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Upcoming Events |
Structural Engineering Class of 2009
UCSD's Structural Engineering Department offers B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. Our programs and curricula provide education and training through a holistic approach to structural engineering, by emphasizing and building on the commonality in materials, mechanics, and analysis considerations across the disciplines of civil, aerospace, and marine engineering. The program features strong components in laboratory experimentation, basic theory, information technology, and engineering design.
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 COSMOS 2006 |
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News
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 Photo: Peggy Peattie / Union-Tribune
SE Researchers will start taking an in-depth look at one of these less-studied structures this February when they subject an 80-foot, 23,400-pound working wind turbine to a series of simulated earthquakes escalating to more than 7.0 in magnitude. This will be only the second known test of a full-sized wind turbine on a shake table — a computerized, hydraulic-powered platform that can replicate the motions and forces of specific earthquakes or seismic events. To read the full story, click here.
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Student Chapter Hosts Over 500 Local Sixth Graders in Outreach Event
Over the course of two weeks in November, 2009, approximately 550 sixth graders visited the UC San Diego campus with K'NEX structures which they built to withstand simulated earthquakes. During the field trip, students tested their structures on a miniature shake table, demonstrated their classroom knowledge of earthquakes and earthquake engineering, took a campus tour (including the Seismic Response Modification Device facility. In preparation for the field trip, SACS volunteers visited the sixth grade classrooms and taught them about the basics of earthquakes and how to build structures to survive earthquakes. The sixth graders then had one month to build their K'NEX structures and brush up on what they were taught. The experience was reported to be enjoyable for both the sixth grade students and the SACS volunteers. The next SACS Seismic Outreach event will take place during the Spring 2010 quarter.
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Can California Structures Withstand A Haiti-Like Quake?
SE Researchers from the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center were recently featured in a local news story. To read the full story and watch the KGTV-10 News video click here.
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SE Research Helps Secure California Highways and Roads
SE researchers recently tested two types of retaining wall systems – one without a sound barrier (foreground) and one with a sound wall (background) during a series of rigorous simulated earthquake tests at the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center, which has the largest outdoor shake table in the world. During the first series of tests which simulated a 7.4 magnitude earthquake and were led by Dawn Cheng, an SE alumna and now a civil engineering professor at UC Davis, researchers investigated the seismic response of a semi-gravity reinforced concrete cantilever wall. To read the full story, click here.
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SE Founding Professor Frieder Seible Named Honorary Professor at Chinese University
Frieder Seible, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and SE faculty, was recently awarded an honorary professorship in the School of Civil Engineering at Beijing Jiaotong University (BJYU). Dr. Seible is recognized widely as a world-leader in bridge design and strategies to mitigate earthquake damage to buildings and bridges. The ceremony took place on December 21, 2009 at Beijing Jiaotong University, in Beijing, China. During the ceremony, a Memorandum of Understanding between the two schools was signed, symbolizing a formal collaborative relationship. To read the full story, click here.
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Dr. Fox Receives 2009 ASCE Middlebrooks Award
Dr. Patrick Fox and his co-author, Robert Kim, have received the 2009 Thomas A. Middlebrooks Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for their paper entitled, "Effect of progressive failure on measured shear strength of geomembrane/GCL interface." This paper was published in the ASCE Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, April 2008 issue. The Middlebrooks Award is presented annually to the author(s) of a paper published by ASCE during the previous 12-month period that is judged worthy of special commendation for its merit as a contribution to the field of geotechnical engineering. Dr. Fox also received the 2008 Middlebrooks Award for two companion papers published in the January 2007 issue of the same journal.
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Prof. Hutchinson Wins 2009 Shamsher Prakash Research Award
Prof. Tara Hutchinson was recently selected as the Shamsher Prakash Research Award winner for 2009. The Shamsher Prakash Foundation (in India) considers nominations among young engineers, scientists, and researchers from all over the world. Winners are specialists in Geotechnical Engineering and/or Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, who have made significant independent contributions, and who show promise of excellence in research. The award consists of $1,100.00 and a plaque. Congratulations to Prof. Hutchinson for winning this prestigious award!
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Professor Restrepo Awarded Institute’s Prestigious Award for 2009
PCI's Martin P. Korn award recognizes Prof. José Restepo's paper published in the PCI Journal as most “worthy of
special commendation for its merit as a contribution in design and research to the advancement of precast and
prestressed concrete.” PCI judges selected Restrepo's co-authored paper on “Preliminary Results of the Shake-Table Testing for the
Development of a Diaphragm Seismic Design Methodology,” published in the Winter 2009 issue of the
PCI Journal. The award was presented at the 55th Annual PCI Convention in San Antonio, Texas on September 13.
