Miha TOMAŽEVIČ

Employed at Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute since 1967, Tomaževič has continued the work of his teacher, Professor Viktor Turnšek. By testing models and building masonry elements, he simulated observed seismic behaviour to collect information needed to develop numerical models. Forty years ago, he proposed that seismic resistance should be verified by a method, which nowadays is called the pushover method. Part of his research was aimed at reducing the seismic vulnerability of existing buildings, including architectural, cultural heritage. Professor Tomaževič has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Trento, Padua, Brescia, and Trieste in Italy, at the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, as well as at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, India. In addition, he has given more than 90 lectures and seminars at many universities and research institutes in Europe and the USA, Japan, China, Chile, Mexico, and India. He supervised 14 master’s and doctoral students.

The values of parameters for numerical modeling are determined experimentally, simulating the observed seismic behaviour and damage to buildings. At the Institute, either shaking table tests of models (left) or quasi static cyclic test of full scale buildings (right) are used for this purpose.

1942 Born in Ljubljana, Slovenia

1977 Master’s in earthquake engineering, Institute of Earthquake Engineering, Skopje

1985 PhD, University of Ljubljana

1994–1995 Consultant to The World Bank, India

1991 Professor, University of Ljubljana

1996–2005 Director, Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute

1991 Visiting professor, University of Chile

1999–2001, 2003–2010 Visiting professor, University of Padua, Italy

2017 Retired

Important Works

Tomaževič M (1999) Earthquake resistant design of masonry buildings. Imperial College Press (Greek edition 2005).

Tomaževič M, Lutman M, Petković L (1996) Seismic behavior of masonry walls: experimental simulation. Journal of Structural Engineering, 122 (9): 1040-1047.

Tomaževič M, Klemenc I (1997) Seismic behaviour of confined masonry walls. Earthquake Engineering & Structural dynamics, 26 (10): 1059-1071.

Selected Awards

1986 Boris Kidrič Foundation Award

1993 Outstanding paper award, The Masonry Society

1993 Silver medal of Civil Protection

2005 Scalzi Research Award, The Masonry Society

2005 Farhad Naeim Prize, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute

2010 Life-time achievements award, Chamber of Engineers of Slovenia

2013 Special recognition award, Canadian Masonry Symposium

2016 Recognition award, Friuli – Venezia Giulia, Italy.