CEE Seminar: E-Defense - A Model Center for Experimental Research in Earthquake Engineering

Abstract: This presentation is intended to provide the audience with information on the E-Defense facilities and collaborative research activities conducted at that facility among researchers from USA and Japan. E-Defense hosts the largest six degrees of freedom shake table site in the world, located outside the city of Kobe in Japan and is capable of shaking full-scale multistory structures. Several shake table experiments have been conducted at E-Defense as a result of collaboration among American and Japanese researchers. This presentation provides an introduction to E-Defense facilities and a glimpse at these remarkable experiments.

Bio: Farzad Naeim received his doctorate in structural engineering from University of Southern California in 1982 and his J.D. with highest honors from Concord University in 2002. In 2007, he received the Fazlur Khan Lifetime Achievements Medal from Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. He has served two terms (1995 and 2011) as president of the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council. Naeim is a past president and honorary member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI). He has published four textbooks, more than 170 peer-reviewed papers, and has developed 45 different software systems for earthquake engineering design and education. He is a registered civil and structural engineer, a member of the California Bar and a patent attorney.

Naeim served as the inaugural chair of the Governance Board of George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulations (NEES) when NEES coordinated collaborative activities of American and Japanese research on earthquake engineering simulations.