EERI Seismic Design Competition Team Competes in Portland, Oregon
Mar 6, 2017
This year, the Cal Poly EERI Seismic Design Competition (SDC) Team traveled to Portland, Oregon to participate in the international competition hosted in conjunction with the EERI Annual Meeting. 12 students accompanied by Anahid Behrouzi, EERI SDC’s faculty co-advisor, departed Monday, March 6th for the week-long competition.
At the competition, 33 teams came together from universities representing the United States, Canada, Dominican Republic, Turkey, and Romania. The Cal Poly team received a 7th place overall score which includes the performance of the team’s 5-foot tall balsa-wood model subjected to three earthquake ground motions; the accuracy of their computer simulation predictions compared to measured results; as well as technical communication via a written proposal, poster, and oral presentation. Specifically, the oral presentation – given by Kiersten Bakke, Leah Holleran (team captain), and Amy Poehlitz – received a 3rd place ranking and kudos from the judging panel and audience members alike.
During the week, our ARCE students participated in other events hosted by EERI including the Post-Earthquake Reconnaissance Workshop and structural engineering walking tours of the Portland downtown area. Additionally, third-year ARCE student Olivia Pepe-Phelps was responsible for organizing a visit to the KPFF office. There students met with Cal Poly alumni who discussed an innovative seismic design for a mass-timber system which they tested in collaboration with Portland State University, as well as other local projects they completed on the Portland skyline. Students also had the exciting opportunity to test out virtual reality software that KPFF design engineers are utilizing to visualize BIM models of complex structures.
In addition to supporting students at the competition, ARCE professor Anahid Behrouzi presented a poster during the evening session on Thursday, March 9th titled “Seismic Performance of Slender Concrete Walls: Impact of Geometry and Web Reinforcement”. Dr. Behrouzi was awarded a registration grant from EERI and FEMA to present the experimental and analytical work she conducted during her recently completed doctoral studies.
Students in attendance: Kiersten Bakke, Jeret Buerger, Joseph Cervantes, Kyle Chase, Leah Holleran, Brooke Lipsey, Jerry Luong, Katie Mayer, Olivia Pepe-Phelps, Amy Poehlitz, Jenna Williams, and Tanya Wohlfarth.
