Lelio Mejia (California) will present at Geo-Risk 2017 at the Grand Hyatt Denver in Colorado at 2:30-4:00 p.m. on June 5, 2017.

He will be presenting "Response of Fena Dam to the 1993 Guam Earthquake" in Track D/ Advances in Geotechnical Reliability Based Design in D32/ Performance-Based Liquefaction Assessment and Mitigation.

A Senior Principal with more than 35 years of experience in geotechnical and earthquake engineering, Lelio has directed the investigation and seismic stability evaluation of more than 25 large earth dams, and has been involved in the design and construction of more than 15 major dam projects worldwide. He has also served on technical review boards and expert panels for U.S. Federal and State Agencies, water and power utilities, and other owners on various dam projects.

He currently serves as Chair of the United States Society on Dams (USSD) Earthquakes Committee; as a Member of the ICOLD Committee on Seismic Aspects of Dam Design; and as a Member of the National Research Council (NRC) Committee for the State of the Art and Practice in Earthquake Induced Soil Liquefaction Assessment. Until recently, he was a Secretarial Appointee to the Advisory Committee on Structural Safety of Department of Veterans Affairs Facilities, and Chair of the Governance Board of the National Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES). He has also been a Lecturer of Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering at the University of California at Davis and an Extension Instructor in Geotechnical Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a member of the editorial board for the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Geotechnical Engineering and has been an invited keynote lecturer at multiple national and international conferences, and at professional and academic symposiums and meetings.

Abstract

The potential for liquefaction of cohesionless soils and softening of clay-like soils during strong, long-duration earthquake shaking has been an issue of considerable interest to geotechnical engineers in recent years. The issue has been a key consideration in the evaluation of the seismic safety of embankment dams underlain by cohesionless and clay-like soils and located in the US Pacific Northwest, where the hazard from large magnitude subduction earthquakes is significant. There is limited experience with the seismic performance of embankment dams under such conditions, and case histories are needed that can shed light on the behavior of those types of soils in dam foundations subjected to strong, long-duration earthquake motions.

This paper presents a case history on the observed performance of Fena Dam during the magnitude 8.1, August 8 1993 Guam Earthquake. Located on the island of Guam, the dam is an earth and rockfill embankment founded on deep deposits of soft lacustrine deposits. This paper describes the observed performance of the dam during the earthquake, and presents analyses of the dam's seismic stability, which provide insight into the dam's observed behavior. The paper also highlights uncertainties inherent to those types of analyses, and discusses possible ways to address such uncertainties.

More Information

For more information regarding the event, visit: Geo-Risk 2017
For more information regarding the presentation, visit: Response of Fena Dam to the 1993 Guam Earthquake
For more information on borinquen dams, contact Lelio Mejia at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
To learn more about Lelio Mejia see his profile at: http://www.geosyntec.com/people/lelio-mejia