On Thursday, March 13, 2025, from 4:00 to 5:00 PM, the first SAEE lecture of 2025 was held in English via the Zoom platform: "A Decade of Experimental Research on Reinforced Concrete Walls: Key Findings and Insights".
The lecture was delivered by Ryan Hoult, PhD, Research Fellow, and Assistant Professor João Pacheco de Almeida, PhD, both from Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Below you will find the lecture abstract, speakers biographies, as well as the recording and slides from the lecture.
Abstract:
Reinforced concrete (RC) walls serve as the primary lateral load-resisting elements in countless mid- and high-rise buildings worldwide, designed to withstand strong winds and, in some cases, earthquakes. While the introduction of Capacity Design principles in the 1980s gave engineers greater confidence in their designs, recent earthquakes have revealed unexpected failure modes and wall behaviours that remain poorly understood due to limited experimental data. This presentation provides an overview of experimental research conducted by the speakers over the past decade, focusing on critical issues such as out-of-plane instability, lap splice connections, residual displacements, and torsional effects. The session will also showcase state-of-the-art data acquisition techniques, including distributed fibre optic sensors embedded in instrumented steel reinforcement. Key findings from these investigations will be summarized, offering insights into the evolving understanding of RC wall performance.
Biographies:
Dr. Ryan Hoult is a Research Fellow at Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium, specializing in the structural and seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) walls. Following the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquake sequence, he focused his PhD research on assessing RC wall designs in Australia, concerned that the poor performance observed in New Zealand could be replicated there. His findings contributed to stricter Australian building standards, including increased minimum reinforcement requirements for RC walls. After completing his PhD, Dr. Hoult was awarded a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship in 2019 to conduct postdoctoral research at the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD) Laboratory at EPFL (Switzerland) under Prof. Katrin Beyer. This work led to collaborations with A/Prof. João Almeida, ultimately leading him to Belgium for further postdoctoral research. In 2023, he was awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate cost-effective alternative reinforcement solutions that can reduce residual displacements in RC walls. Dr. Hoult has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal papers, including five sole-author publications. His research interests extend to structural and seismic health monitoring, machine learning applications in civil engineering, and ground motion models for low-to-moderate seismic regions. In July 2025, he will join the University of Newcastle (Australia) as a Senior Lecturer.
João Pacheco de Almeida has been an assistant professor at Université catholique de Louvain since 2018, where he teaches six courses in structural engineering. He earned his PhD in earthquake engineering from the University of Pavia, Italy. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Eucentre (Italy) before joining the EESD Laboratory at EPFL (Switzerland), where he later became a research associate. His primary research focus is on developing and refining numerical and mechanical models for nonlinear and dynamic structural responses to extreme loadings, with a strong emphasis on the intelligent design and execution of experimental tests.
On Thursday, March 13, 2025, from 4:00 to 5:00 PM, the first SAEE lecture of 2025 was held in English via the Zoom platform: "A Decade of Experimental Research on Reinforced Concrete Walls: Key Findings and Insights".
The lecture was delivered by Ryan Hoult, PhD, Research Fellow, and Assistant Professor João Pacheco de Almeida, PhD, both from Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Below you will find the lecture abstract, speakers biographies, as well as the recording and slides from the lecture.
Abstract:
Reinforced concrete (RC) walls serve as the primary lateral load-resisting elements in countless mid- and high-rise buildings worldwide, designed to withstand strong winds and, in some cases, earthquakes. While the introduction of Capacity Design principles in the 1980s gave engineers greater confidence in their designs, recent earthquakes have revealed unexpected failure modes and wall behaviours that remain poorly understood due to limited experimental data. This presentation provides an overview of experimental research conducted by the speakers over the past decade, focusing on critical issues such as out-of-plane instability, lap splice connections, residual displacements, and torsional effects. The session will also showcase state-of-the-art data acquisition techniques, including distributed fibre optic sensors embedded in instrumented steel reinforcement. Key findings from these investigations will be summarized, offering insights into the evolving understanding of RC wall performance.
Biographies:
Dr. Ryan Hoult is a Research Fellow at Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Belgium, specializing in the structural and seismic performance of reinforced concrete (RC) walls. Following the 2010–2011 Christchurch earthquake sequence, he focused his PhD research on assessing RC wall designs in Australia, concerned that the poor performance observed in New Zealand could be replicated there. His findings contributed to stricter Australian building standards, including increased minimum reinforcement requirements for RC walls. After completing his PhD, Dr. Hoult was awarded a Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship in 2019 to conduct postdoctoral research at the Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics (EESD) Laboratory at EPFL (Switzerland) under Prof. Katrin Beyer. This work led to collaborations with A/Prof. João Almeida, ultimately leading him to Belgium for further postdoctoral research. In 2023, he was awarded a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate cost-effective alternative reinforcement solutions that can reduce residual displacements in RC walls. Dr. Hoult has published over 30 peer-reviewed journal papers, including five sole-author publications. His research interests extend to structural and seismic health monitoring, machine learning applications in civil engineering, and ground motion models for low-to-moderate seismic regions. In July 2025, he will join the University of Newcastle (Australia) as a Senior Lecturer.
João Pacheco de Almeida has been an assistant professor at Université catholique de Louvain since 2018, where he teaches six courses in structural engineering. He earned his PhD in earthquake engineering from the University of Pavia, Italy. He then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Eucentre (Italy) before joining the EESD Laboratory at EPFL (Switzerland), where he later became a research associate. His primary research focus is on developing and refining numerical and mechanical models for nonlinear and dynamic structural responses to extreme loadings, with a strong emphasis on the intelligent design and execution of experimental tests.
