Towards Biomechanical Simulation-Guided Diagnosis and Treatment of Valvular Heart Disease

Speaker: Professor Chung-Hao Lee

Functional tricuspid regurgitation (FTR) affects about 1.6 million Americans, with only 8,000 treated surgically each year. Increasing evidence has showed that FTR typically does not regress after successful left-sided valve surgery, and the untreated FTR frequently further worsens the long-term prognosis.

Assessment of Seismic Performance of Low-rise Reinforced Masonry Buildings

January 16, 2019 - 1:00 pm

Speaker: Professor P. Benson Shing

For regions of high seismic hazards (Seismic Design Category D or above), reinforced masonry shear walls must have design details that meet the special wall requirements of the masonry design standard TMS 402.

Seismically Isolated Nuclear Power Plants Subjected to Beyond Design Basis Shaking

January 09, 2019 - 1:00 pm

Speaker: Professor Gilberto Mosqueda

Seismic isolation has been proven as an effective strategy to protect critical facilities including Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) from the damaging effects of horizontal earthquake ground shaking.

Next Generation Bridge Columns for Multi-Hazard Resilience

December 03, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Assistant Professor Bora Gencturk

Past earthquakes have shown the vulnerability of bridge columns to lateral loads induced by earthquakes that have resulted in severe damage to the reinforced concrete (RC) columns in terms of rebar buckling and rupture and concrete spalling and crushing.

Elastic Metamaterials for Seismic Surface Waves Attenuation

November 19, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Antonio Palermo

Elastic metamaterials are artificial composites with resonant elements hosted in a medium able to manipulate the propagation of elastic waves. When the resonant elements are placed on the free surface of an elastic medium, they form a “metasurface” that allows to fully control the dynamics of surface waves.

The Las Vegas T-Mobile Arena: Structural and Tuned Mass Damper Design

November 14, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Kevin Legenza

Thornton Tomasetti provided structural engineering and tuned mass damper (TMD) design services for a 20,000-seat multipurpose event center located west of the Las Vegas Strip. The 650,000-square-foot facility can accommodate a variety of events, including NBA and NHL games, concerts, boxing, mixed martial arts programs and award shows.

Towards an Integrated Fracture-control Plan for Steel Bridges

November 05, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Professor Robert J. Connor

There has been considerable research and interest in the topic of fracture-critical members (FCMs) during the past decade.  As a result, the entire concept of what constitutes a FCM is being revisited and many long-standing ideas and opinions related to this classification of members is being shown to be overly conservative.  Significant advan

Characteristics and Seismic Performance of Tall Buildings Estimated with Nonlinear Response History Analyses

October 29, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: James O. Malley

Tall buildings (over 30 stories) have been designed on the West Coast of the U.S. for about the last 60 years. The skylines created by these tall buildings often help to define many of our major cities. Prior to the mid 1990’s, the primary system used was a steel moment resisting frame.

Bridging Simple Rocking Models and Experimental Understanding for Structural Walls with Jointed (Rocking) Connections

October 24, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Dr. Dimitrios Kalliontzis

Structural walls that undergo small permanent deformations during seismic events are an attractive technology, as they improve safety and re

Innovations in Powder-Based Techniques for Processing Lightweight Metal Matrix Nanocomposites

October 22, 2018 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Professor Peter Olubambi

As the competitive global technological development is increasingly advancing, materials engineers are constantly confronted with the challenge to design and rapidly produce innovative materials with improved properties for the emerging technological innovation and the wide range of their industrial environments.