Mohammad Mojtahedi

By Mohammad Mojtahedi, Sidney Newton and Faham Tahmasebinia

Australia is a very vulnerable region to flood events, and the frequency of flood events and damage has increased dramatically over the past decades. Although flood has impacted diverse types of buildings and built infrastructure, there has been limited research investigating flood risk management specific to transport infrastructure in Australia and the factors that might influence the resilience of the transport infrastructure to flooding. To develop an appropriate design management system for roads and bridges specific to risk assessment from flooding requires a multitude of factors to be identified and analyzed. In this study, we review the range of critical factors necessary to represent the resilience of bridges to extreme flood events and demonstrate a novel mathematical approach to evaluate the relationship between the bridge resilience and flood risk. We use additive statistical approach in arriving at a framework to evaluate the resilience of bridges. The findings confirm that metrological characteristics such as annual exceedance probability and probable maximum precipitation and structural integrity of the bridge represented by the structural age of the bridge and mechanical properties of the soils have a substantial impact on the resilience of the Australian transport infrastructure, particularly bridges located on main roads.

Part of the book: Flood Risk Management

By Sara Shirowzhan, Laurence Kimmel, Mohammad Mojtahedi, Samad Sepasgozar and Jack Peacock

The architecture of educational buildings is required to meet the contemporary needs and follow regulations concerning safety issues in an intelligent, resilient, and systematic manner. However, the current literature generally neglects to identify geo-referenced risks within GIS environment based on the users’ perceptions of educational environments. This research aims to present a newly formulated risk evaluation criteria for assessing the spaces within and outside educational buildings. This chapter investigates students’ experience of using different micro-spaces, architects’ predesign assumptions and expectations of the spaces, and post-design assessment of the spaces. Two case studies of educational spaces within University of New South Wales campus in Kensington, Sydney was selected, and the questionnaire method was employed to collect data from students, who routinely use the selected areas. By comparing the results of the two buildings and mapping them in GIS, it is suggested that feelings of safety and security can be increased via improving the building features and enhancing the building control and security control, for example, installing CCTV and other security infrastructure. Data-driven findings mapped into GIS create a prototype for the identification of problematic areas on a map. The results help decision-makers to understand risks and strengthen risk reduction strategies. This work is also a step towards smarter buildings and enhanced preparedness for an effective response to a security threat, both minimal and extreme.

Part of the book: Smart Cities and Construction Technologies