Johns Hopkins University Department of Civil Engineering

"Probabilistic Nano-Mechanical Theory of Quasibrittle Structure Strength,Crack Growth, Lifetime and Fatigue"

Friday, April 26, 2013, 11am – 12pm, Hackerman Hall 209
Zdeněk P. Bažant, McCormick Institute Professor, W.P. Murphy Professor, Civil and Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Northwestern University

The size effect on structural strength and its statistical distribution is a complex problem for quasibrittle materials because their failure behavior transits from quasi-plastic at small sizes to brittle at large sizes. These are heterogeneous materials with brittle constituents in which the inhomogeneinty size is not negligible compared to the structure size.

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"Technical Consulting: The Intersection of Mythbusters, CSI, and Civil Engineering"

Thursday, April 25, 2013, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, Hackerman Hall B-17
Troy A. Morgan, Ph.D., P.E., Senior Engineer, Exponent, Inc., New York, NY

The modern era of civilization is marked my immense networks of complicated, interdependent systems and rapidly evolving technologies. Many of these technologies, while born from academia, are implemented and refined in the world of industry.

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"Bridges, Webs, and Molecules – From Structures to Materials And Back"

Thursday, April 18, 2013, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, Hackerman Hall B-17
Steven W. Cranford, Professor, Northeastern University

Taking an “atomistic-up” approach to the study of materials' design and analysis offers opportunities for making significant improvements a materials' (and thus a system’s) strength, reliability and sustainability. As experts at structural design, civil engineers can (and should) use their expertise to design and understand the behavior of materials as structural systems across scales.

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"Acquiring Measurements With NI LabVIEW and NI DAQ Hardware"

Tuesday, April 16, 2013, 12:00-12:50pm, 110 Maryland Hall
Powell Draper, Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Planning, & Preservation, University of Maryland

In 1923 Le Corbusier argued for a new approach to architecture in his collection of essays Toward a New Architecture. In this presentation it is suggested that structural engineers might take a similar opportunity to reevaluate our approaches to education, research, and practice.

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"Acquiring Measurements With NI LabVIEW and NI DAQ Hardware"

Friday, April 12, 2013, 11:30 - 2:30 PM, The Great Hall in Levering Hall
Andy Bossley, Cross-Regional Marketing Coordinator, National Instruments

Hands-On Campus Workshop! Register by email: ni.register@ni.com, andy.bossley@ni.com
Get started with NI LabVIEW system design software to easily acquire, analyze, and record data from any sensor with the industry-leading NI CompactDAQ modular hardware platform. Learn how to generate reliable results within budget using this flexible, expandable set of tools.

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"Introduction to 3D image Visualization Analysis and Meshing with Simpleware"

Tursday, April 11, 2013, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, B-17 Hackerman Hall
Simpleware

This presentation is aimed at those interested in visualising, measuring, and meshing of 3D image data (as obtained from CT, MicroCT, MRI and Ultrasound) to generate Rapid Prototyping, CAD, and Finite Element models. Bring your own data! 

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"Mathematica® 9 in Education and Research"

Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 10:00 - 11:00 AM, 107 Latrobe Hall
Andy Dorsett, Academic Key Account Manager, Wolfram Research, Inc.

During this free seminar, we will explore Mathematica’s use for a wide variety of practical and theoretical applications across a variety of disciplines. Attendees will not only see new features in Mathematica 9, but will also receive examples of this functionality to begin using immediately. No Mathematica experience is required.

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"Practical Engineering: Life as a Consulting Engineer and Scientist"

Tuesday, April 2, 2013, 12:00 - 12:50 PM, 110 Maryland Hall
Mark Johnson, Senior Engineer, Geosyntec Consultants

This seminar will focus on some of the factors for starting and advancing your career in the fields of science and engineering while engaged at an engineering firm. Emphasis is placed on the types of skills desired by firms, and what it takes to become a consultant operating under the professional formula of “Sell – Manage - Do” practiced by many firms.

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"Climate Extremes: The Science, Impacts, and Policy Relevance"

Thursday, March 28, 2013, 12:00 - 1:00PM, B-17 Hackerman Hall
Auroop R. Ganguly, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University

Climate extremes may be defined inclusively as severe hydrological or weather events, as well as significant regional changes in hydro-meteorology, which are caused or exacerbated by climate change, and which may in turn cause severe stresses on regional resources, economy and the environment.

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"Design and Construction of the 800 / 900 North Glebe Road, buildings in Arlington, VA"

Tuesday, March 26, 2013, 12:00 ‐ 12:50 PM, 110 Maryland Hall
Mark Erdman PE, Associate Principal, STRUCTURA INC.

