Hilton Los Angeles Airport Seismic UpgradeLos Angeles, California

  • A 15-story, 1,234-room hotel constructed in 1983
  • As a result of significant changes to Building Code following the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Southern California, DeSimone was retained to design a full seismic upgrade to this hotel
  • A three-dimensional finite element model was developed and analyzed to determine the structure’s weak points
  • Steel plates were fastened to shear wall elements and floor slabs to increase the building’s toughness
  • Modeling results enabled DeSimone to develop an innovative repair scheme that that cut the cost of the structural upgrade budget by half