News
2023
August 2023
Serena Strawn, from the University of Denver, and Sara Brown, from Washington and Lee University, successfully completed their Research Experience for Undergraduates program. This program was funded by the National Science Foundation through the Center for Extreme Events Research (CEER) at UC San Diego. During this program, Serena and Sara delved into the dynamic responses of small-scale building models. They processed displacement and acceleration data gathered from various sensors during induced vibrations, gaining valuable insights into structural dynamics.
August 2023
Franco attended the PEER Annual Meeting held at UC Berkeley. "I was thrilled to have the opportunity to personally connect with my fellow colleagues from the PEER Student Committee at the recent PEER Annual Meeting held at UC Berkeley. After collaborating remotely for several months, the event provided us with a chance to come together in person. Our responsibilities encompassed leading pitches, delivering lightning presentations, and overseeing poster sessions. It was an immensely gratifying experience to contribute to the success of the PEER Annual Meeting." Franco mentioned after returning back to UC San Diego.
July 2023
Thanks to Professor James Ricles, in 2015, Georgios had the opportunity to be part of the PREEMPTIVE Japan program as a student. In 2023, PIs Professors Richard Christenson, Erik Johnson, Gisele Ragusa, Tohju Ikago, Ryuta Enokida, and Taichiro Okazaki organized the PREEMPTIVE ASI Japan program. Georgios was invited to serve as one of the three faculty mentors. Over a period of two weeks, Georgios shared an educational experience with students and faculty from US and Japan, and professionals from the research divisions of Takenaka, Obayashi, and Kobori Research Complex. A special thanks to our student team Leana Santos, Mahesh Acharya, Kevin Kapadia, Sydney Gable, Boxiong Wang, Lillian Lai, and Liu Hao!
According to the NSF award abstract (https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1829085):
"New technologies for improving the safety of infrastructure during natural hazards are advancing through ongoing research in the United States (U.S.) and abroad. Locations that have been recently impacted by earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes form prime opportunities for multidisciplinary groups of graduate students from the U.S. to learn the lessons of how infrastructure protective systems performed during recent disasters so that these students can direct their current and future research in the most contemporary and productive directions to better prepare the U.S. for future natural hazards. The objective of this award is to engage U.S. advanced graduate students from various disciplines in embedded learning through research at the forefront of protective systems for natural hazards engineering on the Pacific rim and beyond, and to build a sustained research community between them and their overseas counterparts. The award will enable six Advanced Studies Institutes (ASIs), each in a different location, in which the U.S. students learn from local and U.S. faculty experts, initiate protective systems research in natural hazards engineering, and experience first-hand the effects of natural hazards on built environments. Through these activities, this award advances U.S. scientific capabilities in multidisciplinary components of natural hazards engineering, and trains a diverse upcoming cohort of the scientific workforce to preemptively advance new technologies to prepare for future disasters at home; collaborate with counterparts, senior and early career faculty; and establish a new multidisciplinary approach to engineering hazard resilience. The project will involve a total of 81 U.S. graduate students via the six ASIs in different sites around the world.
The PREEMPTIVE (Pacific Rim Earthquake Engineering Mitigation Protective Technologies International Virtual Environment) ASIs explore topics in disaster science and resilient infrastructure from a highly multidisciplinary perspective to train a diverse group of graduate students in the broad areas of protective systems and disaster mitigation. A series of six week-long PREEMPTIVE ASIs are planned over three years, each enabling a cohort of advanced graduate students and senior and early-career faculty from the U.S. with counterpart faculty and students from around the world to learn about global efforts in protective systems for natural hazards, establish new frontiers of multidisciplinary research, and form long-term global professional relationships. The ASIs will explore the Resilience of Aging Infrastructure, Tsunami Hazards and Infrastructure Resilience, Structural Control & Geotechnical Challenges, Extreme Earthquake & Tsunami Hazards, Hurricane and Multi-Hazards, and Interdisciplinary Disaster Science in Costa Rica, Thailand, New Zealand, Chile, Puerto Rico, and Japan. Each ASI will consist of 2-3 day workshops, 1-2 day cultural and technical tours to provide context to the performance of protective systems in recent natural hazards, and 2-3 day collaborative group projects providing guided experiential learning experiences in infrastructure protective systems. Through this award, U.S. graduate student researchers learn to be preemptive in: addressing current and future research needs in advanced hazards mitigation; collaborating with overseas counterparts; and establishing a new multidisciplinary approach to engineering hazard resilience. The U.S. graduate student participants are selected via rigorous application processes. Student learning outcomes will be assessed through a variety of modalities, analyzed and disseminated through a website and in conference and journal publications. "
June 2023
Yeon has officially received her MS Degree after successfully defending her MS Thesis in November 2022. Congratulations Yeon!
