Ciardo Wins NSF Grant to Study Supershear Earthquakes
The award for Professor Federico Ciardo supports theoretical and computational research to uncover how rare, high-speed ruptures evolve and release extreme seismic energy.
Northwestern Engineering’s Federico Ciardo has received a National Science Foundation Standard Grant for his project, “Mechanics of SupershearEarthquakes: Theory and Modeling Across Scales.”
The three-year project, running until August 2028, will advance understanding of supershear earthquakes: rare, exceptionally fast ruptures that move faster than the shear wave speed in rock and generate Mach waves like those from supersonic jets.
An assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, Ciardo’s research uses theoretical modeling and high-fidelity simulations to reveal how these destructive events initiate, propagate, and recur over time.
By linking mechanics and geophysics, the project seeks to improve predictions of earthquake dynamics and shed new light on the physical processes behind Earth’s most energetic ruptures.