Mehmet Celebi
Biography
Mehmet Çelebi received his BSc degree in Civil Engineering in 1964 from Middle East Technical University [METU] (Ankara, Turkey), MSc, degree in Civil Engineering in 1965 from Stanford University and PhD degree in Civil/Structural Engineering in 1968 from Mc Gill University (Montreal, Canada). He taught in METU as Assistant and Associate Professor (1969-1977), as tenured Professor in San Francisco State University (1981-84), He also worked in industry as Principal Engineer and Specialist in Engineering Decision Analyses Co (Palo Alto, CA) and Bechtel Power Corporation (San Francisco, CA) between 1977-1981). He joined USGS in 1984 as a research Civil Engineer where he was assigned, championed and led in efforts in seismic structural monitoring of structures and related research. In addition, as a USGS researcher and/or EERI post-earthquake studies team-member, he participated in numerous national and international post-earthquake reconnaissance studies as well as field work. These include but are not limited to: 1985 Valparaiso (Chile), 1985 Michoacan (Mexico), 1987 Whittier-Narrows (CA), 1989 Loma Prieata (CA), 1992 Erzincan Turkey), 1994 Northridge (CA), 1995 Kobe (Japan), 1999 Izmit (Turkey), 2010 Maule (Chile), 2011 Tohoku (Japan), 2016 Cushing (OK) earthquakes and participated in related research and technical reports.
In 2000-2006 period, utilizing GPS units and accelerometers with real-time response measurements, his publications include pioneering studies Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) using threshold drift ratios in establishing occupationabilty of buildings subjected to severe shaking events. Since 2010, Dr. Çelebi has concentrated on analyses of recorded responses of tall buildings during strong and ambient shaking. Such studies has contributed to data bases that establish recommendations for (a) minimum seismic monitoring required for tall buildings, (b) dynamic characteristics such as fundamental structural periods and critical damping percentages, (c) analyses methods to extract building specific characteristics and (d) assessing damage condition of the buildings from recorded data. He has co-edited a recent book on Seismic Structural Health Monitoring and published more than 230 technical papers, books, reports, conference papers.
Science and Products
55-Story Tall Building – Before and After Earthquake Retrofit
Release Date: MARCH 26, 2018
A building in Japan was analyzed before and after a seismic retrofit to make it more resilient to shaking.
The behavior of the Salesforce Tower, the tallest building in San Francisco, California inferred from earthquake and ambient shaking
The newly constructed tallest building designed in conformance with performance-based design procedure in San Francisco, California is a 61-story building equipped with an accelerometric array that recorded the January 4, 2018 M4.4 Berkeley earthquake. The building is designed with concrete core shear walls and perimeter gravity steel columns. The...
Celebi, Mehmet; Haddadi, H.; Huang, Moh; Valley, Michael; Hooper, John; Klemencic, Ron
U.S. Geological Survey National Strong-Motion Project strategic plan, 2017–22
The mission of the National Strong-Motion Project is to provide measurements of how the ground and built environment behave during earthquake shaking to the earthquake engineering community, the scientific community, emergency managers, public agencies, industry, media, and other users for the following purposes: Improving engineering evaluations...
Aagaard, Brad T.; Celebi, Mehmet; Gee, Lind; Graves, Robert; Jaiswal, Kishor; Kalkan, Erol; Knudsen, Keith L.; Luco, Nicolas; Smith, James; Steidl, Jamison; Stephens, Christopher D. Study of responses of 64-story Rincon Building to Napa, Fremont, Piedmont, San Ramon earthquakes and ambient motions
We analyze the recorded responses of a 64-story, instrumented, concrete core shear wall building in San Francisco, California, equipped with tuned sloshing liquid dampers (TSDs) and buckling restraining braces (BRBs). Previously, only ambient data from the 72-channel array in the building were studied (Çelebi et al. 2013). Recently, the 24 August...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Hooper, John; Klemencic, Ron An investigation of soil-structure interaction effects observed at the MIT Green Building
The soil-foundation impedance function of the MIT Green Building is identified from its response signals recorded during an earthquake. Estimation of foundation impedance functions from seismic response signals is a challenging task, because: (1) the foundation input motions (FIMs) are not directly measurable, (2) the as-built properties of the...
