Upcoming Seminars
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Past Seminars
Tipping - Alec Zavala
February 12, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Alec Zavala
Tipping is a structural engineering firm based in Berkeley, California that specializes in the seismic design and retrofit of new and existing residential, commercial, and educational buildings. Our firm was founded in 1983 by Steve Tipping who instilled an approach of curiosity and innovation into the firm that carries on his legacy.
A Quasi-meshfree Method for Nonlinear Solid Mechanics: A Synergistic Combination of Element-based and Element-free Technologies
February 10, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Joe Bishop
There is now a long history of using both element-based and element-free discretizations for solving governing field equations. By combining these two approaches, we can obtain a new, versatile, multiscale, discretization technique. In many engineering applications, domains of interest are geometrically complex containing numerous small features. These features are typically removed in a manual process to facilitate a conventional element-based meshing process. This manual defeaturing process is dependent upon the goals of the simulation and typically involves subjective heuristics.
Making the Most Perfect of Imperfect Choices
February 05, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Matt Barnard and Chad Closs
We are constantly faced with opportunities to make decisions both small and big. Many of these decisions are easy and you make them without hesitation. But there are some decisions that are difficult with no clear right answer and with potentially massive implications for you and others. Fortunately, you can use a Choosing by Advantage process to help you identify what really matters and make those tough decisions.
Equatic: The development of a seawater-based atmospheric carbon removal and hydrogen co-production platform
February 03, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Gaurav N. Sant
The trapping of carbon dioxide (CO2) as aqueous (bi)carbonates or as mineral solids is attractive because of favorable thermodynamics, and the durability and permanence of storage. Here, I will describe an approach to rapidly precipitate Ca- and Mg- carbonates and hydroxides from seawater to achieve large-scale, cost-effective CO2 removal.
Lessons learned from advanced analysis projects and things you need to know to succeed in a consulting engineering career
January 29, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Derrick Watkins
Structural engineers often face challenging, complex projects that require innovative technical solutions to meet client needs while pushing the boundaries of engineering. At SGH, tackling such projects has been a cornerstone of their work. From investigating the collapse of the World Trade Center to analyzing the seismic stability of nuclear-powered submarines in dry dock, engineers like Derrick Watkins rely on advanced analysis techniques to accurately model unconventional structures and dynamic loads, ensuring effective and reliable solutions.
What can seismic data tell us about the magnitude of shear stress in the Earth’s crust?
January 27, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Yuri Fialko
Strength of the upper brittle part of the Earth's lithosphere is one of the most debated and least constrained quantities in geophysics. Direct measurements of stresses acting at seismogenic depths are largely lacking. Seismic data (in particular, the earthquake focal mechanisms) have been used to infer orientations of the principal stress axes. I will discuss how the focal mechanism data can be combined with information from precise earthquake locations to place constraints not only on the orientation, but also on the magnitude of absolute stress at depth.
Ferrovial Construction Innovative Solutions in Structural Engineering
January 22, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Fran Palacios
Ferrovial Construction is a leading global infrastructure Design-Builder specializing in the design, construction, and maintenance of complex civil engineering projects. With a strong focus on innovation and sustainability, the company has delivered high-profile projects such as highways, railways, and bridges across the United States and worldwide. Ferrovial’s commitment to cutting-edge structural engineering solutions ensures the development of resilient, efficient, and environmentally conscious infrastructure.
Seismic Retrofit and Adaptive Re-Use
January 13, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Robert Randall
This seminar will focus on understanding the design process for the structural seismic retrofitting related to adaptive re-use of existing buildings. Case study examples designed by Saiful Bouquet will be presented that cover Code requirements, design solutions and construction.
Think Global, Buckle Local: Exploring Local Buckling in Structural Steel
January 10, 2025 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Benjamin W. Schafer
Local buckling is an important phenomenon in steel structures, and this talk aims to place the phenomenon in the much larger global context of what structural engineers have achieved for society and what work we have left to do. Utilizing an historical lens the talk explores the origins of local buckling in civil structures and how engineers harnessed the best theory of the time to understand and control local buckling.
SPERRA: 3D Concrete Printing Marine Renewable Energy Infrastructure
November 06, 2024 - 12:00 pm
Speaker: Taylor Marchment & Mason Bell
3DCP (3D Concrete Printing) can help solve logistical and supply chain challenges for fabricating anchors and platforms for floating offshore wind (FOW) and other marine renewable energy structures such as solar and wave. 3DCP offers greater design flexibility, utilizing local material, and faster construction times and is well suited to fabricating large structures. Fabrication can be performed quayside, on semisubmersible barges, or in a dry dock.