Panel Discussion—Port Engineers on Seismic Risk Issues Related to the Design of Wharves

This panel discussion will involve an entire conference session. The paper for this session, presented herein, is a compilation of responses to questions regarding seismic risks to ports prepared by invited panel members consisting of eight port engineers from key U.S. port facilities subject to seismic shaking. Invited ports are: Oakland, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle, Anchorage and Charleston. A short biography of each port representative is included in the paper. The format for this conference session will be a panel discussion of seismic issues related to port facilities by these panel members, based initially on topics presented in this paper and from questions from the audience. Seismic risk related questions include key seismic issues that affect the cost of new and existing wharves in liquefiable ground, definitions of what seismic risk means to the port, how does the port determine what level of risk they are willing to accept, and what engineering design issues the port is most interesting in having their consultants address. The responses by the port engineers to these pre-selected questions have been compiled and included in the paper for this session.