Taciroglu, Ertugrul; Çelebi, Mehmet; Ghahari, S. Farid; Abazarsa, Fariba Responses of a 58-story RC dual core shear wall and outrigger frame building inferred from two earthquakes
Responses of a dual core shear-wall and outrigger-framed 58-story building recorded during the Mw6.0 Napa earthquake of 24 August 2014 and the Mw3.8 Berkeley earthquake of 20 October 2011 are used to identify its dynamic characteristics and behavior. Fundamental frequencies are 0.28 Hz (NS), 0.25 Hz (EW), and 0.43 Hz (torsional). Rigid body...
Çelebi, Mehmet Responses of a tall building in Los Angeles, California as inferred from local and distant earthquakes
Increasing inventory of tall buildings in the United States and elsewhere may be subjected to motions generated by near and far seismic sources that cause long-period effects. Multiple sets of records that exhibited such effects were retrieved from tall buildings in Tokyo and Osaka ~ 350 km and 770 km from the epicenter of the 2011 Tohoku...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Hasan Ulusoy; Nori Nakata Significance of beating observed in earthquake responses of buildings
The beating phenomenon observed in the recorded responses of a tall building in Japan and another in the U.S. are examined in this paper. Beating is a periodic vibrational behavior caused by distinctive coupling between translational and torsional modes that typically have close frequencies. Beating is prominent in the prolonged resonant responses...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Ghahari, S. F.; Taciroglu, E. Blind identification of the Millikan Library from earthquake data considering soil–structure interaction
The Robert A. Millikan Library is a reinforced concrete building with a basement level and nine stories above the ground. Located on the campus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena California, it is among the most densely instrumented buildings in the U.S. From the early dates of its construction, it has been the subject of...
Ghahari, S. F.; Abazarsa, F.; Avci, O.; Çelebi, Mehmet; Taciroglu, E. Unusual downhole and surface free-field records near the Carquinez Strait bridges during the 24 August 2014 Mw6.0 South Napa, California earthquake
This paper reports the results of Part A of a study of the recorded strong-motion accelerations at the well-instrumented network of the two side-by-side parallel bridges over the Carquinez Strait during the 24 August 2014 (Mw6.0 ) South Napa, Calif. earthquake that occurred at 03:20:44 PDT with epicentral coordinates 38.22N, 122.31W. (http://...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Ghahari, S. Farid; Taciroglu, Ertugrul Drift issues of tall buildings during the March 11, 2011 M9.0 Tohoku earthquake, Japan - Implications
One of the most significant effects of the M9.0 Tohoku, Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011 is the now well-known long duration (>10 minutes) shaking of buildings in Japan – particularly those in Tokyo (~350-375 km from the epicenter) and in places as far as Osaka (~770 km from the epicenter). Although none collapsed, the strong...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Okawa, Izuru Rocking behavior of an instrumented unique building on the MIT campus identified from ambient shaking data
A state-of-the-art seismic monitoring system comprising 36 accelerometers and a data-logger with real-time capability was recently installed at Building 54 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Cambridge, MA, campus. The system is designed to record translational, torsional, and rocking motions, and to facilitate the computation of...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Toksöz, Nafi; Büyüköztürk, Oral Response of a tall building far from the epicenter of the 11 March 2011 M 9.0 Great East Japan earthquake and aftershocks
The 11 March 2011 M 9.0 Great East Japan earthquake generated significant long-duration shaking that propagated hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter and affected urban areas throughout much of Honshu. Recorded responses of a tall building at 770 km from the epicenter of the mainshock and other related or unrelated events show how structures...
Çelebi, Mehmet; Okawa, Izuru; Kashima, Toshidate; Koyama, Shin; Iiba, Masanori