June 2023
Georgios received the 2023 “Outstanding ASCE Faculty Advisor” award. The award is given annually to an outstanding faculty person who supports ASCE student chapters and civil engineering students within the San Diego Section. This award is intended to recognize faculty contributions to civil engineering students and their activities.
June 2023
Yeon and Kaixin attended the ASCE-EMI Conference and presented their research! Yeon discussed the seismic response of core wall building with force-limiting connections and Kaixin discussed a structural connection with predetermined discrete variable friction forces for high-performance earthquake-resistant buildings.
June 2023
Georgios gave a seminar to the graduate students in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Samueli School of Engineering, University of California Irvine with title "Controlling Seismic-induce Higher-mode responses in Buildings"
May 2023
Our SE151B class visited Coreslab's facilities in Los Angeles. Coreslab LA focuses on design, developmet, and fabrication of precast/prestressed concrete systems. Thanks to Howard Poulsen and Kevin Bohne for taking the time to walk us through Coreslab's facilities!
May 2023
Georgios was nominated to join the UCSD Jacobs Student Scholars to discuss on-campus research opportunities for undergraduates.
May 2023
Our recent publication on Resilient Cities and Structures journal was listed as one of the most downloaded articles in the last 90 days.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/resilient-cities-and-structures
April 2023
Yeon, Kaixin, and Franco presented at the 2023 Research Expo at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
April 2023
Yeon and Kaixin inspired young students to follow careers in structural engineering during the Torrey Pines Elementary School Science Day!
April 2023
Franco is one of the twenty five recipients of the 2023-2024 ACI National Fellowship Recipients. Congratulations Franco for the Nicolas F. Maloof Jr. GA Chapter Fellowship !!
March 2023
The UC San Diego ASCE Timber-Strong Design Build Competition student team got the third place in this year's competition!! Congratulations team!! The team members worked hard this quarter to accomplish this results. Thanks to the team at Mulhern + Kulp Structural Engineering firm for their support throughout the process.
https://www.asce.org/communities/student-members/conferences/timber-strong-design-build-competition
March 2023
The Italian and International Associations of Earthquake Engineering are organizing the 18th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering (WCEE2024) in Milan, Italy, from 30th June to 5th July 2024.
Georgios Tsampras (UC San Diego, USA), Gregory McRae (University of Canterbury, NZ), and Charles Clifton (The University of Auckland, NZ) will co-host a technical session entitled "Friction-Based Structural Components for High-Performance Buildings" at the World Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
We would like to invite researchers and practicing engineers to contribute and attend our technical session. We look forward to receiving your contributions and to joining us and our diverse group of invited speakers listed below in Milan in 2024.
https://www.wcee2024.it/contributions/
List of Invited Speakers:
Elide Nastri, University of Salerno, Italy
Michael Constantinou, University at Buffalo, USA
James Ricles, Lehigh University, USA
Mark Sarkisian, SOM, USA
Imad Mualla, Dampetch, Denmark
Shahab Ramhormozian, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Jose Golondrino, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia
Geoff Rodgers, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Kiran Rangwani, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Liang-Jiu Jia, Tongji University, China
Liang, Cao, Lehigh University, USA
Kyoungyeon Lee, University of California San Diego, USA
Zhenduo Yan, The University of Auckland, New Zealand
March 2023
Georgios was selected by the ASCE San Diego Section and the ASCE Awards Committee selected for the 2023 “Outstanding ASCE Faculty Advisor” award. The award is given annually to an outstanding faculty person who supports ASCE student chapters and civil engineering students within the San Diego Section. This award is intended to recognize faculty contributions to civil engineering students and their activities.
