Safety

Model-Based Battery Thermal Fault Diagnostics: Algorithms, Analysis, and Experiments

Dey, Satadru
Perez, Hector E.
Moura, Scott J.
2019

Safety and reliability remain critical issues for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. Out of many possible degradation modes, thermal faults constitute a significant part of critical causes that lead to battery degradation and failure. Therefore, it is extremely important to diagnose these thermal faults in real time to ensure battery safety. Motivated by this fact, we propose a partial differential equation (PDE) model-based real-time scheme in this paper for diagnosing thermal faults in Li-ion batteries. The objective of the diagnostic scheme is to detect and estimate the size of the thermal...

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for Spatially Distributed Infrastructure Considering the Correlation of Spectral Acceleration Across Spectral Periods

Kavvada, Ioanna
Moura, Scott
Horvath, Arpad
Abrahamson, Norman
2022

Regional seismic hazard analyses are necessary to assess the infrastructure performance within a region and ensure that mitigation funds are utilized effectively by probabilistically considering the suite of potential earthquake events. This research aims to efficiently represent the regional seismic hazard through a compact set of seismic inputs in the form of spectral acceleration (SA) maps by considering the spatial cross-correlation of SA at a wide period range. The SA maps can then be used to probabilistically estimate the performance of a portfolio of spatially distributed structures...

Aligning Sustainability and Regional Earthquake Hazard Mitigation Planning: Integrating Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Vertical Equity

Kavvada, Ioanna
Moura, Scott
Horvath, Arpad
2022

Concerns about the potential economic consequences of earthquakes have increased in recent years as scientifically based probabilities of future earthquakes in many large urban areas have risen. These hazards disproportionately impact low-income communities as wealth disparities limit their capacity to prepare and recover from potentially disastrous events. In addition to major economic losses, the activities related to building recovery result in significant greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change. This article develops a framework that quantifies the complex relationships...

Distributionally Robust Budget Allocation for Earthquake Risk Mitigation in Buildings

Kavvada, Ioanna
Horvath, Arpad
Moura, Scott
2024

AbstractDestructive earthquakes are rare, high-impact, uncertain events. When they occur, the physical infrastructure is damaged, resulting in major economic losses. Risk mitigation planning aims to prevent extreme adverse effects and address tail risk; ...

On the Perceptibility of Safety Systems

Grembek, Offer
Daganzo, Carlos F.
2010

The perceptibility of a safety system is defined as the extent to which the system can be perceived by the senses or the mind. The objective here is to study which safety systems are more easily perceived by the user and to identify design attributes that affect this level of perception. A web-based, pairwise comparison survey was conducted to evaluate the perceptibility of fifteen safety systems ranging from traffic safety systems to consumer safety. The analytic hierarchy process was applied to estimate the perceptibility levels and rank the safety systems. The results show that...

iShake: Mobile Phones as Seismic Sensors -- User Study Findings

Ervasti, Mari
Dashti, Shideh
Reilly, Jack
Bray, Jonathan D.
Bayen, Alexandre
2011

The "iShake" system uses smartphones as seismic sensors to measure and deliver ground motion intensity parameters produced by earthquakes more rapidly and accurately than currently possible. Shaking table tests followed by field trial with approximately 30 iShake users were implemented to evaluate the reliability of the phones as seismic monitoring instruments and the functionality of the iShake system. In addition, user experiences were investigated with 59 iShake users, who provided feedback through a mobile questionnaire. Research included participative planning with a focus group to...

A Zoox and an e-bike collided in S.F. Here’s what it says about robotaxi safety

May 13, 2025

San Francisco Chronicle Scott Moura, Faculty Director of Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH) and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, alongside Matt Raifman SafeTREC researcher, and Steven Shadover PATH researcher discuss A Zoox and an e-...

Anatomy of a Crash

Marzuoli, Aude
Boidot, Emmanuel
Feron, Eric
Erp, Paul B. C. van
Ucko, Alexis
Bayen, Alexandre M.
2014

Transportation networks constitute a critical infrastructure enabling the transfers of passengers and goods, with a significant impact on the economy at different scales. Transportation modes, whether air, road or rail, are coupled and interdependent. The frequent occurrence of perturbations on one or several modes disrupts passengers' entire journeys, directly and through ripple effects. The present paper provides a case report of the Asiana Crash in San Francisco International Airport on July 6th 2013 and its repercussions on the multimodal transportation network. It studies the...

Mobile Phones and Social Media Empower the Citizen Seismologist

Bray, J.
Dashti, S.
Reilly, J.
Bayen, A.M.
Glaser, S.D.
2014

Emergency responders must "see" the effects of an earthquake clearly and rapidly for effective response. Mobile phone and information technology can be used to measure ground motion intensity parameters and relay that information to emergency responders. However, the phone sensor is an imperfect device and has a limited operational range. Thus, shake table tests were performed to evaluate their reliability as seismic monitoring instruments. Representative handheld devices, either rigidly connected to the table or free to move, measured shaking intensity parameters well. Bias in 5%-damped...