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UNM preparing students to respond to the next large earthquake

April 7, 2025 - Carly Bowling

photo: Associate Professor Fernando Moreu (right) shows Gabriella Gallegos, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, Michael Carl, an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science, and Wyatt Saeger, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, the hydraulic actuator, which helps his lab study earthquakes and structural dynamics.
Associate Professor Fernando Moreu (right) shows Gabriella Gallegos, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, Michael Carl, an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science, and Wyatt Saeger, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, the hydraulic actuator, which helps his lab study earthquakes and structural dynamics.

Late one night in February, as Fernando Moreu sat in his office wrapping up work in the Centennial Engineering Center, he felt something unusual –– the building was vibrating. He waited for it to pass and soon learned there had been an earthquake in west Texas that had been felt all the way in Albuquerque.

“I was in my office on the third floor on a Friday night and I thought the floor was moving and making a mysterious unique noise. I did not like too much that unique feeling. I waited a little and it went away. I checked the website and there it was: a 10:23pm earthquake,” said Moreu, an associate professor in the Gerald May Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering.

The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar last week only reemphasized what Moreu had already been thinking–– tomorrow’s engineers must be prepared to design for and respond to the unpredictable disasters thar could strike anywhere at any time.

Moreu studies earthquake and disaster response among other topics. One of the classes he teaches is Advanced Structural Dynamics (CE598), where graduate students in the School of Engineering learn to design buildings to withstand natural disasters.

“I really think we need to be more ready and prepared just in case. We don’t know when the next big earthquake will occur or where. Engineers need to anticipate and prepare in order to succeed.”

Offered every three years, the class teaches theory, analysis, and experimental work to prepare engineering students to respond to the next earthquake. The class provides UNM students with world-class training in simulations, laboratory experiments, and industry expertise. Students in the class use equipment and instrumentation from the Smart Management of Infrastructure Laboratory (SMILab), founded by Moreu, to train for the next disaster.

On March 25, Arne Halterman, CEO and principal of Halterman Engineering from San Francisco, taught the class about seismic design of buildings and structures including the acceleration spectral response spectrum, introduction to the Uniform Building Code. Students also had the opportunity to complete a seismic design experiment for the Center for Advanced Research and Computing (CARC) where SMILab is housed. The students in learned that CARC has a natural period of 0.26 seconds, which is the time it takes a building to complete one full cycle of vibration after an earthquake. Natural period, or resonance, is important in engineering because it can determine whether or not a building is damaged or destroyed during an earthquake.

“I believe we need to ensure our University is a leader in earthquake engineering and post-disaster response, and we are working hard at the department to prepare our students to be ready when the disaster occurs in New Mexico or wherever their careers take them,” Moreu said.

photo: Associate Professor Fernando Moreu (right) shows Michael Carl, an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science, and Wyatt Saeger, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, and Gabriella Gallegos, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, the hydraulic actuator, which helps his lab study earthquakes and structural dynamics.
Associate Professor Fernando Moreu (right) shows Michael Carl, an undergraduate student in the Department of Computer Science, and Wyatt Saeger, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, and Gabriella Gallegos, a 2nd year Civil Engineering master’s student, the hydraulic actuator, which helps his lab study earthquakes and structural dynamics.

Moreu created CE598 after he joined UNM. While there was a tradition of great teaching on structural vibration and earthquakes, he felt he could offer additional training opportunities to students through more hands-on experiences in the laboratory utilizing post-disaster machine-aided inspections, computer vision, robotics, signal processing, wireless sensors, and cyber-physical systems.

“In my mind, I wanted UNM to ‘shake’ things up both in an analog and digital sense with more futuristic tools. I wanted to develop a class that will train the leading civil engineers of 2050,” he said.

Moreu has helped add educational and testing capabilities to UNM in the field of advanced dynamics, lasers, 3D scanning, event sensing, accelerometers, precision cameras, and outdoor sensing.

He has worked with Shore Western Inc. in mechanical, software and control algorithms to upgrade and equip The University with a functioning large hydraulic shake table with a 9,000-pound capability. This table can now replicate earthquakes for civil and mechanical systems that inform design, management and retrofitting of structures with realistic damage. It is also used for experiments of random vibrations and systems for various projects including Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) research with Sandia National Laboratory, as well as nonlinear dynamics. The SMILab is equipped with much of the technology needed to study earthquakes including shakers, optical precision tables, high-precision lasers, and a wall of concrete that can be used as a fixed reference for seismic testing at UNM. There are also two stand-alone human-in-the-loop VICON laboratories that inform on human responses to earthquakes and post-disaster recovery with Augmented Reality, human-robot collaboration, and human-machine interfaces.

In 2023, Moreu completed a Fulbright Fellowship to study earthquakes and conduct post-disaster research for six months at The National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) and National Taiwan University (NTU). At NCREE, Moreu applied augmented reality and low-cost sensors to post-earthquake response recognition with NTU faculty, and other institutions.

“I am developing a long-term academic exchange with NTU and NCREE. We have hosted faculty and students from Taiwan in 2022 and 2023, and we will grow this and other international collaborations including Ecuador, Japan, and others. We will prepare UNM for the next disaster with new laboratory experience and knowledge. We are training students to be earthquake-ready and to respond with the best technologies of the future.”

Moreu hopes to revamp the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute UNM Student Chapter. Students interested in earthquake research can reach out to him at fmoreu@unm.edu.

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