The award recipients will be recognized at the ASCE Annual Awards Ceremony to be held on June 16 2023 at the Dana Hotel in San Diego. For more details and registration information for this event please use the following link: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ejptg6b68d31e2ea&llr=vugrgykab
March 2023
Under the leadership of Professors Federico Mazzolani and Vincenzo Piluso The University of Salerno and The University of Naples, “Federico II” with the support of The Italian College of Steel Technicians (C.T.A.) and The European Convention for Constructional Steelwork (ECCS) are organizing the 11th International Conference on the Behaviour of Steel Structures in Seismic Areas in Salerno, Italy, 8-10 July 2024.
Georgios has joined the International Scientific Committee. We invite you to contribute and attend the conference! See you in Italy!
http://www.stessa2024.it/
1st announcement STESSA 2024.pdfMarch 2023
Kaixin, Georgios, and Yeon published a technical article on Resilient Cities and Structures journal. This paper presents a simple and practical structural connection able to develop predetermined discrete variable friction forces at target design displacement levels. The innovative connection is termed Modified Friction Device (Modified FD). Modified FDs are used to transfer the seismic induced horizontal forces from the floors to the core wall seismic force-resisting system of a building.
Chen, K., G. Tsampras, and K. Lee. 2023. “Structural connection with predetermined discrete variable friction forces.” Resilient Cities and Structures, Resilience of Structures to Earthquakes, 2 (1): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcns.2023.02.006.
February 2023
Our SE 203 Structural Dynamics I class visited the NHERI Shake Table facility at UC San Diego. We talked about the research facility and its contribution to research in structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. Big thanks to Koorosh Lotfizadeh for co-organizing the tour of the facility. Big thanks to Professors Kerri Ryan and Jeffrey Berman for kindly offering us a tour of their unique 10-story timber building specimen.
January 2023
Yeon, Kaixin, and Franco presented their research at the 2023 Lab Expo at UC San Diego.
January 2023
Kaixin and Georgios had fun working with the UCSD AISC Steel Bridge Design Competition team to fabricate a welding jig. We went over the steps required to simulate and automate the fabrication process and fabricated 8 functional parts.
January 2023
Dominic Tran joined our team as an undergraduate student researcher. His research focuses on design, analysis and fabrication of seismic response modification devices for high-performance buildings.
2022
November 2022
We had the opportunity to visit the construction site in Theater District at UC San Diego with our graduate students. Big thanks to Julianna Quinn (Kitchell), Ryan Anderson (Walter P. Moore), Toby Polocoser (Walter P. Moore), and Mike Laurenzano (Atlas) for having us on-site.
November 2022
After many hours of hard work and studying, Franco passed his Department Qualifying Examination! This is the first milestone toward Franco's doctoral degree. Congratulations Franco!! The picture was taken after lunch to celebrate Franco's and Yeon's successes.
November 2022
We are excited to share that Yeon has defended successfully her MS Thesis with the title "Seismic Response of Eighteen-story Core Wall Building with Force-limiting Connections and Low-damage Coupling Beams". Professors Joel Conte and Jose Restrepo served as Yeon's committee members and provided constructive feedback on her research. Yeon is the first student to receive a graduate degree from our research group. She will continue her doctoral studies with our group at UC San Diego. Congratulations Yeon!!
November 2022
Georgios served as an Invited Speaker at the 8th Asia Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Taipei. In our presentation we discussed a novel friction-based connection with performance-based discrete variable limiting force for high-performance buildings. This work is part of Kaixin's PhD research at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Kyoungyeon and Franco made valuable contributions to the numerical earthquake simulations.
https://www.ncree.org/conference/InvitedSpeakers.aspx?n=I20221109A0#Tsampras
We also had the opportunity to spend time at NCREE Laboratories in Tainan for an exciting shake table test. A big thanks to Prof. Chung-Che Chou and his colleagues and students! It was wonderful to meet my colleagues and make new friends.
October 2022
Franco and Georgios presented at the Strong Motion Instrumentation Program 2022 seminars their progress on the project "Validation of Seismic Design Provisions for Diaphragms and Assessment of Higher-Mode Responses on Earthquake-Resistant Buildings" funded by the California Strong Motion Instrumentation program.
September 2022
Yeon presented preliminary findings related to the “Seismic Response of Core Wall Building with Friction‐Based Force‐Limiting Connections“ at the 3rd European Conference on Earthquake Engineering and Seismology.
September 2022
SEI/ASCE TC TG2 International Workshop on the Effect of Climate Change on Life-Cycle Performance, Safety, Reliability, and Risk of Structures and Infrastructure Systems.
