U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2013–3022

May 2013

UNLV’s Environmentally Friendly Science and Engineering 

Building is Monitored for Earthquake Shaking

Nevada is one of the Nation’s most 

seismically active States, and a strong 

earthquake could cause significant damage 

in the heavily populated Las Vegas region. 

The region occupies a fault-bounded basin 

filled with alluvium (sediments deposited 

by flowing water) as much as 3 miles 

deep, making the region especially prone 

to earthquake shaking. Earthquake hazards 

are posed by major faults in neighboring 

Death Valley, California, and faults within 

and much closer to the basin, that are 

capable of generating seismic events of 

magnitude 7 or greater. The Science and 

Engineering Building at the University of 

Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) campus was 

recently instrumented for earthquake monitoring by the U.S. Geological Survey’s 

(USGS) National Strong Motion Project 

(NSMP) in cooperation with UNLV’s 

Department of Civil and Environmental 

Engineering and Construction. This is the 

first building in Las Vegas furnished with 

sophisticated seismic instrumentation 

and advanced, real-time data processing 

systems to monitor its structural integrity. 

The monitoring system combines sensing technologies with automatic analysis 

software, capable of computing how 

earthquakes affect the structure, thus 

providing valuable information that can 

be used to judge the safety of the building 

after a seismic event and to design safer 

structures in the future.

The UNLV Science and Engineering Building is a steel-moment-frame 

structure with diagonal bracings and 

has been awarded a “Silver” rating by 

the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program (http://

new.usgbc.org/leed). To obtain a LEED 

rating, a building must meet environmentally responsible and sustainable design, 

construction, and operation standards. 

The University of Nevada Las Vegas’ (UNLV) Science and 

Engineering Building is at the 

cutting edge of environmentally 

friendly design. As the result of a 

recent effort by the U.S. Geological 

Survey’s National Strong Motion 

Project in cooperation with UNLV, 

the building is now also in the 

forefront of buildings installed with 

structural monitoring systems to 

measure response during earthquakes. This is particularly important because this is the first such 

building in Las Vegas. The seismic 

instrumentation will provide essential data to better understand the 

structural performance of buildings, especially in this seismically 

active region.

The Science and Engineering Building, located on the north side of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ campus, is a state-of-the-art facility designed 

for interdisciplinary research and education. It was recently instrumented for earthquake monitoring by the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Strong 

Motion Project in collaboration with UNLV’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction.
Photographs showing some details of the interior of the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Science and Engineering Building. High-performance glazing used in this award-winning environmentally friendly structure reduces solar-heat gain from the exterior, insulates the building 

from heat loss on the interior, and allows adequate levels of light to penetrate the building. As a result of the recent installation of a structural 

monitoring system, the building is also now at the forefront of seismic monitoring.
Schematic diagram of the advanced seismic-monitoring array installed in University of Nevada 

Las Vegas’ Science and Engineering Building. Red arrows show the locations and indicate the directional sensitivities of the seismic sensors from the first floor through the building’s four stories 

to the roof.

The LEED rating was awarded to this 

building because:

• The building has a satellite energy 

plant that provides heating and cooling,

• Recycled glass, steel, concrete, and 

wood were used for construction,

• High-performance glazing was used 

to reduce solar-heat gain from the 

exterior,

• Reductions in air conditioning needs 

due to incoming air becoming precooled through evaporation, and

• The building was designed to reduce 

water consumption by 42 percent.

This is the first LEED-certified building instrumented by NSMP and the only 

building in Las Vegas being monitored 

for earthquake shaking. This building is 

located in an area of moderate seismic 

hazard. 

The intention of instrumenting this 

building is to see how buildings that are 

designed with the environment in mind 

hold up to the strong lateral forces generated by earthquakes. Building performance data obtained from the motion 

sensors installed in the building will be 

used to improve on environmentally 

responsible building designs. 

When an earthquake is detected, 

the Science and Engineering Building’s seismic-monitoring system rapidly 

acquires and transmits large amounts 

of data collected from sensors that have 

been permanently installed on each 

floor of the building. The data is then 

processed using modules integrated into 

an open-source structural-health monitoring (OpenSHM) software package, 

which extracts useful information from 

a large amount of measured data for the 

purpose of assessing the condition of a 

building both before and after an earthquake. This information can be used for 

a rapid building-safety assessment and to 

support decisions for necessary repairs, 

replacements, and other maintenance and 

rehabilitation measures.

