Engineering for Earthquakes

CIVIL ENGINEERING

ENGINEERING FOR EARTHQUAKES

Tracing a path from India to New Zealand, the author shares her experiences on how she ended up in this field and how the best minds are working hard to try and protect us from devastating losses due to earthquakes.

Dr. S.R. Uma

Introduction

As a woman, brought up in India, cutting a path and career through Civil Engineering has been an adventure in choices, challenges and risks.  I am a person who is comfortable taking career risks, but find often that it is not easy to fully understand the depth of the risk that I am taking.  

I hope to share here the career choices I have made, the risks I have taken, how I landed with earthquake engineering as a specialization and finally how this might be of value to you.

Because my father was a Civil Engineer!

I must have scored well in my exams, since I received a letter from the board saying that I was allotted a seat at the PSG College of Technology.

I was assigned ‘Civil Engineering’ as my branch.  I had wanted to try electronics or electrical engineering, eager to try these growing fields, which from what I had heard were supposedly more appropriate for women. 

When I tried to get a different major I was told, '”your father is a civil engineer. You will be one too.”  The story sticks with me quite vividly today.  However at that time I did not make much of it.  I thought it was fine and applied myself to studying in that field of engineering.  I should say that my father is still enjoying the memories of his achievements and accomplishments in his civil engineering career. 

Civil Engineering being the second-oldest discipline and thus a mature field, there were concerns that there might not be lucrative job offers.  But as I got deeper into the subject matter, I got very much-interested subjects such as mechanics, structural analysis and structural design.  I did well enough that I got admitted to the graduate program at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Chennai.

A passion for teaching

I joined the Regional Engineering College (REC) at Tiruchinapalli and had a teaching assignment. I found that my ‘teaching career’ was rewarding. I generally received very good appreciation from the students for my ability to explain things well. 

However, the assignment was only for one year.  I realized a PhD was essential to continue developing my teaching career.  So, I pushed myself to do PhD and went back to IIT Chennai.

Awake to earthquakes 

At IIT Chennai, I was exploring research areas that would be interesting/challenging about new trends in civil engineering. One professor advised me to choose problems related to ‘Dynamics’ rather than ‘Statics”. 

I decided to undertake research in the field of earthquake engineering. A young and energetic Assistant Professor agreed to offer supervision. I chose a topic related to seismic assessments of buildings. The significance of this topic came clear when there was a massive earthquake in Uttarkashi in 1991. Coincidentally, that is when I registered for my PhD!

That is how I ended up getting some exposure or knowledge in earthquake engineering. 

The course was new and hard for me. So many times I was considering quitting. 

A friend who was in her final stage of her PhD program, provided me moral support and said: “Uma, I know it is not easy. But once the assignment is taken, stick with it and finish it, come what may!”

I did so amidst so many challenges, thanks to my husband who was so supportive and patient during the trying period.  I now realize that while I was doing the PhD, I did not know the kind of openings this degree would give me in my later stages of my life.

I enjoyed thoroughly my teaching profession to deal with civil engineering subjects. Whenever I get an opportunity, I inspire young minds by showing new and innovative structures designed around the world, just to let them know how much more we can do in civil engineering. 

This, I believed could help them overcome a kind of feeling that “civil engineering’ was not good enough as other subjects.  Also, I make a point that students should develop respect for every discipline because any discipline cannot function independently if they want to deliver something useful to the society.  I served as a teacher for 5 years after my securing my PhD. 

A bend in the road

My personal life then took a drastic change in direction.  Given these changed personal circumstances, I decided I would take a risk and resign my job.  I did not have an idea or plan on what I would do next. But I did stay abreast of recent research developments in earthquake engineering.

I had the opportunity to attend two international conferences overseas and those visits helped me to get updated in my areas of research interests (seismic assessment) as well as to get an idea how living outside India was.

One place was New Zealand. I successfully got a Post-Doctoral position at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. My PhD topic in the field of earthquake engineering was considered to be a “well qualified degree” for New Zealand because that country has high earthquake risks.  

A new country

              

New Zealand is a small country but faces high risks from natural hazards. The city where I live is Wellington and one of the major earthquake fault (‘Wellington fault’) runs across the city.  And just at a distance of 250 meters from my house!

