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In episode 15 of The Structural Engineering Channel Podcast, we talk with Professor Jerome Hajjar, CDM Smith Professor and Chair at the Northeastern University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering about how we can integrate sustainability and resilience into structural engineering. This is something that can change the way we look at structural engineering and change our community for the better.
Here Are Some of the Questions We Ask Professor Hajjar in This Episode:
- What is sustainability and resilience?
- Could you highlight some of the research initiatives that relate to sustainability and resilience in structural engineering?
- Are the topics of sustainability and resilience becoming more common in the engineering curriculum?
- How is data being used when designing deformations?
Here Are Some of the Key Points Discussed About Sustainability and Resilience:
- Resilience relates to designing systems that can bounce back quickly after extreme events. There are approaches to thinking about how we design structural systems that would enable individual structures to become operational more quickly after extreme events.
- Sustainability relates to trying to dramatically decrease the amount of energy that we use for the design and use of structures, as well as the amount of waste and pollution that is created through construction.
- Concerning sustainability, we are in the process of looking at new systems (under the title of design for deconstruction) whereby we can take a building apart at the end of its useful life and re-purpose the components rather than recycling or scrapping the materials.
- There is a lot of work that still needs to be done regarding this process in order to understand some of the issues with this system, such as aging of the materials, documentation, material strengths, and the flexibility of using different types of components for future buildings.
- Concerning resilience, one of the systems that I have been working on is to develop structural systems that focus the energy from an extreme event, like an earthquake or a hurricane, into articulated, replaceable components. This is an approach that can make the structural system much more operational after an extreme event.
- Practitioners, contractors and researchers should all work together to advance sustainability and resilience in our world.
- If we could start to get our younger engineers more comfortable with different types of product designs, integration, and components, it will help people feel more comfortable about integrating some of these different types of systems.
- By spurring research through the Federal Government and industry support on the topics of sustainability and resilience pragmatic solutions will be developed.
- Data on the entire supply chain for structural systems is a huge area for research and one where we can make a lot of progress.
More Details in This Episode…
About Jerome F. Hajjar
Jerome F. Hajjar is the CDM Smith Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University. He is also the Director of the Laboratory for Structural Testing of Resilient and Sustainable Systems (STReSS Laboratory). He has served as Chair of the Structures Faculty and Deputy Director of the Mid-America Earthquake Center at the University of Illinois, was a faculty member at the University of Minnesota; and was a structural engineer and Associate at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
His research and teaching interests include analysis, experimental testing, and design of steel and composite steel/concrete building and bridge structures; regional modeling and assessment of infrastructure systems; and earthquake engineering, and he has published over 200 papers and edited three books on these topics. Hajjar serves on the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Committee on Specifications and several of its task committees, is the chair of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Department Heads Coordinating Council, and is on the Board of Governors of the ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI). He was made a Fellow of ASCE in 2007 and of SEI in 2013, and was awarded the 2016 ASCE Moisseiff Award, the 2010 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, the 2009 ASCE Shortridge Hardesty Award, the 2005 AISC T. R. Higgins Lectureship Award, the 2004 AISC Special Achievement Award, the 2003 ASCE Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize, and the 2000 ASCE Norman Medal for his research on steel structures, composite construction, structural stability, and earthquake engineering.
Sources/References:
Structural Engineering Life
The Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of ASCE
SEI Structures Congress 2020
Connect with Jerome Hajjar
Northeastern University
This episode is brought to you by CSI, Computers and Structures, Inc. which is recognized globally as the pioneering leader in software tools for structural and earthquake engineering. You can learn more about them at www.csiamerica.com
Please leave your comments or questions in the section below on integrating sustainability and resilience into structural engineering.
To your success,
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP & Mathew Picardal, P.E.
Hosts of The Structural Engineering Channel
