RICRI Research Seminar: A Multi-Scale Study from Low-Carbon Seismic Structures to City-Wide Disaster Simulation
Conference / Lecture

-
Date
27 Oct 2025
-
Organiser
Otto Poon Research Institute for Climate-Resilient Infrastructure (RICRI)
-
Time
15:00 - 16:00
-
Venue
Z211, 2/F, Block Z, PolyUand Online via Zoom
Speaker
Prof. LIU Junzhi
Enquiry
RICRI ricri@polyu.edu.hk
Summary
Climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, including typhoons and floods, posing unprecedented challenges to urban infrastructure systems globally. To mitigate these impacts and reduce carbon emissions at source, this study introduces a dual-scale resilience enhancement framework. At the structural level, the adoption of high-strength and conventional steel hybrid section is proposed. This approach not only improves seismic resilience and structural performance, but also significantly reduces steel consumption and associated carbon emissions during manufacturing. At the urban scale, the research addresses critical gaps in conventional risk assessment methodologies, such as low spatiotemporal resolution in hazard modelling and limited capabilities in simulating physical damage and cross-system cascading failures. Key innovations include: (1) enhanced high-resolution simulation of extreme weather events and earthquakes in complex urban environments; (2) physics-informed AI surrogate models for rapid infrastructure damage prediction; and (3) a generative AI framework that visualises real-time damage and simulates cascading effects across interconnected urban systems. These advancements provide actionable insights for optimising resilience strategies, including critical infrastructure reinforcement and climate-adaptive urban planning.
Keynote Speaker

Prof. LIU Junzhi
Associate Professor, School of National Safety and Emergency Management, Beijing Normal University, China
Prof LIU Junzhi is a Tenured Associate Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at Beijing Normal University. He earned his PhD from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, a Master’s degree from Delft University of Technology, and a Bachelor’s degree from Ocean University of China. As principal investigator, he has led research projects including grants from the key project under the National Key R&D Programme, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, a General Programme from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, and a Youth Innovation Talent Project of Guangdong Province. Prof LIU has published over 60 papers, with more than 30 SCI-indexed articles as first or sole corresponding author in leading journals including Engineering Structures and Thin-Walled Structures. He has drafted policy recommendations adopted by both central and provincial-level leaders. He serves as a Youth Editorial Board Member for several SCI journals and holds over 10 invention patents. A regular expert commentator for CCTV and CGTN, he has provided analysis on major earthquakes and disaster response. His honours include the Young Scholar Award from the National Steel Structure Research Centre (Hong Kong) and teaching awards from Beijing Normal University.