The University of Southern California (USC) first

Seismic Testing of Reinforced Concrete Column

offered courses in engineering in 1906. Today the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering has over 4000 students, and more than 30 combined degree options available to its undergraduates. Its more than 2400 graduate students pursue degrees in 19 fields; the USC graduate program in engineering is listed as eighth in the nation in the U. S. News and World Report rankings for 2003. With over $100 million in external funding support, the school is among the nation’s highest in volume of research activity.

Earthquake Engineering

Research in earthquake engineering at USC is characterized by a wide spectrum of studies encompassing both experimental and analytical aspects of structural engineering, structural and computational mechanics, geotechnical engineering, engineering seismology, transportation systems analysis, and the urban economy. Within the framework of these topics, research focus areas include:

• Large scale experimental tests and analysis of steel and concrete structural elements
• Woodframe seismic performance
• Retrofit applications of advanced composite materials
• Monitoring and active/semi-active control of smart infrastructure systems
• Cable-supported bridge response
• Constitutive modeling of soil behavior
• Liquefaction-induced lateral spreads
• Geotechnical centrifuge modeling
• Finite element modeling of reinforced concrete
• Earthquake site response, liquefaction and ground remediation
• Database and exchange formats of borehole information
• Tsunami inundation modeling
• Strong ground motion analyses
• Transportation network performance following seismic impacts
• Economic retrofit and reconstruction criteria
• Regional economic impact analysis

The U.S Panel on Structural Control Research is centered at USC. The Panel was established in 1990 under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF) through a grant administered by CUREE with the objectives of: (1) facilitating the transmission of information concerning state-of-the-art developments in the field of Structural Control; (2) identifying and prioritizing needed research and development; (3) developing preliminary plans for analytical and experimental advancement in the field; (4) developing plans for the performance of full-scale testing and demonstration; and (5) collaborating with international organizations. The Panel has been managed by California Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE), with George W. Housner and Sami F. Masri as Co-Principal Investigators. For more information visit

www.usc.edu/dept/civil_eng/structural/welcome.html

The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), headquartered at USC in the Department of Earth Sciences, is a regionally focused organization with a mission to gather new information about earthquakes in Southern California, integrate knowledge into a comprehensive and predictive understanding of earthquake phenomena, and communicate this understanding to end-users and the general public in order to increase earth-quake awareness, reduce economic losses, and save lives. Fund-ing for SCEC activities is provided by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists from over 40 institutions across the U.S. participate in SCEC, which provides the organizational structure for an outstanding scientific com-munity. A successful Communication, Education, and Outreach Program offers student research experiences, web-based education tools, classroom curricula, museum displays, public information brochures, online newsletters, and technical workshops and publications. SCEC, CUREE, and IRIS are currently developing the Electronic Encyclopedia of Earthquakes, which will be a Digital Library of earthquake science and engineering with links to an extensive collection of curricula and content.

For more information visit www.scec.org

The National Center for Metropolitan Transportation Research (METRANS), headquartered at USC in the School of Engineering and the School of Policy, Planning and Development, is a joint effort of the University of Southern California (USC) and California State University at Long Beach (CSULB). METRANS was established by federal and state legislation in 1998, and is the only such University Transportation Center in Southern California. The Center is chartered to examine problems of goods movement and international trade, mobility of diverse populations, infrastructure, and safety and security. The seismic risk incident to Southern California’s highway, rail, and port systems is a threat to the economy of the region and the nation. Reducing this risk is an objective that spans, engineering, economic analysis, and policy-making. METRANS research program emphasizes a unique an interdisciplinary blend of engineering and planning, policy, and business and public administration.

Website: www.metrans.org

In collaboration with the USC Information Sciences Institute (ISI), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan, and Argonne National Laboratory, the USC Civil Engineering Department participates to the development of NEESgrid, the system integration of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). NEESgrid is the Internet-based computational, collaboratory infrastructure which will make NEES effective.

For further information visit www.nees.org.

