Geotechnical Engineering Professor Ramin Motamed is a faculty member in the College of Engineering’s Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. His areas of research include shake table tests on deep and shallow foundations; liquefaction and laterally spreading grounds and mitigation measures; and nonlinear site response analysis and soil-structure interaction. Here, he shares a few thoughts about his work.
Q: Tell us a little about how you test structures on shake tables, and how that helps us design safer structures.
A: We use shake tables to simulate earthquakes and see how soils, foundations and structures respond. By building test models and shaking them with real earthquake records, we can spot weaknesses and figure out what makes a design safer. It’s a hands-on way to improve how we build and protect our infrastructure from future earthquakes.
Q: What inspired you to pursue this line of research?
A: I’ve always been drawn to work that has a real-world impact. Growing up in an earthquake-prone area, I saw how important it is to build things that last. This field combines my love of problem-solving with a chance to make our infrastructure safer and stronger.
Q: Can you tell us about your current research with the U.S. Department of Energy and how the Laminar Soil Box is used?
A: This project aims to evaluate the current practices used by engineers in determining earthquake hazards for the design of new nuclear facilities and to assess the conditions of current nuclear facilities, which are of key interest to DOE. We are carrying out these large-scale shake table tests to gauge the reliability of existing methods and how we can further improve their accuracy.
