Juan Carlos Tiznado Aitken

Seismic Response with Compacted Granular Columns

May 13, 2018

The main goal of this project is to investigate how the use of compacted granular columns (CGC) may help improve the seismic performance of embankments on potentially liquefiable soils.

Camera image from inside centrifuge, looking out at Hiral Gandhi

Sandia Senior Design Test

March 19, 2018

The Sandia Senior Design Team were tasked to design a switch that activates at 9g as part of a cubesat subsystem for their senior design project.

Physical Modeling of Buried Explosion in Soils

Oct. 18, 2017

Buried explosion is a complex phenomenon, involving high strain-rate soil dynamics, fluid dynamics, fractures, shocks and multi-scale physics. A comprehensive experimental program using geotechnical centrifuge modeling was conducted in conjunction with computational modeling using finite element, boundary element and discrete element and meshless methods to achieve a new level of scientific understanding of the complex multi-phase phenomena.

Centrifuge Study of the Seismic Response of Buried Reservoir Structures

Oct. 18, 2017

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is currently replacing many of its open reservoirs with buried, reinforced-concrete structures to improve water quality.

Shake table on platform

New Paradigm in Evaluating and Mitigating Urban Liquefaction

Oct. 18, 2017

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant will create a new approach for evaluating the behavior of clusters of buildings on liquefiable ground during earthquakes and pave the way toward designing mitigation measures that improve building performance at a system level.

Centrifuge model post EQ1

NEESR Seismic Response of Shallow Underground Structures

Oct. 18, 2017

This project will study the seismic response of temporary and permanent cut-and-cover box structures near mid- to high-rise buildings using a combination of centrifuge testing and numerical simulations.

WTI Deep Patch Repair Modelling

Oct. 18, 2017

The Western Transportation Institue has conducted a series of modelling tests of deep patch repairing method used in Highway in our 400 g-ton centrifuge.

A car sits mired in the mud next to a destroyed building in a Japanese town where earthquakes triggered mudslides

Earthquake Reconnaissance in Japan

June 24, 2016

Shideh Dashti, assistant professor of geotechnical engineering and geomechanics at CU-Boulder, co-led a scientific reconnaissance team mobilized by the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association to travel to Kumamoto-shi, Japan, after the two earthquakes that occurred on April 14 and 16.