Since I moved to New Zealand in 2005, one of the major topics of discussion is around seismic safety policy for buildings and occupants. Recent mild and sever earthquake events keep the topic live and continuous attempts are made to refine the government policy to strike balance between ‘seismic safety’ and the economic drivers and constraints from the society. 

At present I work for one of the Crown Research Institute of New Zealand where pure and applied research activities are encouraged. Applied areas of research give a sense of reward to me. 

In New Zealand, work-life balance is given importance and priority is considered for family even at the work place.  It is a beautiful country to raise our kids in safety. 

Construction in the face of earthquakes

I have had the direct experience of mild ground shaking under my feet. However, recently a devastating series of earthquakes in Christchurch gave me a vast exposure to the types of damages to built-structures, the land and hence the functioning of community. 

These impacts have raised issues to be looked at within different construction sectors, structural engineers, geotechnical engineers and social scientists to work independently and collaboratively towards community resilience.

In this context, there is a tendency to promote new types of construction that will sustain ‘low damage’ and the damage can be relatively repaired with minimum disruption. However, there are always challenges in adopting any type of changes and implement a system or a policy for adopting new systems. 

The first step in implementing new changes to conventional construction is to understand the barriers or the gaps in adopting new systems. This requires a gathering of various viewpoints from different stakeholders and a good communication model. I had the privilege of doing this exercise to meet with different stakeholders and advise the New Zealand ministry office about my findings. 

What the future holds

Particularly in earthquake engineering related to structures, a lot of progress is being made.  I cite a few below:

(i) Structural and geotechnical engineering:

Usually, structural and geotechnical engineers do work independently and minimum level of interactions take place before deciding engineering solutions. After the recent earthquakes, there is an increasing trend to change this culture. Geotechnical engineering is gaining more focus.

(ii) Performance of structural elements (skeleton) of the system vs. non-structural elements (fit outs):

There is a growing research interest in understanding, designing, and installation of the fit-outs that support building services.  Fit-outs cost much more than the structure itself.  Development of new types of structural systems and non-structural systems that sustain minimal damage are emerging.

(iii) Loss estimation of structures due to earthquakes:

This area deals with: what type of damage will occur, what could be the cost of repair, repair time, how long before the building could become unusable and how to make the tenants vacate the building in an expedient manner.

(iv) Real-time monitoring of seismic response of structures to advise stakeholders:

This is to understand the likelihood and extent of damage that can be smartly communicated to the owners or stakeholders to help in making decision regarding ‘occupational safety’.  

(v) Performance of infrastructure:

Damage potential to various infrastructure networks: underground pipes, cables that interact with soil behavior, roads, electricity and other critical facilities like hospitals, airports, ports. Every stakeholder wants to know what is the risk their portfolio is likely to face. 

(vi) Dealing with uncertainties:

Like in every engineering discipline, earthquake engineering has to deal with lots of uncertainties every stage. Acquiring knowledge and skills to deal with uncertainties in various types of modeling would be an added advantage.

Summary

Through my career story you can see that I got what I did not want in the beginning - i.e.. Civil Engineering.  And I did not end up doing what I wanted - i.e. teaching.  I took risks such as quitting my job before knowing what I would do next and moving to a country I did not know - i.e. New Zealand.

But in spite of it all, I am living in a wonderful family friendly place, working on a topic of national importance.  My education fully helped me to get a start in this field.  Today my work advises the minister's office on matters related to earthquake engineering.

So what does this mean?  It means that one must be willing to accept risks.  One must be willing to accept that the outcomes from what we invest in now are not pre-determined.  We should be courageous to embrace the new.  We must face challenges at home and work with equanimity.  

Rather than perfecting a plan, we can tinker and ask ourselves: “why not try this? What is wrong if I do this? What could come after all? Let me face as it comes.”

John Lennon of the Beatles famously sang, 'life is what happens when you make other plans.'  So let's live life in the moment, embrace change!

About the author:

S.R. Uma works for GNS Science, a Crown Research Institute in New Zealand as an Earthquake Engineer. After finishing her bachelor degree in Civil Engineering at PSG College of Technology, she did her post-graduate studies at IIT Chennai. She started her career as an academic and continued to serve in various research organizations. Her research interests include seismic assessment, seismic monitoring of structures and understanding the needs for post-earthquake functioning of built-environment in cities.