SEAOCC Dinner The Resources Building Renovation Project - A Seismic Retrofit of a 17 Story Building Utilizing Dampers

The Resources Building Renovation Project - A Seismic Retrofit of a 17 Story Building Utilizing Dampers

The seismic retrofit of the State of California's 17-story Resources Building used a performance-based design approach to address significant deficiencies in an existing ordinary steel truss moment-frame system. Nonlinear time-history analyses identified widespread nonductile failure mechanisms and informed the design and optimization of a fluid viscous damper system comprising 128 dampers distributed throughout the structure. This presentation reviews the analytical methodology, damper configuration development, and resulting reductions in seismic demand, demonstrating how supplemental damping can serve as an effective alternative to conventional strengthening for complex high-rise retrofit projects.

Jason Horwedel, SE 

Jason is a Principal at Buehler with extensive experience leading the design and delivery of complex new ground-up facilities, seismic retrofits, and adaptive reuse projects. He has served as principal-in-charge on several large and award-winning projects, including Golden 1 Center, and has worked on a diverse range of facilities including hospitals, government laboratories, government and civic buildings, office and retail developments, museums, and historic structures.

Jason Horwedel, SE 

Nathan is the Director of Structural Engineering at Taylor Devices, where he has worked for the last six years.  Nathan has worked as a structural engineer at Magnusson Klemencic Associates in Seattle and at CYS Structural Engineers here in Sacramento.  Nathan was also faculty at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Seattle University for four years, teaching undergraduate and graduate level structural courses and conducting research in Engineering Education.  At Taylor, Nathan has worked on hundreds of damper designs – oftentimes at schematic levels – to address many complex building issues.