About CE & AM
The Civil Engineering program at Caltech has been an active one since the founding of the Institute. Currently, the department is concentrated primarily on earthquake engineering, a field in which Caltech researchers have been important contributors since the 1920's. Research is currently being conducted in areas such as seismic early warning, characterization of near-source motion in earthquakes, soil-structure interaction, nonlinear finite element analysis of civil structures, structural health monitoring and earthquake loss-estimation.
The Applied Mechanics department was founded nearly five decades ago to focus on research and education in the areas of solid mechanics and dynamics. Current research is mainly in the area of dynamics, dealing with topics such as vibrations of structures and machinery, structural response to earthquakes, including system identification and control of structural response, and fundamental studies of the behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems.
Upcoming Events
Steel Moment-Resisting Frame Responses in Simulated Strong Ground Motions: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big One
Anna Olsen, Caltech
Thursday, May 1, 2008
This talk presents the response of steel moment-resisting frame buildings in simulated strong ground motions. I collected 37 scenario and hypothetical earthquake simulations of crustal earthquakes in California. These ground motions are applied to nonlinear finite element models of four types of steel moment frame buildings: six- or twenty-stories with either a stiffer, higher- strength design or a more flexible, lower-strength designmore
The NetQuakes Project
David Oppenheimer, U.S.G.S.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The USGS has funded the development of a new generation of inexpensive and robust strong-motion recorders that are designed to be deployed in urban areas.more
Research Groups
Recent Spotlights
Professor Thomas Heaton has been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. The Fellowship is awarded to scientists who have attained acknowledged eminence in one or more branches of geophysics. Heaton's continuing contributions are in the study of strong ground motions, the physics of earthquake rupture, earthquake warning systems, and building vibration.