Quantifying Earthquake Risk to Mega-Cities Using Physics-Based Simulations

In this talk I will describe how an earthquake may be computationally generated, the radiated energy propagated in the form of seismic waves through the earth's crust and upper mantle to the sites of engineered structures, and the damage to these structures simulated. I will illustrate how these region-wide "rupture-to-rafters" simulations are being used to quantitatively assess risk to mega-cities such as Los Angeles from earthquakes on regional faults. I will briefly mention what data and models are needed for similar studies to be undertaken for Indian cities such as Mumbai and Delhi.

 


About Prof. Swaminathan Krishnan :

Dr. Krishnan is a Visiting Professor and a former Assistant Professor of Structural Engineering and Geophysics at Caltech (http://krishnan.caltech.edu). He is currently on a 9-month visit to IIT Madras on a Fulbright Professional and Academic Excellence Award. His group at Caltech conducts analytical research in the areas of earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, seismology, and computational mechanics, using high-performance computing. They are striving to unify computational seismology and earthquake engineering in the form of rupture-to-rafters simulations for robust earthquake damage prediction, preparation, mitigation, and disaster response.
Dr. Krishnan has a PhD degree from Caltech, MS degree from Rice University, and BTech degree from IIT Madras, all in Civil Engineering. He is a California State licensed Professional Engineer and Structural Engineer. He has developed FRAME3D, an efficient 3-D nonlinear analysis program for the dynamic analysis of steel structures, a program that he started developing 15 years back under the guidance of his Ph.D. adviser Prof. John Hall at Caltech. The program is freely accessible at http://virtualshaker.caltech.edu.