Annual Report Year 2009 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

PROGRAM AREAS
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING AND MATERIALS
Finley Charney is pursuing formal relationships
between universities in the U.S. and in India,
allowing for a variety of cooperative activities.
SEM program
highlights
research and
travel
The highlights of the Structural and
Materials (SEM) Program for the
past include the following: Sam
Easterling was appointed CEE department
head; William Wright joined the
faculty in spring 2009; Carin Roberts-
Wollmann received the Alumni Teaching
Excellence Award; and four faculty members,
Roberts-Wollmann, Tommy Cousins,
Elisa Sotelino, and Richard Weyers
are working on a multi-year, multi-million
research project known as the Long Term
Bridge Performance (LTBP) program.
Summaries of each SEM faculty member’s
activities for the past year are presented
in the paragraphs below.
Finley Charney continues to perform
research in analysis, behavior, and design
of building structures. Focus areas include
nonlinear dynamic analysis, innovative
structural system development, and structural
damping.
Several new projects have been initiated
over the past year. Examples include
the development of new “hybrid” structural
systems for earthquake resistant design,
wind drift analysis and design methodologies
for metal buildings (with Cris Moen
as co-principal investigator), and a major
update to the earthquake engineering
computer programs NONLIN and EQ-
Tools.
Charney has traveled extensively over
the past year, with trips to China, Europe,
India, and Central America. The visit to
India was of particular interest because
one of the goals of this trip was to establish
formal relationships between universities
in the U.S. and India. Thus, as part
of the India trip, Charney visited several
universities, including Mumbai University,
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