthquake simulation software, all linked by ultra-high-speed Internet connections.

For more information on the research, visit the TIPS Web site. For more information about NEES, visit http://www.nees.org/About_NEES/.

Contact: Keri Ryan, 435-797-2968.
Writer: Maren Cartwright, 435-797-1355