Jose Restrepo Offers Insights on Building Codes in Chile

In a Q&A by the Voice of San Diego, structural engineering professor Jose Restrepo provides insights on the building codes in Chile as well as some thoughts on readiness of California's buildings for an earthquake.

Restrepo is one of the structural engineering professors at the Jacobs School who builds and tests large-scale and full-scale models of buildings and other structures and then tests them on the world's largest outdoor shake table out at the UCSD Englekirk Structural Engineering Center.

One of Claire Trageser's quiestions and Jose Restrepo's answers are below. Read the full Q&A here.

UPDATE #1: Restrepo is also in this Univision story (you may need to get the latest version of Flash for the video to play).

So then these building codes in Chile helped them avert some of the
disaster?

Absolutely. Chile has an earthquake every 20 to 30 years, so they were very well aware that they were going be hit by a big earthquake. In Chile, they have a tradition in their building codes to be very strong. They also have a very good education system, where they go to universities for six years, so when they're finished they are very well trained. The training of architects and contractors, when it goes hand in hand with the building codes, gives a very good result.