Date: April 9, 2025
Lecture Topic: Navigating the Challenge of Sequential Hazards: Evolving Building Design for Earthquakes and Tsunamis

Speaker: Tiziana Rossetto
Affiliation: University College London (UCL)

Speaker Profile: Professor Tiziana Rossetto is Professor of Earthquake Engineering at University College London (UCL) and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng). She is also the Founding Director of the Extreme Events and Engineering Resilience Centre (EPICentre, www.ucl.ac.uk/epicentre). Her research focuses on the assessment of the resilience of buildings and infrastructure under natural hazards, with particular emphasis on the safety and performance of structures subjected to sequential hazards such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Her work has had a broad impact on the fields of earthquake engineering and tsunami mitigation.

Lecture Overview: This lecture will examine the challenges posed by compound and sequential hazards—particularly earthquakes and tsunamis—to building design, as well as strategies to address them.
On December 26, 2004, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake along the Sunda Trench triggered the Indian Ocean Tsunami (IOT), affecting 12 countries and causing more than 225,000 fatalities. Subsequently, the 2010 magnitude 8.8 Maule earthquake in Chile and the 2011 magnitude 9.1 Tohoku earthquake in Japan further highlighted the severe threat posed by sequential earthquake–tsunami hazards to coastal buildings and infrastructure. In these regions, even where stringent seismic design codes were in place, the effectiveness of buildings in resisting tsunami loading has been called into question.
The lecture will review research advances over the past 20 years since the Indian Ocean Tsunami on tsunami inundation processes and their interaction with buildings. It will assess the current capabilities and limitations of building design and performance evaluation under tsunami loading. In addition, the lecture will explore potential conflicts between seismic design and tsunami-resistant design, and discuss how building design strategies can be optimized to address the dual threats of earthquakes and tsunamis.

Lecture Time:
Beijing Time: April 9, 2025, 20:00
UK Time: April 9, 2025, 13:00
Lecture Link: （Please register for the lecture via the link below.）
https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/9ee8cbb9-74eb-4de9-954d-1ed119dfa668@cf264fc0-aeb8-449f-9054-82ce4454084b

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