Students Place in Seismic Design Contest

 

By Jeanine Genchanok

 

Students representing the University of Illinois took third place in the annual Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) Undergraduate Seismic Design Competition in San Diego, Calif., Feb. 9-12.

 

The competition challenges students to design a multi-story commercial office building and predict its seismic load resistance capacity. A scale model of the design made from balsa wood is equipped with weights and tested against three seismic events. The designs have strict criteria each team must follow, including a weight limit of 2.2 kg, maximum floor width of 15 x 15 square inches, a maximum allowable 29 levels, and maximum floor heights of 2 inches. Rules also allow for innovative floor isolation and damping systems.

 

This year’s competition found 28 student teams competing, with three international groups from Malaysia, Romania, and Canada.  The competition included one day of oral presentations and another of testing the structural models. Teams also had the opportunity to discuss each design at an evening poster session attended by professors and professionals in the earthquake engineering industry.

 

The University of Illinois team consisted of seniors Quinton Champer, Michael Morun, and Kiet Nguyen; juniors Jon LaScala, Jeanine Genchanok, Anh Le, Daniel Biernet , and Ryan Leigh; and freshman and president Meghana Devineni. Quinton Champer came up with the 26-story design for the structure. The design emphasized redundancy and was optimized for economic performance according to competition rules. Nguyen and Leigh played active roles in modeling and predicting the seismic load resistance of the structure.

 

This is the second year the EERI student chapter has participated in this event.