While on campus, KOLR-10 in Springfield also stopped in to watch DJ Belarbi conduct a few tests on a bridge pier. The tests are part of larger project that have UMR and four other universities studying the complex loading -- twisting, pushing and bending -- that can occur all at the same time and in every direction in bridge structures during earthquakes.
The research team will develop minimum design guidelines that will help future bridge engineers design safer bridges. In addition to UMR and UNR, the team includes the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign and Washington University-St. Louis. The five-member team will eventually work directly with Japanese researchers to understand earthquake bridge design at a more international level.
“We are in an earthquake-prone area close to the New Madrid fault line, the most active fault east of the Rockies,” says team member Dr. D.J. Belarbi, Curators’ Teaching Professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at UMR. “One of the nation’s largest devastating earthquakes happened in this area in 1812. We know that the infrastructure in this area is prone to behave very badly if an earthquake hits.”
FYI -- Belarbi and Pedro Silva talked to TechnoFiles back in February about their work. Catch the interview here.
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