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SUMMARY:Current Challenges in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering - Dr Sta
 vroula Kontoe (Imperial College)
DTSTART:20151118T180000Z
DTEND:20151118T190000Z
UID:TALK62565@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Stefan Ritter
DESCRIPTION:Seminar overview:\n\nRecent seismic events (e.g. L'Aquila 2009
 \, Italy\; Christchurch 2010-2011\, New Zealand\; Tohoku 2011\, Japan) hav
 e shown that the effects of earthquakes on the urban environment can be ca
 tastrophic even in countries with up to date seismic codes and an advanced
  construction industry. In most of these cases\, the ground response is re
 sponsible for a significant part of the observed damage. Areas of urban de
 velopment are often located in the vicinity of irregular topography (close
  to cliffs or within narrow valleys) and are therefore exposed to topograp
 hic amplification of the ground motion and/or are founded on fluvial depos
 its which are prone to soil liquefaction. \n\nThe first part of this semin
 ar will focus on recent developments in predicting how topography modifies
  the seismic ground motion. Recent work at Imperial College demonstrated t
 he interaction of topographic amplification with site response\, suggestin
 g that soil and topographic amplification peaks do not occur in the same f
 requency range. These findings have the potential to impact upon existing 
 code prescriptions (e.g. EC8) that propose the application of a constant t
 opographic aggravation factor across the entire frequency range without co
 nsidering the bedrock depth or the interaction with the site response. The
  second part of the seminar will focus on soil liquefaction and will exami
 ne evidence from the 2010-2011 Christchurch seismic sequence which suggest
 s that the vertical component of the ground motion may have a detrimental 
 effect on soil liquefaction. This hypothesis will be further supported by 
 a series of numerical analyses. \n\nShort biography:　\n\nDr Stavroula Ko
 ntoe is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engin
 eering at Imperial College London. She received her degree in Civil Engine
 ering from the National Technical University of Athens in 2001. Dr Kontoe 
 continued her studies at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineeri
 ng at Imperial College\, where she obtained an MSc in Soil Mechanics and E
 ngineering Seismology in 2002 and a PhD in Computational Geomechanics in 2
 006. Her main research field is the development and application of numeric
 al methods to study the performance of geotechnical structures under stati
 c\, dynamic and seismic loading. Dr Kontoe has led a large number of resea
 rch projects on the seismic performance of tunnels\, retaining structures 
 and dams\, on site response analysis and its incorporation in seismic haza
 rd studies\, topographic effects on seismic ground motion\, modelling vibr
 ations induced by pile driving and slope stability in strain softening mat
 erials. She serves on various committees in her field (SECED\, ISSMGE TC20
 3\, EAEE)\, sits on the editorial boards of Géotechnique (2013-2015) and 
 Computer & Geotechnics and was awarded the 2008 BGA medal.\n
LOCATION:Rushmore Room\, St Catharine's College
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