CESS Seminar : New Design Strategies to Make Earthquake Resilient Steel Bridges
Abstract
The concept of resilient infrastructure, formulated nearly two decades ago, has been progressively endorsed over the years. This has happened in parallel with an at-large shift towards resilience across many disciplines. Steel structures have an advantage to achieve true resilience objectives because making steel buildings and bridges resilient earthquakes is possible using simple, effective design strategies. This session will present findings from recent research on some different ways to achieve steel structures that are highly resilient to earthquakes. This will include, as a particular focus, a bi-directional ductile diaphragms concept consisting of Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) to achieve damage-free columns and displacements demands that can be easily accommodated by conventional expansion joints. This behavior of this ductile diaphragm concept was investigated, a design procedure was formulated. Shake table testing of a 40’ long bridge span specimen having various configurations of bi-directional diaphragms experimentally demonstrated that the resilience objective can be achieved using this design strategy.
Short bio
Michel Bruneau is a SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo, a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and Emeritus Director of an NSF-funded Earthquake Engineering Center that focused on enhancing the disaster resilience of communities. He has spent more than three decades developing engineering strategies to enhance the resilience of infrastructure. His extensive body of research has been instrumental to the inclusion, in national and international standards, of specifications for multiple innovative structural systems, leading to implementation in countless structures worldwide. He has received more than 20 prestigious awards for this innovative work, including a lifetime achievement award. Dr. Bruneau has conducted numerous reconnaissance visits to disaster-stricken areas, is a member of many professional and technical code-writing committees, and has served on many expert peer review panels. He is one of the most cited researchers in structural engineering and earthquake engineering. He has authored or co-authored over 550 technical publications, including more than 180 referred journal papers, 250 papers in conference proceedings. Notably, he is the lead author of the 900-pages textbook “Ductile Design of Steel Structures,” used worldwide by structural engineers, and is the lead author of the 2003 seminal paper that has formulated a concept and expression of disaster resilience that today is at the foundation of most research on this topic.
Sandwiches are offered at the end of the seminar.
The concept of resilient infrastructure, formulated nearly two decades ago, has been progressively endorsed over the years. This has happened in parallel with an at-large shift towards resilience across many disciplines. Steel structures have an advantage to achieve true resilience objectives because making steel buildings and bridges resilient earthquakes is possible using simple, effective design strategies. This session will present findings from recent research on some different ways to achieve steel structures that are highly resilient to earthquakes. This will include, as a particular focus, a bi-directional ductile diaphragms concept consisting of Buckling Restrained Braces (BRBs) to achieve damage-free columns and displacements demands that can be easily accommodated by conventional expansion joints. This behavior of this ductile diaphragm concept was investigated, a design procedure was formulated. Shake table testing of a 40’ long bridge span specimen having various configurations of bi-directional diaphragms experimentally demonstrated that the resilience objective can be achieved using this design strategy.
Short bio
Michel Bruneau is a SUNY Distinguished Professor at the University at Buffalo, a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and Emeritus Director of an NSF-funded Earthquake Engineering Center that focused on enhancing the disaster resilience of communities. He has spent more than three decades developing engineering strategies to enhance the resilience of infrastructure. His extensive body of research has been instrumental to the inclusion, in national and international standards, of specifications for multiple innovative structural systems, leading to implementation in countless structures worldwide. He has received more than 20 prestigious awards for this innovative work, including a lifetime achievement award. Dr. Bruneau has conducted numerous reconnaissance visits to disaster-stricken areas, is a member of many professional and technical code-writing committees, and has served on many expert peer review panels. He is one of the most cited researchers in structural engineering and earthquake engineering. He has authored or co-authored over 550 technical publications, including more than 180 referred journal papers, 250 papers in conference proceedings. Notably, he is the lead author of the 900-pages textbook “Ductile Design of Steel Structures,” used worldwide by structural engineers, and is the lead author of the 2003 seminal paper that has formulated a concept and expression of disaster resilience that today is at the foundation of most research on this topic.
Sandwiches are offered at the end of the seminar.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Olga Fink (IMOS), Prof. Alexandre Alahi (VITA), Prof. Dusan Licina (HOBEL), Prof. Alain Nussbaumer (RESSLab)
Contact
- Dimitrios Lignos