About Quake-Advice

Quake-Advice aims to assist structural engineers who are residing in areas that are away from any tectonic plate boundaries.

These areas can be described as intraplate or “stable” as damaging earthquakes occur very infrequently in such tectonic setting.

Structural engineers practising in these regions may have only limited, or no, experience in undertaking design checks for seismic actions on building structures in compliance with regulatory requirements.

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Scope

Quake-Advice is scoped to include calculation methodologies for classification of the soil site, determination of the site amplification factors, interpretation of the response spectrum requirements, exercising independent checks on results from dynamic structural analyses that are generated from a commercial structural analysis package. The focus is on presenting materials that can be applied in design practices as opposed to research findings of pure academic interests.

 

Many of the calculation techniques introduced herein could not be found in textbooks, handbooks, standards nor their commentary as they were developed by the authors and have been validated in studies (details of which have been reported in peer articles). Earthquake engineering is a well-researched discipline of studies. Many monographs on this subject have been published but very few are exclusively for engineering in an intraplate environment which is the subject matter of this website.

Our story

The team of authors preparing materials for presentation on this website comprises both experienced researchers and engineers in consulting practices. This team has been formed for several years when the goal was to develop a draft for the National Annex to Eurocode 8 for Malaysia.

The Malaysian EC8 NA drafting team with invited reviewer Prof. John Wilson
The Malaysian EC8 NA drafting team with invited reviewer Prof. John Wilson

The National Annex is now finalised and published. The mission of the team is now set at facilitating seismic design checks for building structures. Although there are frequent references to Eurocode 8 (and the Malaysian National Annex) the concepts and the analysis methodologies presented are generic in nature so that the materials should be of value to engineers practising in Malaysia or in countries other than in Malaysia such as Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Nelson

Nelson Lam

PhD | Professor
The University of Melbourne
ntkl@unimel.edu.au

About Nelson Lam

Nelson Lam is Professor and leader of the Structures and Buildings Discipline in Department of Infrastructure Engineering at The University of Melbourne. He has 36 years of experience in structural engineering, and has been working in the specialized field of earthquake engineering, impact dynamics and structural dynamics in the past 29 years. He is member of the Seismic and Dynamic Events Panel commissioned by the London Headquarter of The Institution of Structural Engineers and also member of the standing committee for future revisions to the Australian standard for seismic actions. His achievement in research in this field was recognized by the award of the Chapman Medal (1999) and Warren Medal (2006) by Engineers Australia; and Chapman Medal for the second time in 2010. He is also recipient of Award for Teaching Excellence given out by Engineers Australia in 2012 and Academic Staff Teaching Award by Melbourne School of Engineering in 2013. He is lead author of the professional guidebook titled Design of Buildings and Structures in Low to Moderate Seismicity Regions which was launched in June this year. The book can be accessed free online using this link: https://www.polyu.edu.hk/cnerc-steel/images/publications/pg002.pdf. Nelson’s early career as a structural engineer was with Scott Wilson International throughout the 1980’s and attained British chartered engineer status during that period. He was awarded the degree of BSc in civil engineering with first class honours at the University of Leeds, England in 1981, MSc degree in concrete structures at Imperial College of Science & Technology, London in 1982 and PhD in earthquake engineering at The University of Melbourne in 1993.

Hing Ho

Hing-Ho Tsang

PhD | Associate Professor
Swinburne University of Technology (Melbourne)
htsang@swin.edu.au

About Hing-Ho Tsang

Dr. Hing-Ho Tsang aspires to develop frontier knowledge and innovative technologies for enhancing safety of people and structures under extreme events, contributing to the sustainability and resilience of cities and our society. He lectured at The University of Hong Kong from 2007 to 2012, and was a Visiting Academic at The University of Melbourne on six occasions during the period 2004-2012 and a Visiting Professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, in 2013 and 2016. He has published 70 Scopus-indexed journal articles. His scholarly achievements have been recognised by a dozen of international research awards and university prizes or fellowships. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) and serves in advisory roles to governments, industry and professional bodies, leading to the development of design standards and guidelines globally.

Daniel

Daniel Looi

PhD | Associate Professor
Sunway University
daniellooi@sunway.edu.my

About Daniel Looi

Dr. Daniel Looi is Associate Professor of the Civil Engineering programme at Sunway University, Malaysia. He lectured and became Associate Professor at Swinburne University of Technology, Sarawak from 2018 to 2024. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (Structural) of Engineers Australia and specialises in the field of structural and earthquake engineering. He is a key contributor to the development of the National Annex (NA) to Eurocode 8 on the seismic design of building structures for Malaysia. He chairs the Malaysian NA to Eurocode 2 Part 4 for the Design of fastenings for use in concrete. Daniel has published research work in seismic engineering, concrete mechanics, modular building and fastening technology. His research in concrete structures was recognised by the HKIE Outstanding Paper Award for Young Researcher/Engineer 2015. Daniel worked as a structural engineer in his early career. He is an alumnus of the Civil Engineering Department, University of Hong Kong and University of Malaya.

EP

EP Lim

P.E. | Senior Engineer
Hashim & Neh Pvt. Ltd.
eplim.phneh@gmail.com

About EP Lim

Ir. EP Lim is a practising Professional Civil & Structural Engineer with Perunding Hashim & NEH Sdn. Bhd.  He has over 32 years of experience in civil & structural engineering design and construction. He was a member of technical committees of (IEM-SWO) for standards in Design of Concrete Structures for MS EN 1990, 1991, 1992 & was a member of IEM C&S WG1 for drafting of Malaysia National Annex of EC8.

 

 

 

 

 

Prashidha's photo

Prashidha Khatiwada

MEng | PhD candidate | Program Developer
The University of Melbourne
prashidha.khatiwada@unimelb.edu.au

About Prashidha Khatiwada

Prashidha KHATIWADA was awarded the MEng degree in Structural Engineering with distinction at The University of Melbourne He obtained his BEng (Civil Engineering) degree with a scholarship from the Ministry of External Affair, Government of India. He teaches structural engineering courses at the University of Melbourne and is an instructor of an industry short course hosted by the University of
Melbourne titled: "Structural Design of Buildings for Extreme Loadings". He also works as a program designer, code developer, and educator for QuakeAdvice. Prashidha is also highly experienced in designing and creating content for flexible education. During the pandemic, he worked as a content creator and course designer for structural engineering courses under the Flexible Academic Programming FlexAP project at the University of Melbourne. Prashidha also worked as an asset assessment engineer for the special task force of the Government of Nepal in conducting structural health monitoring of residential and school buildings impacted by the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake. After working on this special project, he co-founded Marrow Technologies which specialises in structural and seismic design of residential, industrial, and institutional buildings. Prashidha is also highly active in the field of research His research focuses include advanced structural systems, structural analysis and design, and structural dynamics.