George C. Yao, Professor

Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan

Biography: Prof. Yao started his research in earthquake engineering back in the late 1980’s when he was a PhD student in SUNY Buffalo working for the National Center for Research in Earthquake Engineering (NCREE), the first US national lab for earthquake engineering. His professional experiences include working for a famous architectural firm (JP&A) and CALTRANS in USA. He started his teaching career in the 1991 as an Assoc. Prof. in his current school and operates an earthquake engineering laboratory, equipped with a shaking table and reaction wall, in southern Taiwan. Prof. Yao’s research encompasses various fields in the earthquake engineering both in structural and nonstructural elements and has published numerous papers. He served for 10 years as the chief editor of the "Journal of Architecture" published in Taiwan with TSSCI citation. In the past decade, his research interests expanded into the disaster resilient buildings.

Topic: Significant Lessons from the 2016 Mei-long Earthquake in Southern Taiwan

Abstract: In the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake, many damages to buildings took place partly owing to the lower building quality and partly the excessive ground motion. Lessons drawn from that earthquake brought up some government actions to strengthen public buildings. 17 years later, the Mei-Long earthquake laid out an exam to the building stocks in Southern Taiwan. Most of the buildings passed the exam, but some buildings collapsed and tilted due to similar reasons we concluded from the Chi-Chi earthquake and some are new to us. This presentation will address the significant lessons learned from this 2016 earthquake, such as soft-story effect, soil liquefaction effect, and performance of retrofitted buildings.