The 800 / 900 North Glebe buildings are side by side state of the art commercial mixed use buildings developed by JBG Companies. The buildings had no shortage of design challenges including aggressive structural spans, complex façade features, unique soil conditions, and construction schedule phasing issues.

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"New Developments in Stochastic Simulation for Structural Mechanics Problems"

Thursday, March 21, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Michael D. Shields Ph.D., Research Engineer, Applied Science & Investigations, Weildlinger Associates, Inc., Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, Columbia Univeristy

The rigorous treatment of uncertainty in very large structural mechanics models and those including strong non-linearities is rapidly gaining momentum thanks to significant advancements in computational power.

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"From Building Collapse to Cement Setting: Statistical Mechanics of Out-of-Equilibrium Structures"

Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Enrico Masoero, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology  

The sustainability of our built environment relies on the safety, robustness, resilience, and durability, of materials and structures. Controlling building collapse and microstructure development of cement paste is key, but there are issues associated with the limitations of continuum theory. 

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"Evaluating the Long-Term Sustainability of Green Infrastructure Materials: A Spatiotemporal Approach"

Tuesday, March 19, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Wil V. Srubar III, LEED® AP, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University       

Conventional infrastructure materials are both resource- and energy-intensive to manufacture, and their production contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, global warming, and climate change. To address growing environmental concerns over infrastructure material production, materials engineers are developing innovative materials that exhibit significantly lower ecological footprints.

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"High-Frequency Deterministic Earthquake Simulation: Recent Efforts, Present Challenges, and Future Opportunities"

Tuesday, Mar 12, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Ricardo Taborda, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University

The increasing capability of high-performance computing applications and efficient wave propagation methods has facilitated performing regional-size earthquake simulation at levels of resolution higher than ever before. Currently, the production of high-fidelity ground motion synthetics is mostly used for understanding earthquake physics and ground motion characteristics, and its practical use in engineering is still very limited.

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"Advanced Computational Methods for Complex Structural Engineering Simulations"

Monday, March 11, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Dominik Schillinger, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), The University of Texas at Austin

Increasing the complexity in structural modeling constitutes an important aspect of current research in computational structural mechanics, targeted at improving the predictive capabilities of structural simulations. This seminar will present an illustrative example that deals with the stochastic modeling of geometric imperfections in thin-walled structures. In particular, it will be outlined how the interplay between experiments, stochastic models and nonlinear finite elements can achieve a more reliable prediction of the buckling variability in I-section beam-columns.

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"Wave Propagation in Dispersive Media: Applications to NDE-SHM, and Advanced Materials Design"

Thursday, March 7, 2013, 9:00 – 10:00 AM, 209 Hackerman Hall
Ankit Srivastava, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego

This seminar will discuss stress wave propagation in two kinds of dispersive media: waveguides and heterogeneous structures. Study of the former field has practical applications in the non-destructive evaluation and structural health monitoring of civil and aerospace structures. The study of the second field has strong applications in wave trajectory control and advanced materials design.

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"Stormwater Management at Seagirt Marine Terminal"

Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 12:00 – 12:50 PM, 110 Maryland Hall
Craig Huntley, P.E., Senior Civil Engineer, Moffatt & Nichol

As Seagirt Marine Terminal has been developed, available space has been developed and room for the treatment and control of stormwater runoff has been limited. With available space at a premium, and the area at the water’s edge needed for ship access, stormwater treatment needed to be approached in an innovative way. 

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"Replacement of Superstructure and Rehabilitation of a Deck-Stiffened Arch Bridge on US 40 over the Patapsco River"

Tuesday, February 26, 2013, 12:00 – 12:50 PM, 110 Maryland Hall
Stephen A. Matty, P.E., Project Manager in the Bridge Design group at URS Corporation

The US 40 Bridge over the Patapsco River is located in the Patapsco Valley State Park at the Baltimore and Howard County border. The original bridge was an open spandrel reinforced concrete arch built in 1936 with a main span of 195 feet over the river and approach spans of 64 feet to the east and 76 feet to the west.

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"Universal Laws and Architectures: brains, bugs, nets, dance, art, music, literature, fashion, and zombies"

Monday, February 18, 2013, 4:40 PM, Mason Hall Auditorium
John Doyle, Ph.D., Electrical Engnineering and Bioengineering, California Institute of Technology

Complex networks arise in a wide range of applications from neuroscience and cell biology to the internet and social networks. The commonalities in these problems are often either overlooked or oversimplified while domain experts tend to apply different "languages" and mathematical "tools" to them. 

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