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Survey Manual

Neal Simon Kwong, PhD

I'm a Mendenhall research fellow in the Earthquake Hazards Program at the Geologic Hazards Science Center in Golden, Colorado who is currently working on projects related to seismic risk of critical infrastructure systems in the United States.

Biography

N. Simon Kwong received his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Civil Engineering from The Cooper Union in 2009, the Master of Science degree in Structural Engineering from the University of California Berkeley in 2010, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree, also in Structural Engineering and from Berkeley, in 2015.

Prior to joining the Earthquake Hazards Program at USGS, Simon was an assistant professor in structural engineering at The Cooper Union from 2016 to 2019. During this time, he taught ten different semester-long courses on various topics in structural engineering, supervised four Master’s theses, and helped the department successfully renew its ABET accreditation.

He is passionate about problems related to probabilistic modeling of seismic hazards, selecting earthquake ground motions for nonlinear structural dynamic analyses, and assessing seismic risks of the built environment. Some of his awards include the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, the UC Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, and the Cooper Union Full-tuition Scholarship. He also currently serves as a peer reviewer for several journals and textbooks.

As a Mendenhall at USGS, his research currently focuses on understanding, quantifying, and reducing seismic risk of critical infrastructure systems (e.g., natural gas pipelines) in the United States.

Research advisors: Dr. Kishor S. Jaiswal, Dr. Nico Luco, Dr. Kris A. Ludwig, Prof. Jack W. Baker

Student intern: Vasey J. Stephens

Science and Products

Filter Total Items: 1
Publication Thumbnail
Year Published: 2020

Selecting three components of ground motions from Conditional Spectra for multiple stripe analyses

For complex structures where the seismic response depends appreciably on the vertical (V) component of ground motion (GM) (e.g., base-isolated buildings, long-span bridges, dams, nuclear power plants), incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) is commonly utilized to estimate seismic risk, where the V components of GM are selected and scaled based on the...

Kwong, Neal (Simon) S; Jaiswal, Kishor; Luco, Nicolas; Baker, J.W.

Pre-USGS Publications

Selecting, scaling, and orienting three components of ground motions for intensity-based assessments at far-field sites
Kwong NS and Chopra AK. (2019). “Selecting, scaling, and orienting three components of ground motions for intensity-based assessments at far-field sites.” Earthquake Spectra, DOI: 10.1177/8755293019899954.
The CMS-UHS Composite Spectrum for intensity-based assessments of tall buildings
Kwong NS and Chopra AK. The CMS-UHS Composite Spectrum for intensity-based assessments of tall buildings. Proceedings of the 11th National Conference in Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA, 2018.
A method for selecting hazard-consistent ground motions and estimating seismic demand hazard curves
Kwong NS. A method for selecting hazard-consistent ground motions and estimating seismic demand hazard curves. Proceedings of the 16th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Chilean Association of Seismology and Earthquake Engineering, Santiago, Chile, 2017.
A Generalized Conditional Mean Spectrum and its application for intensity-based assessments of seismic demands
Kwong NS and Chopra AK. (2016). “A Generalized Conditional Mean Spectrum and its application for intensity-based assessments of seismic demands.” Earthquake Spectra, 33(1), 123–143; DOI: 10.1193/040416EQS050M
Evaluation of the Exact Conditional Spectrum and Generalized Conditional Intensity Measure methods for ground motion selection
Kwong NS and Chopra AK. (2015). “Evaluation of the Exact Conditional Spectrum and Generalized Conditional Intensity Measure methods for ground motion selection.” Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 45(5), 757-777; DOI: 10.1002/eqe.2683.
Evaluation of ground motion selection and modification procedures using synthetic ground motions
Kwong NS, Chopra AK, McGuire RK. (2015). “Evaluation of ground motion selection and modification procedures using synthetic ground motions.” Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 44(11), 1841–1861; DOI: 10.1002/eqe.2558.
A framework for the evaluation of ground motion selection and modification procedures
Kwong NS, Chopra AK, McGuire RK. (2014). “A framework for the evaluation of ground motion selection and modification procedures.” Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, 44(5), 795–815; DOI: 10.1002/eqe.2502.
Pros and cons of rotating ground motion records to fault-normal/parallel directions for response history analysis of buildings
Kalkan E, and Kwong NS, (2013). “Pros and cons of rotating ground motion records to fault-normal/parallel directions for response history analysis of buildings.” ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering, 140(3), 04013062.
Assessment of Modal Pushover-based Scaling procedure for nonlinear response history analysis of ordinary standard bridges
Kalkan E, and Kwong NS, (2012). “Assessment of Modal Pushover-based Scaling procedure for nonlinear response history analysis of ordinary standard bridges.” ASCE Journal of Bridge Engineering, 17(2), 272–288.