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  1. Prof. Dobry Invited to Give Ishihara Lecture at 5ICEGE

    Professor Ricardo Dobry has been invited to give the Ishihara Lecture at the 5th International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. The conference will take place on January 10-13, 2011, in Santiago, Chile. 

  2. Centrifuge DAQ System Reinforces New Orleans Levees

    Hurricane Katrina produced a massive surge of water on the U.S. Gulf Coast that overtopped and eroded away more than 50 levees and floodwalls that compose the New Orleans and Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Protection System. In the aftermath of this catastrophic disaster, several investigations were conducted into the performance of the levees and floodwalls and the causes of the damage and failures. 

  3. Abdoun Named Iovino Professor at Rensselaer

    Geotechnics and earthquake expert Tarek Abdoun has been named the Judith and Thomas Iovino ’73 Career Development Professor in Civil Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The endowed professorship is one of the highest honors bestowed on a Rensselaer faculty member. 

Current Research

Pile Foundations Subjected to Soil Liquefaction (NEES-Piles)

Understands the phenomenon of sand liquefaction during lateral spreading near pile foundations.

Soil Improvement Strategies to Mitigate Impact of Seismic Ground Failures

Evaluates novel ground improvement geometries to deflect moving soil, thus reducing lateral loads on foundation elements, costs of ground improvements, and time and environmental impacts.

Advanced Site Monitoring

Develops a capability to characterize and estimate three-dimensional in situ dynamic properties of sites and other soil systems for strata ranging from ground surface to a depth of about 30m.

Software Development

The 3D Data Viewer (developed by CEES at RPI in collaboration with NEESit) is a tool specially designed to display both 3D models as well as 2D plots side by side.

The establishment of the Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (CEES) is aimed to operate as a multidisciplinary research center. The core mission of CEES is to be fully committed to conducting excellent earthquake centrifuge modeling. CEES strategy vision is to maximize its contribution as well as the contributions of other to earthquake engineering and other aspects of engineering and technology. Our commitment is to provide researchers state-of-the-art facility to conduct analytical, experimental, analytical-experimental, and multidisciplinary research within and outside earthquake engineering.

About Our Equipment

Centrifuge

Rensselaer’s centrifuge was commissioned in 1989 and started conducting physical model simulations of soil and soil-structure systems subjected to in-flight earthquake shaking in 1991. In this decade of successful operation, the facility has published results of about 360 earthquake-related model simulations, served as the basis for 12 Ph.D. theses at RPI (10 Ph.D. theses in the last five years), contributed to the research of RPI faculty and students as well as of dozens of visiting scholars and outside users from the US, Asia, Europe and Latin America, and provided data and research results to many people and organizations around the world This centrifuge earthquake research has been conducted with two existing one-dimensional in-flight shakers, which can accommodate respectively 90 kg and 400 kg payloads.

In-Flight Robot

In-Flight Robot

The in-flight robot is designed to perform multiple tasks while the centrifuge is spinning. It is capable of articulating in three linear dimensions and rotating around one axis, and can carry several tools that aid in executing various tasks. The ability to conduct these field operations in-flight increases the accuracy and realism of the experiment. Researchers may fabricate custom tools to use with the in-flight robot.

2D Laminar Box

2D Laminar Box

The 2D Laminar Container is designed specifically for use with RPI’s new 2D shaker and can be used at centrifuge accelerations of up to 100 g. The design of this new RPI 2D laminar container is based upon a similar container for the centrifuge at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The new 2D laminar box incorporates several design enhancements, including a more rigid base plate and a modified “open top” restraint system, so as to facilitate access to the model surface by cameras and by the RPI in-flight robot.

2D Shaker

2D Shaker

The 2D shaker is designed to conduct more realistic in-flight earthquake simulations, where the base of the 2D laminar box container with the model is subjected to two prototype horizontal components of earthquake shaking. It can apply shaking to centrifuge models in the prototype horizontal plane while being spun at up to 100 g. By mounting the 2D laminar box on its slip-table, the shaker can provide dynamic excitation to soil models and thereby facilitate investigation of the behavior of scaled geotechnical or soil-structure systems in response to these complex excitations. When not used for providing base input motions for dynamic testing, the shaker can be used to support static model containers for tests of up to 150g.

Split Box

Split Box

The split box is a model container for use in geotechnical centrifuge testing. It uses a hydraulic cylinder to produce localized shear strains along a vertical interface in a dry soil model while being spun at centrifugal accelerations of up to 50g. A load cell directly connected between the actuator and the movable half of the container measures the shearing force applied by the actuator. The motion of the actuator is controlled using a 12-volt solenoid-operated directional control valve. In addition, the strain rate is controlled by a manually adjustable flow-control valve which is used to control the flow-rate of oil to the actuator.