The StoStruct research group supports research, teaching, and community outreach to improve Utah seismic resiliency, both independently and as part of the Utah Earthquake Engineering Center (UEEC).

USU Annual Report to the Governor and Legislature on Utah’s Land, Water, and Air

Dr. Cox and Dr. Esteghamati contributed to Chapter 5 of the 2025 Annual Report, urging a rethink of seismic safety along the Wasatch Fault. See Chapter 5 Below, Page 3.

Research Spotlight: Understanding seismic performance of code-based steel SMFs to a realistic deterministic earthquake scenario

We developed 2-, 4-, and 8-story steel special moment frame (SMF) buildings designed based on ASCE 7-22 for a site in Salt Lake City. Nonlinear finite element simulations compare their performance under ground motions representing the code’s probabilistic hazard spectrum and a deterministic spectrum for a magnitude-7.12 Wasatch Fault earthquake. The results indicate that no collapses occurred under the probabilistic record suite; the deterministic GM suite produced estimated collapse probabilities of 10–24%, exceeding the 10% collapse-safety benchmark in two of the three buildings. These findings identify a potential gap between code-based design and performance under a characteristic Wasatch Fault earthquake, motivating broader investigation.