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David J. DeBock

California State University, Chico

Expertise: Earthquake Engineering, Seismic Risk Assessment, Nonlinear Modeling, Building Codes, Structural Reliability
 
 
Work: (530) 898-3684
About Me Publications
D. Jared DeBock, PhD. Assistant Professor, CSU Chico, Civil Engineering Department. ddebock@csuchico.edu

Education:
• Ph.D., Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2013.
• Thesis: “Advancements to Performance-Based Earthquake Engineering Methods: From Building Code Provisions to Regional Loss Assessment.”
Advisor: Abbie B. Liel.
• M.S., Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2012.
• B.S., Civil Engineering, California State University, Chico, 2010 (Honors, Summa Cum Laude).

Research interests:
My primary research interests are in the areas earthquake and snow engineering. My specialty in both of these disciplines is evaluating risk and reliability of structures for extreme loading. Much of my previous and ongoing work focuses on developing/improving building codes and standards, and I plan to continue to pursue this niche in the future. Additionally, I have developed methods for evaluating regional (or portfolio) seismic risks for geographically distributed building portfolios, and I am currently looking for funding opportunities to advance this area of my research; my long-term goal is to develop or contribute to publicly available software for performing regional seismic risk assessments.

Selected Research Experience:
• Research consultant to Haselton Baker Risk Group (HB Risk). Assist with structural modeling and simplified methods to predict building response due to earthquake excitation. 2015-present
• Improving seismic design of buildings with configuration irregularities. Applied Technology Council (ATC) Project 123. 2015-present
• Investigate potential causes of discrepancies between short period building responses determined by mathematical models vs. their historical performance in real earthquake events. ATC Project 116. 2015-2016
• Create reliability-consistent design ground snow load maps for the state of Colorado. Work conducted in conjunction with the Structural Engineers Association of Colorado (SEAC) snow loading committee. 2014-present
• Develop improved methods for computing probabilistic regional losses due to earthquakes and spatial correlations among nonlinear multi-degree-of-freedom building responses for communities of buildings. 2012-present
• Simplify seismic design provisions for buildings with rigid diaphragms designed with ASCE/SEI 7 simplified seismic design procedure. Work conducted in conjunction with Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) working group. 2012-2014
• Assess the effectiveness of seismic design accidental torsion requirements in ASCE/SEI 7. Work conducted in conjunction with BSSC working group. 2011-2013
• Develop simplified seismic design procedures for buildings belonging to Seismic Design Category B. Work conducted in conjunction with BSSC working group. 2011-2012
• Beta test Performance Assessment Calculation Tool (PACT). ATC project 58. Work conducted in conjunction with ATC working group. 2010
• Assess conditional spectrum based ground motion selection methods for nonlinear dynamic time-history structural analysis. Undergraduate research. 2010

Selected Publications:
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
• DeBock, D.J., A.B. Liel, J.R. Harris, B.R. Ellingwood, J.M. Torrents (2016), “Reliability-based design snow loads: I. Site-specific probability models for ground snow loads.” Journal of Structural Engineering. In Press.
• Liel, A.B., D.J. DeBock, J.R. Harris, B.R. Ellingwood, J.M. Torrents (2016), “Reliability-based design snow loads: II. Reliability assessment and mapping procedures.” Journal of Structural Engineering. In Press
• DeBock, D.J. and A.B. Liel (2015), “A comparative evaluation of probabilistic regional seismic loss assessment methods, using scenario case studies.” Journal of Earthquake Engineering. 19(6), pp. 905-937.
• DeBock, D.J., J.W. Garrison, K.Y. Kim, and A.B. Liel (2014), “Incorporation of spatial correlations between building response parameters in regional seismic loss analysis.” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 104(1), pp. 214-228.
• DeBock, D.J., A.B. Liel, C.B. Haselton, J.D. Hooper, and R.A Henige Jr. (2014), “Importance of seismic design accidental torsion requirements for building collapse capacity.” Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics. 43(6), pp. 831-850.

Reports
• SEAC (2016). Colorado Design Snow Loads. Published by Structural Engineers Association of Colorado.
• ATC (2012a). Seismic performance assessment of buildings: volume 1- methodology (ATC-58-1). Prepared by ATC for FEMA.
• ATC (2012b). Seismic performance assessment of buildings: volume 2- implementation guide (ATC-58-2). Prepared by ATC for FEMA.

Conference Papers
• DeBock, D.J., K.F. Wade, D.T. Cook, C.B. Haselton (2016). “FEMA P-58: New Developments in the Analysis Process for Wood Light-Frame Buildings.” Proceedings of SEAOC Convention, Maui, HI, USA.
• DeBock, D.J. and A.B. Liel (2015), “A move toward improved portfolio seismic risk assessment methods for the practicing engineer.” 2nd ATC-SEI Conference on Improving Seismic Performance of Existing Buildings and Other Structures. San Francisco, CA. pp. 435-446.
• DeBock, D.J., A.B. Liel, J.R. Harris (2015), “Risk-based snow load maps for building design.” 12th International Conference on Applications of Statistics and Probability in Civil Engineering (ICASP). Vancouver, Canada.
• DeBock, D.J., K.Y. Kim, and A.B. Liel (2013), “A scenario case study to evaluate methods of seismic loss assessment for communities of buildings.” 11th International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR). New York, NY.

Web Application
• SEAC (2016). 2016 Colorado Ground Snow Map. Published by Structural Engineers Association of Colorado. Available at http://seacolorado.org/publications/