Biography

W. D. Liam Finn graduated from the National University of Ireland in 1954 with a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering. He got his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1957 and 1960 respectively. After the 1964 Niigata Earthquake, he began to specialize in Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and started the first program in Canada at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. He was Head of Civil Engineering and Dean of Applied Science at UBC. In 1999, he was appointed as the first Anabuki Professor of Foundation Geodynamics at Kagawa University, Takamatsu, Japan. Liam Finn is also president of Pan-American Engineering and Computing Services Ltd. in Vancouver. He is an Honorary International Member of the Japanese Geotechnical Society and the Chinese Society of Soil Dynamics, PRC. He is also an Honorary Professor of the Metallurgical Institute in Beijing.

He is Editor of the International Journal of Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering and is on the editorial boards of other journals. He is Chairman of TC-4 the Earthquake Engineering Committee of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. Finn’s main research interest is geotechnical earthquake engineering with particular interest in liquefaction, seismic response of sites and earth structures, seismic safety evaluation of dams, seismic response of pile foundations and seismic risk. He has published over 300 papers on these topics. Finn consults internationally especially on the seismic safety of dams, beginning in 1967 with the Ingura dam in the old Soviet Union. He pioneered the use of dynamic effective stress analysis in practice in 1975 and the use of large strain deformation analysis for the analysis of post liquefaction deformation of dams in 1989 on Sardis Dam in Mississippi. Finn is currently working on a major research project funded by the Anabuki Construction Company, Takamatsu, Japan on the seismic response of large diameter cast in place concrete piles in reclaimed land in which liquefaction effects are a major problem.

Research Interests

Soil dynamics, seismic response and liquefaction, analytical and computer methods, offshore structures, centrifuge modelling.

