Around 150 experts, practitioners, faculty, researchers and students from civil engineering and architects from different parts of the country took part in the national workshop on ‘Seismic design of earth's structures and foundations for high-rise buildings' here on Saturday.
Organised by the Earthquake Engineering Research Centre of International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), the workshop had A. Bhoominathan, IIT Madras, making a presentation on ‘Seismic Design of Shallow Foundations' while B.K. Maheshwari, IIT, delivered a talk on ‘Seismic Design of Piles and Pile Groups'.
Other speakers at the workshop included K.S. Rao, IIT Delhi, on ‘Seismic design of slopes: case study on Anjikhad bridge abutments', and S.K. Prasad, SJCE, Mysore, on ‘Seismic design of dams and embankments'.
New discipline
Earthquake geotechnical engineering is a new and evolving discipline and much of the research in this area has not yet translated into design practices even for major infrastructure projects. With the country experiencing massive infrastructural development, there was a need to promote the best earthquake engineering practices and towards this end, the workshop was organised, according to the EERC.