UCLA Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

C&EE 200 Section 1 Seminar

Structural, Geotechnical and Civil Engineering Materials

Seismic Risk Assessment for Dams: Current Practice and Future Needs

 Matthew Muto, Ph.D.

Senior Dam Safety Engineer, Southern California Edison

Evaluating and mitigating seismic risk is seldom a simple task, however, for dams it can be particularly challenging.  Dam owners often are faced with making decisions on expensive, multi-year retrofits with relatively sparse information on seismic sources, site condition and how their dam will respond to a large earthquake.  This talk will present an overview of the current state of practice and offer some thoughts on what researchers, consultants, and owners can do to develop the tools needed to make better decisions.

Where: CS24 Young Hall

When: 4:00 – 5:50 PM, Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Matt Muto is a Consulting Engineer with Southern California Edison’s Dam & Public Safety Group.  He has been working on issues of seismic risk, including risk to dams, for over 17 years as a researcher and engineer.  He currently leads the seismic and risk assessment programs, and serves as the Deputy Chief Dam Safety Engineer for SCE.

 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.