Nigel Priestley

Nigel Priestley (born July 21, 1943 in Wellington , † December 23, 2014 in Christchurch ) was a New Zealand civil engineer, known for research on earthquake-proof construction.

Priestley attended Wellington Technical College from 1956 to 1959 and then studied civil engineering at the University of Canterbury , where he received his doctorate in 1966 (moment redistribution in prestressed concrete continuous beams). He then headed the Structures Laboratory of the Ministry of Construction in Lower Hutt until 1975. In 1976 he became a Senior Lecturer and later Reader at the University of Canterbury. There he worked with Thomas Paulay (especially on masonry constructions) and Robert Park on earthquake-proof construction and reinforced concrete construction. He has also been a consulting engineer on many railway bridges and industrial buildings in New Zealand. In 1985/86 he was President of the New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering. From 1987 to 2000 he was a professor at the University of California, San Diego . He dealt in particular with the design of concrete bridges for earthquakes and advised the California Department of Transportation in various committees in the aftermath of the great earthquakes of 1989 (Loma Prieta earthquake) and 1994 (Northridge earthquake), in particular on assessing the safety of damaged bridges and Proposals for strengthening bridges against earthquakes. Above all, the earthquakes showed that the reinforced concrete pillars of many bridges were at risk, which were then reinforced with steel sleeves. In 2001 he retired.

From 1987 he also had his own engineering office (Sequad, then Priestley Structural Engineering).

He developed the PRESSS (precast seismic structural system) method for the design of earthquake-proof concrete structures. Priestley also developed the first displacement rather than force-based design methods in earthquake engineering, illustrated in a book with Gian Michele Calvi and Mervyn Kowalsky.

Together with Gian Michele Calvi, he co-founded the European School for Advanced Studies in Reduction of Seismic Risk (ROSE School) in Pavia and was its co-director from 2002 to 2008.

After the earthquakes in Canterbury in 2010 and in Christchurch in 2011, he was on various commissions of inquiry.

In 2010 he received the Freyssinet Medal . He was an honorary doctor of the ETH Zurich and the University of Cuyo in Argentina, was a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and the American Concrete Institute , from which he received the Raymond C. Reeves Award in 1984 and 1989. In 1973 he received the Fulton Gold Medal from the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ), of which he was a fellow. In 2014 he became Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit .

Fonts

with Tom Paulay: Seismic Design of Concrete and Masonry Buildings, Wiley 1992
with Frieder Seible, Gian Michele Calvi: Seismic Design and Retrofit of Bridges with Frieder Seible and Gian Michele Calvi, Wiley 1996
with Gian Michele Calvi, Mervyn Kowalsky: Displacement-Based Seismic Design of Structures, Pavia: IUSS Press 2007

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Priestley, Nigel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	New Zealand civil engineer
DATE OF BIRTH	July 21, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH	Wellington
DATE OF DEATH	23rd December 2014
Place of death	Christchurch