The real-time data is also available to UNLV’s faculty and engineering 

students through an onsite computer for 

studying and understanding the building’s 

vibration characteristics and response 

during earthquakes.

Advanced Sensing Technologies

The UNLV Science and Engineering 

Building has an installed seismic array of 

21 motion sensors. These advanced sensors are specifically located on each floor 

where the maximum building response 

during ground shaking is expected, which 

is mostly at the edges of the structure. 

Every story has at least two seismicmotion sensors oriented horizontally and 

in two orthogonal directions to detect 

building motion along the reference 
east-west and north-south directions. 

Floor rotation around the vertical axis can 

be computed from the recordings of two 

sensors pointing in the same direction but 

located at different points. The building 

also has a triaxial sensor installed on the 

first floor to record input motions in three 

orthogonal directions at this level. During 

an earthquake, the building’s instrumentation system is designed to record and 

compute:

• The swaying and twisting of the building,

• The time it takes seismic waves to 

travel from the foundation to the roof, 

and

• How the frame of the building may 

have changed during the earthquake.

Another triaxial seismic-motion sensor 

located away from the building records 

ground shaking without any interference 

from the building to provide input for 

USGS ShakeMAPs (http://earthquake.

usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/), which 

depict ground motion and shaking intensity after significant earthquakes and give 

a visual representation of an earthquake’s 

impact for emergency response. 

Structural-Health Monitoring and 

Damage Detection

It is important to monitor the condition of one of UNLV’s most important 

buildings in real time to be able to 

assess its structural integrity immediately after a major or catastrophic event. 

Erol Kalkan1, Woody Savage2, Shahneam 

Reza1

,Eric Knight2, and Ying Tian2

1

U.S. Geological Survey

2

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Edited by James W. Hendley II

Graphic design by Vivian Nguyen

COOPERATING ORGANIZATION

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Structural-health monitoring is achieved 

by implementation of an open-source 

onsite data analysis system. This innovative system provides information about 

how the building moves and distorts 

during shaking and about where possible 

damage likely occurred. Several independent algorithms check for variations in 

movements of the building frame and its 

vibration characteristics for changes in 

the travel time of seismic waves between 

foundation and roof and for exceedance 

of the building’s seismic design capacity. 

In the aftermath of a disaster, such information can be used for a rapid assessment of building safety and for supporting decisions about necessary repairs, 

replacements, and other maintenance and 

rehabilitation measures. Recordings from 

structural-health monitoring systems 

are also crucial to both designing safer 

buildings and preventing loss of life. In 

particular they will help engineers to: 

• Assess building safety immediately 

following a damaging earthquake,

• Understand how damage to structural 

and nonstructural components (such 

as equipment and pipes) occurs from 

strong shaking,

• Evaluate and improve earthquakeresistant design techniques, as well 

as methods for predicting the seismic 

performance of structures, and

• Improve earthquake-resistant design 

provisions of building codes.

More than 250 structures throughout the United States have been outfitted with seismic sensors by the USGS 

National Strong Motion Project (NSMP) 

to improve the overall understanding of 

earthquakes and their effects on the built 

environment. The instrumentation and 

monitoring of structures by NSMP is only 

one part of USGS efforts to protect people’s lives and property from earthquake 

hazards in all of the Nation’s seismically 

active regions.

Data from sensors

 Real-time analysis system

Data to the Internet

Access data via Internet

Structural Health Monitoring

Data Alarm

 

 Recorder 

Sensors

Modal computation

Drift computation

Shear-wave computation

Phone

alerts Earthquake shaking Base-shear computation

Flow chart showing the functioning of the real-time earthquake monitoring system installed in the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Science and 

Engineering Building. The system provides important information on the structural health of the building. After a significant earthquake, its realtime data analysis capabilities help to rapidly assess building safety and functionality.

For more information, contact:

Earthquake Science Center

U.S. Geological Survey

Menlo Park, CA 94025

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

Earthquake Information Hotline: 

(650) 329–4085

This Fact Sheet and any updates to it are 

available online at

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2013/3022/