Dynamics Laboratory
The Dynamics Laboratory is equipped with modern instrumentation for the generation, control, recording, and analysis of mechanical motions involved in structural dynamics problems. Basic equipment includes a small mechanical shaker, several small electro-dynamic shakers, a shock machine, a 2-channel FFT-based spectrum analyzer, several PC-based active control components, and multi-channel analog/digital and digital/analog converters for direct on-line acquisition and transmittal of data to and from a dedi-cated minicomputer.

Structural Control Laboratory
This laboratory contains a modern solid state analog computer and the associated equipment for the simulation and analysis of dynamics problems involving deterministic and/ or random excitation. This facility can be used for direct digital processing of analog data, as well as for hybrid analog/digital computer simulation and control.

Brandow and Johnston Structural Components Laboratory
The Brandow and Johnston Structural Components Laboratory is equipped with advanced testing and instrumentation facilities. Major equipment includes two large-scale component testing frames with 5 computer-controlled hydraulic actuators with load capacities ranging from 50,000 pounds to 300,000 pounds. The equipment provides the experimental capability of testing structural components or subassemblies in large or full-scale with multi-axis earthquake simulation inputs. The lab is also equipped with a SATEC one million pound capacity high-stiffness compression testing machine and a SATEC 600,000 pound capacity universal testing machine for studying mechanical properties of structural materials and models.

Earthquake Testing Laboratory
The Earthquake Testing Laboratory contains two state-of-the-art seismic shakers manufactured by MTS Corporation. Each shaker is provided with a slip table about one meter square. The tables are capable of uniaxial excitation in the horizontal direction; they can be operated independently or in a precisely controlled phased mode allowing accurate specification of nonsynchronous support excitations. This laboratory is also equipped with two reaction frames for testing large-scale struc-tural components or subassemblies under simulated earthquake loading conditions.

Leroy-Crandall Geotechnical Laboratory
The Leroy-Crandall Geotechnical Laboratory contains a variety of instrumentation, apparatus and computerized data acquisition systems for soils testing in geotechnical earthquake engineering. Since 2002, the laboratory hosts a geotechnical centrifuge thanks to a donation of the California Institute of Technology and a Major Research Instrumentation grant of the National Science Foundation. The centrifuge has a 10,000-lb. payload ca-pacity and a 40 inch radius. It can apply to physical models accelerations up to 175 g. It comes with various types of equipment to carry out experiments on fault generation mechanisms and electrohydraulic shaking of test specimens.

The Civil Engineering Department of the University of Southern California offers Master of Science and Ph.D. programs in Earthquake Engineering

Master of Science Program
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers a one-year M.S. program for students interested in earthquake engineering. The degree is a Master of Science in Civil Engineering with the special designation earthquake engineering on the diploma. The program focuses on structural dynamics; soil mechanics and foundations; geotechnical earthquake engineering; soil dynamics, seismic wave propagation, and engineering seismology; solid and structural mechanics, computational and finite element methods; seismic risk assessment; and civil infrastructure systems. The M.S. program can be taken with thesis or without thesis.

Doctoral Program
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers a Ph.D. program with emphasis in earthquake engineering. The Ph.D. program requires a minimum of 60 units of course work beyond the Bachelor’s degree and includes a doctoral dissertation. The department has 22 regular faculty members and 8 research faculty members. Of these 30 faculty members, nineteen work directly in the earthquake field, covering all disciplines of earthquake engineering and allowing Ph.D. students to specialize in any branch of earthquake engineering in their research.

Admission Procedures
Application forms for financial aid and admission to the graduate programs in Civil and Environmental Engineering may be obtained from:

Department of Civil Engineering
Graduate Admission, KAP-239
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2531
tel.: (213) 740-0587
fax: (213) 740-8662
e-mail: civileng@usc.edu
Internet: www.usc.edu/cee

Additional Information
The department offers other M.S. degree programs including structural engineering, structural mechanics, geotechnical engineering, construction engineering, construction management, environmental engineering, water resources engineering, ocean and coastal engineering, transportation engineering. The department offers professional masters programs in Computer-aided Engineering, Environmental Quality Management, and Structural Design.

For further information, please visit the Civil Engineering Department website at:
www.usc.edu/cee.