07/20/2018
Dr. Jenna Wong, an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering, received a SF State Research and Scholarly Activity Fund award of $10,000 for one year (2018-2019) to conduct research on a project titled, Seismic Performance of a Seismically Isolated Sustainable Structure. Over the past decade, sustainability has gained increasing importance in the development of new structures. With LEED certifications and new requirements in city codes, there is heightened awareness of green and sustainable systems. However, in the structural engineering field, this movement is followed by the statement that sustainability reduces the impact of a structure on the environment but does not reduce the environment's impact on a structure. As a result, resilience is being introduced to address sustainability from the structural perspective. To explore both sustainability and resilience, this project proposes to investigate the seismic performance of a seismically isolated sustainable structure using a green roof.This preliminary study will incorporate both computational simulations and a small-scale experimental test to study how the additional roof weight affects the structural performance of both fixed based and isolated structures. This research will create a significant foundation for future work on the applicability of green roofs with seismic isolation advancing the field's approach to design.