The physical samples of natural gas hydrate were obtained first by drilling in permafrost region of Qilian Mountain of China in 2008. Permafrost area in Qilian Mt. is located in lower latitudes at high altitude, and the samples form in the Jurassic stratum under hard rock environment, rather than in unconsolidated soil layer. The environment of the Gas hydrate discovered is different from in th...

In another work, the “open safe” of the HAZUS-MH methodology was cracked to create seismic vulnerability functions that honor all HAZUS-MH methodologies and data, yet that appear in the form of tables of mean casualty rates (indoor deaths and injuries as four fractions of total occupancy) versus a structure-independent intensity measure, in particular, Sa 0.3 sec,5% or Sa 1.0 sec,5% . In this w...

Integral Abutment Bridges (IAB) are defined as simple or multiple span bridges in which the bridge deck is cast monolithically with the abutment walls. This kind of bridges are becoming very popular due to different aspects such as good response under seismic loading, low initial costs, elimination of bearings, and less maintenance. However the main issue related to the analysis of this type of...

Repeated cross-correlations of ambient seismic noise indicate a long-term seismic velocity change associated with the 2006 M7.5 slow-slip event (SSE) in the Guerrero region, Mexico. Because the SSE does not radiate seismic waves, the measured velocity change cannot be associated with the response of superficial soil layers to strong shaking as observed for regular earthquakes. The perturbation ...

Models of real systems are of fundamental importance in virtually all disciplines. Models make possible to predict or simulate a system’s behavior. Since the quality of the model typically determines an upper bound on the quality of the final problem solution, modeling is often the bottleneck in the development of the whole system. As a consequence, a strong demand for advanced modeling and ide...

The continuous soil gas radon and daily monitoring of radon concentration in water is carried out at Amritsar (Punjab, India), a well known seismic zone to study the correlation of radon anomalies in relation to seismic activities in the study area. In this study, radon monitoring in soil was carried out by using barasol probe (BMC2) manufactured by Algade France whereas the radon content in wa...

The response of submerged slopes on the continental shelf to seismic or storm loading has become an important element in the risk assessment for offshore structures and “local” tsunami hazards worldwide. The geological profile of these slopes typically includes normally consolidated to lightly overconsolidated soft cohesive soils with layer thickness ranging from a few meters to hundreds of met...

Materials engineered at the micro- and nanometer scales have had a tremendous and lasting impact in photonics and phononics. At much larger scales, natural soils civil engineered at decimeter to meter scales may interact with seismic waves when the global properties of the medium are modified, or alternatively thanks to a seismic metamaterial constituted of a mesh of vertical empty inclusions b...

This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and capability of magneto-rheological (MR) dampers commanded by a decentralized control algorithm for seismic control of nonlinear civil structures considering soil-structure interaction (SSI). A two-story reinforced concrete (RC) frame resting in a laminar soil container is employed as the test spe...