Stavridis, Bruneau and Sett combine expertise to address concerns with URM buildings
From left to right: Associate professor Andreas Stavridis, associate professor Kallol Sett and SUNY Distinguished Professor Michel Bruneau
By Peter Murphy
Published February 18, 2020
Unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings are vulnerable to earthquakes, but often house critical community infrastructure like schools and fire departments. SUNY Distinguished Professor Michel Bruneau and associate professors Kallol Sett and Andreas Stavridis (lead PI) are funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to enhance the seismic performance of these buildings.
The 3-yr, $584,000 project is one of the 12 projects awarded by NIST in August 2019 to “conduct research into how earthquakes, wind and fire affect the built environment to inform building designs, codes and standards to help those structures better withstand such hazards.”
According to the researchers, the team will develop “a framework for the design of reliable and cost-effective retrofit methodologies suitable for URM buildings”. The three CSEE faculty members will work with their students and practicing engineers with considerable experience with these structures.
Their research will produce new practical knowledge on the seismic performance of retrofitted URM buildings, and the researchers will use that knowledge to develop the tools needed to design optimal retrofit solutions.
“The overarching goal of this experimental, numerical and analytical study is to improve the resilience of existing URM buildings by developing reliable design guidelines and a decision-making tool for the effective retrofit of these structures considering the life-cycle cost,” Stavridis says. “These buildings are known for their vulnerability and poor performance during moderate and strong earthquakes. However, engineering practice lacks validated guidelines to design effective and reliable retrofits. Our goal is to provide such tools.”
Stavridis’ research interests include structural and earthquake engineering with a focus on assessment and rehabilitation of deteriorating masonry and concrete buildings and bridges. Bruneau focuses on several different research topics, including resilience and the seismic behavior of steel and masonry buildings and bridges. Sett’s research covers geomechanics, specifically, extreme events, civil infrastructure and risk and reliability.