Dr. Hermann Fritz is a professor of civil engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). He is an expert on tsunamis and coastal hazards, such as hurricane storm surges, landslides and submarine volcanic eruptions, as well as their mitigation and coastal protection. Dr. Fritz has led or participated in more than a dozen post-disaster reconnaissance campaigns encompassing tsunami, hurricane, landslide, and earthquake events. Tsunami Surveys: 2004 Indian Ocean (Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Somalia, Madagascar, Oman, Yemen, Comoros), 2006 Java, 2007 Solomon Islands and Peru, 2009 Samoa, American Samoa, and Tonga, 2010 Solomon Islands, Haiti, Chile, and Mentawai Islands, 2011 Japan, 2012 El Salvador, 2013 Solomon Islands, 2014 and 2015 Chile, 2017 Greenland. Hurricane Surveys: 2005 Hurricane Katrina, 2007 Tropical Cyclone Gonu (Oman), 2008 Tropical Cyclone Nargis (Myanmar), 2013 Typhoon Haiyan (Philippines), 2015 Tropical Cyclone Pam (Vanuatu), 2017 Hurricane Nate. Dr. Fritz's research centers on fluid dynamic aspects of natural hazards such as tsunamis, hurricane storm surges and landslides as well as their mitigation and coastal protection. Dr. Fritz obtained his Doctorate degree (Dr. sc. ETH Zurich) in 2002 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Switzerland).
Tsunamis, bores, non-linear and breaking waves, Subaerial and submarine landslides and oceanic volcano island collapses, Hurricane storm surges and coastal flooding Hydropower, Wave and tidal energy Hydraulic, coastal, marine and offshore structures, River engineering, Sediment transport and morphologic processes, Advanced whole field multi-dimensional laser measurement techniques, Numerical simulation of multiphase flows, Natural hazard mitigation and risk analysis, Natural and man-made hazards
CEE students were recognized for their work by industry professionals, again winning first, second, and third place in a regional competition for the second consecutive year.
Professor Hermann Fritz and his former graduate student, Yibin Liu, are interested in a specific kind of tsunami, those caused by underwater volcanic eruptions and landslides. So, they built a volcanic tsunami generator in a wave basin — essentially, a large lab-in-a-tank for studying wave behavior.
