Professor Pincheira teaches structural design at the undergraduate and graduate levels and is actively engaged in research. He regularly teaches courses in reinforced concrete and structural steel design, earthquake engineering, and seismic rehabilitation of structures. He is the author of many technical papers and reports, and is co-author of a textbook in reinforced concrete design.
Professor Pincheira’s primary research interests lie in the behavior of reinforced concrete buildings subjected to earthquakes. His research experience includes field and laboratory testing, as well as numerical modeling of the nonlinear behavior of structural systems. Example research projects include: field studies of the vibration characteristics of voided slabs, shake-table laboratory tests of steel fiber-reinforced concrete walls, and modeling of concrete members with high strength steel reinforcement.
Another area of research involves the development and validation of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods. Research projects in this area include: use of tomography for quantifying corrosion-induced damage in reinforced concrete bridge piers, field validation of NDT techniques for the condition assessment of reinforced concrete bridge decks, and development of improved techniques for detecting and sizing cracks in steel bridge members.