Sissy Nikolaou is an Assistant Vice President and Principal Engineer of WSP USA’s Geotechnical & Tunneling Technical Excellence. (sissy.nikolaou@wsp.com)
Innovation and resourcefulness in the engineering of tall buildings are one of the cornerstone requirements of building resilient cities and communities. Successful performance of these structures during extreme natural events is living proof of the value of design that targets resilient performance, enhancing the confidence of the stakeholders and the public for the engineering and technologies used. …
Mexico City’s geoseismic design challenges arise from its unique local geology combined with high tectonic activity. This article discusses the challenges that continue to grow, as the center of the ruins of the Aztec capital has turned into the most prominent modern metropolis of Latin America, with economic growth that demands taller buildings. The response of the regional soils has repeatedly and destructively materialized in the form of soil basin amplification phenomena (one- and two-dimensional) that manifested as seismic waves propagating through the natural valley’s topography. …
Two major earthquakes hit the Cephalonia Island of Greece on January 26th and February 3rd of 2014, with magnitudes of M = 6.0 and 6.1. For comparison, the recent South Napa earthquake of August 24, 2014 had M = 6.0 (EERI, 2014) and the Northridge earthquake of 1994, which has been used in development of seismic codes, had M = 6.7 (NCEER, 1994). …
The need to address regional aspects of the Eastern United States (EUS) in model building codes became even more evident with the 2011 Mineral, Virginia earthquake, the most felt event in modern US history, considering the extraordinarily large felt geographic area combined with a high population density. This article presents some facts of the 2011 earthquake that, when coupled with evidence from analytical studies and better understanding of the local geology and tectonic setting, highlight key seismic design issues that are not addressed sufficiently in present codes. …