Courses

CIVL 504 Seismicity and Seismic Design Parameters

Publications

• A. Rahmani, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Evaluation of substructuring method for seismic soil-structure interaction analysis of bridges”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, vol. 90, pp. 112-127, 2016.
• A. Rahmani, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Nonlinear seismic soil-foundation-structure interaction for analysis of bridge systems”, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. Christchurch, New Zealand, p. Paper ID: 466, 9 pages, 2015.
• E. Amirzehni, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and DeVall, R. H., “Seismic performance of deep basement walls”, Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Earthquake Geotechnical Engineeringg. Christchurch, New Zealand, p. Paper ID: 194, 8 pages, 2015.
• M. S. Fayyazi, Taiebat, M., and Finn, W. D. L., “Group reduction factors for analysis of laterally loaded pile groups”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 51, no. 7, pp. 758-769, 2014.
• A. Rahmani, Taiebat, M., and Finn, W. D. L., “Nonlinear dynamic analysis of Meloland Road Overpass using three-dimensional continuum modeling approach”, Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, vol. 57, pp. 121-132, 2014.
• M. Taiebat, Amirzehni, E., and Finn, W. D. L., “Seismic design of basement walls: evaluation of the current practice in British Columbia”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 51, no. 9, pp. 1004-1020, 2014.
• E. Amirzehni, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and DeVall, R. H., “Effect of near-fault ground motions on seismic response of deep basement walls”, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN 2013). Kos Island, Greece, p. 11 pages, 2013.
• M. Taiebat, Finn, W. D. L., Ahmadnia, A., Amirzehni, E., and Ventura, C. E., “Seismic evaluation of existing basement walls”, in Computational Methods in Earthquake Engineering, vol. 30 of Computational Methods in Applied Sciences, M. Papadrakakis, Fragiadakis, M., and Plevris, V. Netherlands: Springer, 2013, pp. 177-196.
• J. Prieto, Foschi, R. O., Ventura, C. E., Finn, W. D. L., Ramos, C. A., and Prada, F., “Atenuación y Distribución De Probabilidad De Intensidades Para Colombia Y El Occidente De Venezuela”, Revista Internacional De Desastres Naturales, Accidentes e Infraestructura, vol. 11, pp. 183-196, 2012.
• J. Prieto, Ventura, C. E., Finn, W. D. L., Ramos, C. A., and Prada, F., “Base de Datos de Intensidad para Colombia y el Occidente de Venezuela”, Revista Internacional De Desastres Naturales, Accidentes e Infraestructura Civil, vol. 11, pp. 163-182, 2012.
• A. Rahmani, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Determination of dynamic p-y curves for pile foundations under seismic loading”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Lisbon, Portugal, p. 8 pages, 2012.
• M. S. Fayyazi, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Evaluation of group reduction factors for dynamic analysis of pile groups”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Lisbon, Portugal, p. 9 pages, 2012.
• M. S. Fayyazi, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Evaluation of p-multiplier method for performance-based design of pile groups”, Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Performance-Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. Taormina, Italy, p. 11 pages, 2012.
• A. Rahmani, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Evaluation of p-y curves used in practice for seismic analysis of soil-pile interaction”, Proceedings of GeoCongress 2012, vol. State of the Art and Practice in Geotechnical Engineering (GSP 225). American Society of Civil Engineers, Oakland, CA, USA, pp. 1780-1788, 2012.
• S. Molnar, Ventura, C. E., Finn, W. D. L., Taiebat, M., Dosso, S. E., and Cassidy, J. F., “Evaluation of shear-wave velocity profiles from ambient vibration array recordings in SW British Columbia, Canada”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Lisbon, Portugal, p. 10 pages, 2012.
• S. Molnar, Ventura, C. E., Finn, W. D. L., Taiebat, M., Dosso, S. E., and Cassidy, J. F., “Probabilistic site characterization based on Bayesian inversion of ambient vibration array recordings in SW British Columbia, Canada”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Lisbon, Portugal, p. 10 pages, 2012.
• M. Fraino, Ventura, C. E., Finn, W. D. L., and Taiebat, M., “Seismic soil-structure interaction effects in instrumented bridges”, Proceedings of the Fifteenth World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. Lisbon, Portugal, p. 10 pages, 2012.
• C. E. Ventura, Archila, M., Bebamzadeh, A., and Finn, W. D. L., “Large Coseismic Displacements and Tall Buildings”, The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings Journal, vol. 20, pp. 85-99, 2011.
• W. D. L. Finn, Pandey, B., and Ventura, C. E., “Modeling Soil-Foundation-Structure Interaction”, The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings Journal, vol. 20, pp. 47-62, 2011.
• M. Taiebat, Ahmadnia, A., Finn, W. D. L., Ventura, C. E., Naesgaard, E., and DeVall, R. H., “Seismic assessment of basement walls for different design criteria.”, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering & Sixty Fourth Canadian Geotechnical Conference. Toronto, Ontario, Canada, p. 7 pages, 2011.
• A. Ahmadnia, Taiebat, M., Finn, W. D. L., and Ventura, C. E., “Seismic evaluation of existing basement walls.”, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics & Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN 2011). Corfu, Greece, p. 12 pages, 2011.
• P. K. Robertson, Wride, C. E., List, B. R., Atukorala, U., Biggar, K. W., Byrne, P. M., Campanella, R. G., Cathro, D. C., Chan, D. H., Czajewski, K., Finn, W. D. L., Wu, W. H., Hammamji, Y., Hofmann, B. A., Howie, J. A., Hughes, J., Imrie, A. S., Konrad, J. M., Küpper, A., Law, T., Lord, E. R. F., Monahan, P. A., Morgenstern, N. R., Phillips, R., Piche, R., Plewes, H. D., Scott, D., Sego, D. C., Sobkowicz, J., Stewart, R. A., Watts, B. D., Woeller, D. J., Youd, T. L., and Zavodni, Z., “CANLEX project: summary and conclusions”, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, vol. 37(3), pp. 563-591, 2000.