Photo was taken by Laura Champion.
September 2022
Georgios was invited to be one of the Invited Speakers at the 8th Asia Conference on Earthquake Engineering.
https://www.ncree.org/conference/InvitedSpeakers.aspx?n=I20221109A0
August 2022
Georgios presented at the 13th Hellenic Society for Theoretical and Applied Mechanics Congress in Patras, Greece.
August 2022
The ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering list of most read articles in the last one month included our most recent publication.
Tsampras, Georgios, and Richard Sause. “Force-Based Design Method for Force-Limiting Deformable Connections in Earthquake-Resistant Buildings.” Journal of Structural Engineering 148, no. 10 (October 1, 2022): 04022150. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0003456.
July 2022
Georgios joins the Early Career Board of the journal Advances in Structural Engineering.
https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/advances-in-structural-engineering/journal202466#editorial-board
June 2022
Yeon, Kaixin, Franco and Georgios attended the 12th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Utah which was hosted by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.
Georgios presented in the Special Session #26 entitled "No Longer Just a Research Idea - Rocking Technologies as a Practical Approach to Achieving Functional Recovery" organized by Christopher Segura and Matthew Speicher from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
May 2022
Franco and Georgios presented at the ASCE-EMI Conference 2022 in Baltimore.
May 2022
Our conference paper entitled "Seismic Response of Core Wall Building with Friction-Based Force-Limiting Connections" was accepted for publication at the Proceeding of the Third European Conference on Earthquake Engineering & Seismology.
May 2022
Construction site walk at UCSD campus with our SE 151B Prestressed Concrete Design class. Thanks to Julianna, Ryan, Jesus, and Kevin from the design and construction site teams!
May 2022
Our manuscript entitled "Force-Based Design Method for Force-Limiting Deformable Connections in Earthquake-Resistant Buildings" was accepted for publication in the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering.
May 2022
Jared Brewe, Vice President of Technical Services at Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute, presents in our Prestressed Concrete Design class at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
April 2022
Yeon receives the ACI San Diego Chapter Scholarship.
April 2022
Georgios attends the ASCE-SEI Structures Congress in Atlanta for the meetings of the Task Group 2.
April 2022
Georgios receives Token of Appreciation from his former teammates and friends in the Falcon Structures Engineering group at SpaceX for his contributions to the NASA Demo-2 mission.
April 2022
Georgios receives a travel award from the Academic Senate at the University of California San Diego.
April 2022
Kaixin and Georgios receive a 2022 PCI Daniel P. Jenny Research Fellowship. Read more here in the PCI Journal
[https://lsc-pagepro.mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?m=61069&i=752142&p=1&ver=html5]
April 2022
Our team goes on a hike to explore beautiful San Diego.
March 2022
Our team receives a research grant from the the Department of Conservation for the California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (CSMIP).
March 2022
Our team joins a student organized Taco Night! Great job by the Structural Engineering Chefs.
2021
December 2021
Georgios receives travel grant to attend the NHERI researcher workshop will be held at the NHERI Lehigh’s Real-Time Multi-Directional (RTMD) Facility in Bethlehem, PA
December 2021
Georgios presents at the EERI Student Chapter at Lehigh University on the topic entitled "Careers in Structural Engineering".
December 2021
Bin Wang, Gabriele Granello, Giovanni Defrancesco and Georgios organized the 2021 Emerging Researchers' Seminar on Earthquake Engineering.
2021 Emerging Researchers' Seminar on Earthquake Engineering.pdfDecember 2021
Georgios receives a registration grant for the 12th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering scheduled for June 27-July 1, 2022.
September 2021
Please join us to welcome Kaixin Chen! Kaixin will pursue his PhD in Structural Engineering. His research will focus on low-damage earthquake-resilient buildings with innovative friction-based force-limiting deformable connections.
August 2021
Our group goes on a fun day hike!
April 2021
Georgios started serving as secretary of ASCE-SEI Task Group 2.
March 2021
Please join us to welcome Kyoungyeon Lee! Yeon is the newest member of our group and she will be conducting her MSc thesis on earthquake-resistant building systems. She has a multidisciplinary background with experiences from both structural engineering and architecture. We are very excited to have her. Welcome Yeon!
January 2021
Carlos Franco Mayorga joined our group as the first doctoral student! We are very excited to have him. Welcome Franco!
