Scientific Work
His major research focused on Engineering Seismology and Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. He specialised in Earthquake Hazard Assessment, the earthquake resistant design of geotechnical structures (dams and foundations) and strong-motion seismology; on which he published widely (more than 300 publications, of which several papers appeared in highly cited journals ), provided consulting services and edited work of other colleagues in numerous journals.
His doctoral work on the seismic stability of dams (1958) dealt, among other issues, with the prediction of permanent displacements in earth dams after earthquakes and formed the basis of what is today known as the Newmark's sliding block analysis method (1965). Newmark himself acknowledged Ambraseys' contribution to this method through "... the comments and suggestions... of his colleague for several months, while he was visiting the University of Illinois...". Moreover, Harry Bolton Seed, the founding father of the diverse academic field Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, in the 19th Rankine Lecture acknowledged the influence of Ambraseys, "... who introduced him to the problems of earthquakes and encouraged him to become involved in this new area pointing out the enormous field laboratory that existed in California..." Ambraseys' early work on the seismic stability of earth dams set the foundations of a new method of analysis which was later further developed by other researchers, the "shear beam" method; which was an early attempt to consider the dynamic behavior of an earth dam due to seismic wave propagation.
He was extensively involved in the European Strong Motion Database project. He also worked on hydrodynamics and investigated how to calculate hydrodynamic forces on various types of structures. Moreover, his contribution to tsunamis has been significant, and there is an intensity scale named after him (Sieberg-Ambraseys Tsunami Intensity Scale).
He was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, of the European Academy, of the Academy of Athens and the medallist of a number of UK and European learned societies. Ambraseys was invited in 2004 to deliver the 44th Rankine Lecture of the British Geotechnical Society, titled Engineering, seismology and soil mechanics.
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