Research

My personal research focuses on the study of linear and nonlinear structure-soil systems under earthquake loading, through modeling and simulation. An important aspect of my research is that I place strong emphasis on the correct description of seismic wave propagation from source to site by coupling detaile models of earthquake motions (3D seismic simulations which are generally linear but require huge computational resource) with detailed modeles of site and structure (solvable on laptops to small HPC clusters).

A major goal for me is to leverage the use of high-performance computing as the enabling technology that will allow the profession to move forward in terms of the power of analysis available to engineers. Thus, I am interested in HPC cluster technology from the hardware layers up.

I also do group research, where I usally have the role of a modeling facilitator. I can harness my abilities in HPC to speedup or increase the complexity of an application or provide my tools to solve other problems. For example, I am currently working with my local and international colleagues in:

• Speeding up lagrangean particle tracking methods for riverbed particle saltation (Saltate project with Prof. Dr. Patricio Moreno at UANDES )
• Creating an innovative HPC cluster for my department (@UANDES)
• Speeding up computation of massive number of forward models for health monitoring of wind turbines (with Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Astroza at UANDES)
• Implementing an advanced constitutive model for soils incorporating high-cycle effects for large computational domains (with Prof. Dr. Federico Pisano at TU Delft).
• HPC computations for seismic / geotechnical applications in Chile (collaboration with Prof. Dr. Jorge Crempien at P. Universidad Catolica de Chile)

to name a few.

José A. Abell – August 2017