AIR Expands San Francisco Office as It Embarks on New Research in Earthquake Engineering

January 1, 2011 / 3 min read

BOSTON, June 17, 2003 — AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR) today announced the relocation and expansion of its San Francisco office to accommodate the increasing number of research initiatives being undertaken there. The San Francisco team, led by Dr. Paolo Bazzurro, has been awarded several new grants that will further the engineering community's understanding of how earthquakes impact structures. Among these are grants from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center. While the research is being conducted on behalf of different organizations, the findings will be incorporated into AIR earthquake models.

The PEER project, "Parameterization of Non-Stationary Acceleration Time History," will examine two techniques used to model the impact of intense ground motion from large-magnitude earthquakes on structures: scaling up the amplitude of real recordings from smaller earthquakes and artificially simulating recordings of large earthquakes. AIR will investigate the soundness of each practice to determine whether, and to what extent, they generate structural responses that are materially different from those that are actually recorded. AIR researchers will also investigate the ability of an already-damaged structure to withstand an aftershock in the wake of a large earthquake.

AIR's work on the USGS grant, "Correlation of Damage of Steel Moment-Resisting Frames to a Vector-Valued Ground Motion Parameter Set That Includes Energy Demands," is being performed in conjunction with the University of Texas at Austin. AIR and other researchers will study the relationship between earthquake ground motion energy parameters and structural damage in order to improve damage and loss prediction from earthquakes. Understanding this relationship is essential to estimate the likelihood of various levels of seismic damage, and ultimately, monetary loss, for a given structure or a portfolio of structures.

AIR's new San Francisco office is located at 388 Market Street, Suite 610, in downtown San Francisco. The telephone number is 415-912-3111.

About AIR Worldwide Corporation
AIR Worldwide Corporation (AIR) is the technological leader in catastrophe and weather risk modeling. Through its web-based and computer software solutions (ClimateCastSM,CLASIC/2TM, CATRADER®, CATMAP®/2,AIRProfiler®), AIR services the insurance, reinsurance and capital markets. AIR's models simulate losses from both man-made and natural catastrophes in more than 35countries. AIR is headquartered in Boston and has additional offices in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, please visit the AIR website at www.air-worldwide.com.

About ISO
ISO is a leading source of information, products and services related to property and liability risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial and personal lines of insurance, ISO provides data, analytical and decision-support products; consulting; data processing; and technical, statistical and actuarial services. ISO field services include on-site rating and underwriting services and the evaluation of community loss-mitigation efforts. ISO's products help customers with sales and prospecting, underwriting, rating and quoting, customer management, policy administration, product development, claims administration and fraud detection. ISO's AIR Worldwide subsidiary provides technologies to assess and manage natural and man-made extreme-event risk. Through its ISO Claims Services, Inc. (iiX unit) and Intellicorp subsidiaries, ISO provides motor vehicle reports and criminal-records information and through its AscendantOne unit delivers rating, quoting and policy-administration solutions. In the United States and around the world, ISO serves insurers, reinsurers, agents, brokers, self-insureds, risk managers, insurance regulators and other government agencies.

Release: Immediate

Contacts:
Giuseppe Barone / Erica Helton
MWW Group (for ISO)
201-507-9500
gbarone@mww.com / ehelton@mww.com

Mike Gannon (AIR)
617-267-6645
mgannon@air-worldwide.com