Dr. Wu is currently a post-doctoral scholar supervised by Professor Ian G. Buckle, Professor David McCallen, and Professor David Sanders in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at University of Nevada, Reno (UNR). He received his Ph.D. degree from UNR in 2016. His research interests mainly focus on advanced computational simulation and analysis of structures, seismic design and retrofit of structural systems, structural resilience, soil-structure interaction, seismic risk assess

Abstract:

Large-scale experiments and advanced numerical simulations are two common methods in area of structural and earthquake engineering. On the one hand, the large-scale experiments, although expensive and time consuming, allow investigation of complex nonlinear phenomena in a transparent and credible manner, enable development and validation of complex simulation tools and computational models, and advance the state-of-the-art in unexpected ways (which are sometimes obvious in hindsight). On the other hand, the advanced numerical simulations can extend the findings from the experiment in a more efficient and cost-effective way. This presentation will cover these two methods through two projects: effect of skew on seismic performance of bridges with seat-type abutments, and influence of rotational components of earthquake ground motions on building response. In the first project, the effect of skew on the support length of bridges was studied through a large-scale shake table experiment on a family of skewed bridges with seat-type abutments and a comprehensive parameter study. Details of the experimental design and the major findings of the experiments will be introduced. In the second project, the influence of rotational motions on the building response was investigated through an integrated framework which couples geophysics-based wave propagation models to engineering models of soil-structure systems. The coupling of these two models is obtained through the Domain Reduction Method (DRM), a modular two-step algorithmic approach. As the first step, a geophysical model of a large domain of the earth (40kmx100kmx30km), which simulates the earthquake source and propagation path effects, is developed and analyzed with the SW4 fourth order wave propagation code to simulate complex 3-D earthquake motions. In the second step, an engineering model of a soil-building system with reduced dimensions is analyzed in a soil-structure-interaction model with the ESSI nonlinear finite element code. In this project, an inter-code comparison was first performed between these two models. The influence of the rotational motions was then investigated through comparison of a fix-based building model with pure translational inputs and a soil-structure-interaction model with rotational motions considered. Observations and conclusions from these two projects will be presented.