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Past Seminars


Prof. Alessandro Palermo

The Collapse of the Morandi - One of the Most “Iconic” Italian Bridges: Chronicle of a Death Foretold?

November 08, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Prof. Alessandro Palermo

On 14 August 2018, the Ponte Morandi, part of the Polcevera Viaduct in Genoa, Italy, partially collapsed without warning killing 43 people. Despite starting to show signs of deterioration in the 1990s and a number of proposals to replace the bridge in the intervening years, few initiatives were undertaken in a meaningful manner. The presentation explores the background and design philosophy for the Genoa bridge, overviews the construction and design of the bridge and highlights the possible causes of the collapse.



Prof. Sergio Pellegrino

Ultralight Deployable Space Structures

November 06, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Prof. Sergio Pellegrino

We are developing novel deployable spacecraft structures for the Caltech Space Solar Power Project. Inspired by classical architectures for square solar sails, we proposed a modular, scalable structural concept that exploits a kirigami-based coiling scheme to achieve compact packaging. Its structural modules consist of coilable longerons connected by battens, to form ladder-like space frames.



Dr. Larry Ilcewicz

Certifying Innovative Composite Applications

November 01, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Dr. Larry Ilcewicz

This presentation summarizes existing practices for composite aircraft certification, with an emphasis on structural aspects, and discusses the limitations and lessons learned from today’s “traditional” composite structures. It describes procedures that can be used to certify advanced materials and processes which may have increased levels of variability, unfamiliar structural performance, nonclassical (e.g., nonlocal) behavior, and randomized properties.



Eric Long

Design Construction

October 30, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Eric Long and Kevin Chang

The successful completion of a project depends upon the integration of architectural design, structural detailing, and construction methods, with the most impactful ones born out of a synergy between the three stakeholders. This collaborative approach can also lead to material savings for the client as well as a reduction in the embodied carbon of the completed structure.



Dr. Chukwuma Ekwueme

Leaning on the Past to Predict the Future – A Structural Engineering Perspective

October 25, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Dr. Chukwuma Ekwueme, PE, SE, LEED AP

Dr.Ekwueme will present overviews of projects he has worked on over a thirty-year career as a structural engineer focusing on the design of new buildings, the seismic retrofit of existing buildings, and forensic investigations after earthquakes and other catastrophic events.  Projects to be discussed include the design of the new airport traffic control tower in McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, the seismic retrofit of the First Church of Christ in Pasadena, and the investigation of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers in New York.  With each project, Dr.



Ron Hamburger

Repair of San Francisco’s Leaning (Millennium) Tower

October 23, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Ron Hamburger

Constructed in 2005-2009, the 58 story Millennium Tower, located at the corner of Fremont and Mission Streets in San Francisco, has settled more than 17 inches and tilted nearly 30 inches to the northwest.  Litigation initiated in 2016 with homeowners seeking damages from the original development team and other parties.  Under negotiated agreement, a $100 million foundation upgrade has been completed to arrest building settlement and allow for gradual recovery of tilt.  The upgrade, completed in August of this year, involved installation of 18 new piles, extending to bedrock, around the bui



Peter Maloney

Preserving History: Lessons Learned Through Historic Restoration Projects

October 18, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Peter Maloney and Lindsey Kuster

Restoring historic buildings presents a unique set of challenges for structural engineers, especially when dealing with archaic materials which have experienced long-term deterioration. This presentation will explore insights gained from two recent projects: a condition assessment and structural evaluation of the iconic Tustin Hangars, and the restoration and reconstruction of the Balboa Botanical Building in Balboa Park.  Through these case studies, we’ll discuss the requirements of the Historic Building Code and the challenges of working on 100-year-old + structures.



Dr. Scott Anthony Ouellette

LANL Test Engineering's Structural Dynamics Research and Development Efforts

October 11, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Dr. Scott Anthony Ouellette

LANL’s Test Engineering organization serves the national mission of maintaining a strategic nuclear deterrent by providing high-quality empirical evidence through the execution and assessment of weapons system and component testing.​ Shock and vibration environmental testing provides one key piece of evidence for evaluation and qualification of these systems and components in the service environments incurred during a lifetime in the stockpile.



Prof. Marc Alex Schweitzer

PUMA: A Rapid Enriched Simulation Development Framework - Efficiency & Scalability through Optimal Enrichments

October 04, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Prof. Marc Alex Schweitzer

In this talk, the Partition of Unity Method (PUM) and its implementation in Fraunhofer SCAI’s PUMA software framework will be presented. The fundamental idea and benefit of the PUM is to reduce the necessary number of degrees of freedom of a simulation while attaining the required accuracy of the application by using application-dependent enrichment functions which can resolve highly localized behavior of the solution instead of using mesh-refinement and standard piecewise polynomial basis functions.



Photo of Alvaro Celestino

The Seismic Compliance Options for California Hospitals, an Update on SPC and NPC Requirements

June 07, 2023 - 12:00 pm

Speaker: Alvaro Celestino

California hospitals need to be seismically compliant per the requirements of the CAC by January 1, 2030.  The CAC contains seismic compliance requirements for structural and non-structural elements.  This presentation will discuss those requirements, progress done so far, the work ahead, possible extensions being discussed at the state level. Case studies will be discussed to highlight the process of seismic compliance.



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