Table 1: Tsunami load to seismic capacity building height parity and threshold for Washington locations.
The Journal of Structural Engineering (JSE) awarded the Chock et al.'s "Tsunami-Resilient Building Design Considerations for Coastal Communities of Washington, Oregon, and California” as their 2018 Best Journal Paper in the Structural Hazards category.
The paper, published in August 2018 and coauthored by Dr. Yong Wei (JISAO/PMEL), was selected by a committee composed of Associate Editors from about 300 papers accepted for publication in JSE last year.
In this paper, the authors provide guidance on implementing the ASCE 7-16 tsunami design provisions by state and local jurisdictions on the west coast, and connect the technical considerations of structural engineering with community resilience objectives and land use zoning coordination. For Risk Category II buildings in California, Oregon and Washington, the paper finds that the current seismic design systemic capacity of buildings will be sufficiently strong to resist the overall tsunami design load. However, coastal buildings in several locations in Oregon and Southern Washington would not have sufficient seismic design strength to resist tsunami loads; for these locations, the authors stress the importance of implementing zoning polices and structural resiliency through tsunami strengthening (Table 1).