UCLA Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

C&EE 200 Section 1 Seminar

Structural, Geotechnical and Civil Engineering Materials

Caltrans’ Experience of the Past Leading into the Future Research Work

 Mark Mahan, Ph.D.

Chief, Office of Earthquake Engineering, Analysis & Research, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)

Catastrophic California earthquakes, and the seismic research program dictated by these seismic events, shape Caltrans bridge design practice. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake in southern California was the first major event to cause extensive damage resulting in substantial change in Caltrans seismic design policy. The 1994 Northridge earthquake revealed completely new flaws in the performance of bridges.

Caltrans Seismic Design Criteria (SDC) reflects all the learning from the past earthquakes as well as results and findings of the laboratory research sponsored by Caltrans at various universities.

In this seminar an overview of the lessons learned in the past earthquakes and ongoing tech-nical improvements in the design of bridges in California will be presented.

Where: CS24 Young Hall

When: 4:00 – 5:50 PM, Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Dr. Mark Mahan is the Chief of the Caltrans Office of Earthquake Engineering, Analysis & Re-search. Dr. Mahan has over 28 years of experience in earthquake engineering for bridges both in California and nationally. He was instrumental in developing guidance and tools that ultimately led to Caltrans being the national and international leader in seismic design of bridges. Largely due to his guidance, Caltrans was the first government agency worldwide to adopt the displace-ment-based seismic design philosophy. 

Prior to joining SCE, Matt was a Research Scientist at the California Institute of Technology.  He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Civil Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College.