2020
July 2020
Christine Fennessy published an article at P.C Rossin College of Engineering & Applied Science news. The article summarizes Georgios's journey in engineering that would not have been possible without the support of his family, mentors, friends and colleagues.
Read more in the link below:
https://engineering.lehigh.edu/news/article/georgios-tsampras-16-phd-only-way-find-out-try
July 2020
Georgios joined the Structural Engineering department at University of California in San Diego as an Assistant Professor.
On the right is shown the main entrance of the Structural and Materials Engineering Building that houses the Structural Engineering department at UC San Diego.
https://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/news/release/3116
June 2020
Georgios receives Token of Appreciation from his teammates in the Falcon Structures Engineering group at SpaceX for his contributions to the damage tolerance analysis for the reuse evaluation of fracture critical hardware on Falcon 9 and Flacon Heavy launch vehicles.
2019
Georgios joined the Falcon Structures Engineering group at SpaceX in Hawthorne, CA.
On the right is a picture at the Falcon 9 booster moment located in Hawthorne, CA.
2018
Georgios presented at the 11th National Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Georgios gave an invited talk at the Northeastern University Graduate Structural Engineering Association in Boston, MA.
https://cee.northeastern.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/pdfs/seminars/ceeseminar_120618.pdf
Our article on the shake-table test performance of an the inertial force-limiting floor anchorage system was published on the journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.
Zhi Zhang, Robert B. Fleischman, José I. Restrepo, Gabrielle Guerrini, Arpit Nema, Dichuan Zhang, Ulina Shakya, Georgios Tsampras, Richard Sause (2018), Shake table test performance of an inertial force-limiting floor anchorage system, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 47 (10), 1987-2011, doi: 10.1002/eqe.3047
2017
Georgios presented at the 2017 ASCE Structures Congress in Denver.
Our second article on the experimental validation of the deformable connection for earthquake-resistant buildings was published on the journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.
Georgios Tsampras, Richard Sause, Robert B. Fleischman, José I. Restrepo (2017) Experimental study of deformable connection consisting of friction device and rubber bearings to connect floor system to lateral force resisting system, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 47 (4), 1032-1053, doi: 10.1002/eqe.3004
2016
Georgios Tsamras joined the Engineering Mechanics and Infrastructure division at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger in Waltham, MA.
Our article on the experimental validation of the deformable connection for earthquake-resistant buildings was published on the journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.
Georgios Tsampras, Richard Sause, Robert B. Fleischman, José I. Restrepo (2016), Experimental study of deformable connection consisting of buckling-restrained brace and rubber bearings to connect floor system to lateral force resisting system, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 46 (8), 1287-1305, DOI:10.1002/eqe.2856
Our first article on the development of the deformable connection for earthquake-resistant buildings was published on the journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.
Georgios Tsampras, Richard Sause, Dichuan Zhang, Robert B. Fleischman, José I. Restrepo, David Mar, Joseph Maffei (2016), Development of deformable connection for earthquake-resistant buildings to reduce floor accelerations and force responses, Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics, 45 (9), 1473–1494, doi:10.1002/eqe.2718
2015
Georgios receives the Yen Fellowship by the Civil Engineering department at Lehigh University.
On the right is a photo of Georgios Tsampras and the ATLSS lab manager Darrick Fritchman from the following related article: https://www2.lehigh.edu/news/ben-yens-legacy
The Japan Association for Earthquake Engineering (JAEE) awarded Georgios the Excellent Presentation Award during the International Symposium on Earthquake Engineering in Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. James M. Ricles, Director of NHERI at Lehigh University, enabled Georgios Tsampras' participation to the symposium.
On the right is a picture from the ceremony. The awards were presented by the president of JAEE, Dr. Kimiro MEGURO.
Georgios gave an interview to the Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Lehigh University to disseminate the research of the work conducted by University of Arizona, Lehigh University, and University of California San Diego on the Inertial Force-Limiting Anchorage System for Seismic Resistant Building Structures.
Georgios and Richard Sause traveled to New Zealand to present at the 2015 NZSEE Technical Conference in Rotorua.
On the right are some pictures from the trip.
Georgios presented at the 2015 SEI/ASCE Structures Congress in Portland Oregon.
On the right is a photo from the session of the presentation.
Georgios gave an invited talk at Leslie E. Robertson Associates in New York City.
