Earthquake Engineering
Imaging soil to tell how it responds to earthquakes
Using a 2004 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Loukas Kallivokas, assistant professor of civil engineering and his research group will use his grant to develop the capability to "see" into the earth's upper soil layers. They want to image, or profile, the soil in terms of its properties (stiffness, density and damping), to know how the soil will respond to stress waves, such as earthquake tremors. "Much of the welfare of humans and their daily activities depend on the quality of information we have for the top surface soil layers," he says. Knowing soil properties "with some confidence and at some depth" allows engineers to design better buildings that reside on the soil. This information would allow engineers to simulate computationally how an earthquake would affect a structure and design stronger structures. To perform the research, Kallivokas and his group will use mobile shakers (machines that simulate mini-earthquakes) then scan the soil and collect information on its reaction to the resulting stress waves. Afterwards they will use mathematical and computational modeling tools to determine the properties of the soil.
Photo: http://www.engr.utexas.edu/news/action_shots/pages/NSFCareer.cfm