Earthquakes Committee Webinar

Seismic performance assessments for earth slopes and dams are based on evaluating the permanent displacements induced by earthquake shaking and more recently probabilistic approaches have been proposed to incorporate uncertainties into the analysis. This presentation will describe newly developed predictive models for earthquake-induced slope displacements based on finite element simulations. The models are developed using both classical regression techniques and artificial neural networks (ANN), and models for both the median displacement and its variability are provided. A missing part of most seismic performance assessments for slopes and dams is the translation of a displacement level into a damage state. This presentation will also outline a seismic fragility framework for earth dams and slopes that is modeled after the approaches used for other types of infrastructure, such as bridges. The framework uses an engineering demand model to predict the permanent displacement as a function of ground motion intensity, and a seismic capacity model to predict the probability of a damage state given the permanent settlement.

Ellen Rathje

Professor of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering

University of Texas

Dr. Ellen M. Rathje is the Janet S. Cockrell Centennial Chair in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering and a Senior Research Scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG) at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. Her research interests include seismic site response analysis, seismic slope stability, earthquake-induced ground failure, and remote sensing. She has published over 100 papers on these topics and has supervised the research of over 30 graduate students. Her research has been funded by the the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the State of Texas, and the United Nations Development Program.

Dr. Rathje is the Principal Investigator for the development of the DesignSafe cyberinfrastructure for the NSF-funded Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI). She is part of the Leadership Team for the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program, housed at the Bureau of Economic Geology of UT. She also is a founding member and previous Co-Chair of the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, the pre-eminent organization in the world coordinating geotechnical investigations after extreme events, such as earthquakes and floods.

Much of her consulting work is associated with site response and seismic hazard studies for nuclear facilities around the globe, including the Thyspunt Nuclear Site in South Africa, four existing nuclear power plants in Taiwan operated by Taipower, and multiple nuclear facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory.

She is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Earthquake Engineering (IAEE) and also a member of the NSF Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure (ACCI). She has previously served on the Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering (COGGE) for The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Board of Directors for the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), and the USGS Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee.

Dr. Rathje has been honored with various research awards, including the 2022 Peck Award and Lecture from the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the 2018 William B. Joyner Lecture Award from the Seismological Society of America and EERI, the Huber Research Prize from ASCE in 2010, the Hogentogler Award for outstanding paper from ASTM Committee D18 in 2010, the Shamsher Prakash Research Award in 2007, the Shah Innovation Prize from EERI in 2006, and the Casagrande Award from ASCE in 2002. She was elected Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2016.