Laboratory for Earthquake Safety of Nonstructural Elements
Prof. Yao has a strong interest in the field of Disaster Prevention for Buildings. His main focus is earhtquake disaster mitigation for buildings in the last 30 + years. However, in the last 10 years, because of the climate change caused flooding became an issue, expecially for urban area dwellings, he also conducted research work on related topics.
For most of his research work, he would use experiments to verify the numerical models, so that the numerical model may be trusted to explain behaviors beyond experimental facilities capacity. The experiment facitlies he used includes: shaking table, strong wall, suspension frame, and etc.
My lab mainly includes my graduate students and some full-time assistants. We will have regular discussion of our latest research works and share findings from recent disaster events. In case there are major earthquakes took place, we will conduct field reconnaissance visit to learn from the mother nature.
Recently, we concentrate on low-cost Structure Health Monitoring system, wheel chair safety in earthquakes, suspend facilities earthquake safety design, and clean-room partion wall safety in earthquakes.
The graduate students from my lab won numerous awards for their outstanding research results. Most of these awards come from the Architecture Institute of Taiwan, the largest organization for Architectrue study in Taiwan.
Educational Background:
B.S., National Taiwan University (1976/9 ~ 1980/6)
M.S., Georgia Institute of Technology, USA (1983/8 ~ 1985/3)
Ph.D., University of Buffalo, USA (1987/9 ~ 1991/3)
Professional Experience:
Structural Engineer, John Portman and Assoc., USA (1985/3 ~ 1987/8)
Engineer, CALTRANS, USA (1990/3 ~ 1990/7)
Associate Professor, NCKU (1991/8 ~ 2000/7)
Fellow, Architectural Institute of Taiwan (2016)
Distinguished Professor, NCKU (2016/8 ~ Present )