Abstract
Methods for evaluating the seismically induced lateral earth pressures gradually evolved from the seminal Japanese work performed in the 1920’s. The resulting design procedures suggest large dynamic loads during strong ground motion. However, field evidence from recent major earthquakes fails to show significant problems with the performance of retaining structures designed for static earth pressures only. Similarly, the results of extensive centrifuge experiments indicate that seismically induced lateral earth pressures at high PGA are significantly less than those estimated using the most current design methods based on the Mononobe-Okabe assumptions. The presentation will focus on latest results from centrifuge model studies, recent observations in large earthquakes, and their implications for a rational seismic design of retaining structures and basement walls.
About the speaker
Prof Nicholas Sitar received a BASc in Geological Engineering from the University of Windsor in 1973. He then attained an MS in Hydrogeology in 1975, and a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering in 1979 at Stanford University. He taught in the Geological Engineering Program at the University of British Columbia from 1979 to 1981 and joined the faculty in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in 1981. He served as the Director of the University of California Earthquake Engineering Research Center from 2002 to 2008.
His professional and research interests include engineering geology, geotechnical earthquake engineering, rock mechanics, groundwater modeling, groundwater remediation and the application of numerical and stochastic methods to engineering analysis. He is the author and co-author of over 170 publications in geotechnical engineering, engineering geology, groundwater and groundwater remediation. His particular interests in geotechnical earthquake engineering include seismic slope stability, seismic response of retaining structures and mechanically stabilized walls, and the performance of improved ground. In engineering geology he has concentrated on the influence of the depositional environment on the properties of coarse sediments, debris flow initiation, and modeling of jointed rock masses.
Prof Sitar’s awards include the Huber Research Prize from ASCE in 1993, the Presidential Young Investigator Award from NSF in 1984, the Douglas R Piteau Award from AEG in 1986, the James M Robbins Excellence-in-Teaching Award from the Pacific District of Chi Epsilon in 1998, Chancellor’s Professorship from UC Berkeley 1998-2001, and the endowed Edward G Cahill and John R. Cahill Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering since 2009. Most recently, he presented the Korean Geotechnical Society Award Lecture in 2012, the Hilf Memorial Lecture at the University of Colorado in 2012, as well as keynote lectures at the ASCE Geo-Congress in 2012 and Chilean Geotechnical Society Congress in 2014. He was the Canadian Geotechnical Society Cross-Canada Lecturer in the Spring of 2015.
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