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Professor Patrick J. Fox to Join SE Faculty
Dr. Patrick J. Fox was recently appointed Professor to the Department of Structural Engineering. Professor Fox will be a faculty member affiliated with Muir College. Dr. Fox joins UC San Diego from Ohio State University, where he served as Professor in the Civil & Environmental Engineering & Geodetic Science since 2003. Previous to Ohio State, Prof. Fox was on the faculties of UCLA and Purdue University. To read more, click here.
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SE Researchers Involved in Preparing for the "Big One"
When the Loma Prieta earthquake ripped through the San Francisco Bay Area on Oct. 17, 1989, it cut a terrifying path of destruction that forever changed the way Californians think about living in quake country. The 6.9 magnitude rupture of the San Andreas Fault toppled houses, crushed a freeway and collapsed a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Sixty-three died, more than 3,750 were injured and the damages were estimated at more than $6 billion. Not since the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake had California experienced such a devastating seismic event. Yet if there could be an upside to those 15 seconds of deadly shaking, it would be in the scientific and engineering advances that grew out of Loma Prieta. Twenty years later, researchers are still learning from Loma Prieta, and UC experts continue to play an integral role in ensuring those lessons are translated into practical solutions that make California more quake resistant. To read the full article, click here.
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SE Senior is Washington D.C.'s First 'Green' Intern
Mark Galvan (SE class of 2010) recently began working three days a week in the Office of the Architect of the Capitol and "Green the Capitol" offices, and two days a week in the office of Congresswoman Susan Davis (CA-53). The nation's first "green" intern in the U.S. Capitol has arrived from one of the country's greenest universities, UC San Diego. The multi-faceted internship is the first of its kind and a unique opportunity for Galvan. To read the full story, click here. To read "Point of View with Mark Galvan," click here. Pictured is Mark Galvan (center) stands with Congresswoman Susan Davis (CA-53) and the Capitol's chief administrative officer, Dan Beard. .
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Retrofitted Historic Building Survives Strong Simulated Jolts During Test
SE researchers were not quite sure what would happen when a series of rigorous simulated earthquakes – measuring up to a 7.5 magnitude – jolted a three-story, 1920s era reinforced concrete test structure this summer.The test structure suffered some damage but it was still standing – just what the engineers had hoped for. To read the full story, click here.
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Dr. Benzoni Named Editor in Chief of International Journal
SE Researcher, Dr. Gianmario Benzoni, was elected as Editor in Chief of the international journal, "Seismic Isolation and Protection Systems," of the Mathematical Science Research Institute in Berkeley, California. The first issue is expected in November, 2009. Congratulations to Dr. Benzoni on this impressive achievement!
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Outstanding Seniors Awarded
Nearly eighty undergraduate seniors and their families gathered with SE faculty and staff at the Fourth Annual Senior Reception and Order of the Engineer Ring Ceremony on Matthew’s Quad on Friday, June 12, 2009. Professor and Vice-Chair Michael Todd presented this year's award for Outstanding Academic Achievement to Henry Kagey (Valedictorian) and to Michael Daneshvar (Salutatorian).
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UC San Diego is Ranked 2nd in the Nation
In new rankings announced on September 2, 2009 by the Washington Monthly measuring “what colleges are doing for the country,” the University of California, San Diego was ranked second in the nation. To read the full story, click here. Additionally, UC San Diego is ranked in the top 10 as one of the greenest universities in the country by the national publication Greenopia, based on the university’s environmental performance, and U.S. News & World Report ranks UC San Diego in the top 10 of best public universities in the nation, with the Jacobs School of Engineering ranked 11th among the nation’s public engineering schools.
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SE Brings in Big Research Projects
UC San Diego’s Department of Structural Engineering continues to bring in substantial research dollars. Here are some of the large, recently awarded projects:
•A $1.254M contract from the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) for continued blast mitigation and hardening optimization studies using the blast simulator at UC San Diego. The UC San Diego/TSWG program is now in its sixth year. In this effort, the blast simulator will be used to perform tests on steel columns and support components to investigate progressive collapse, and to develop new and novel blast mitigation strategies for entry control points. As in previous years, computational analyses will be performed in support of the experimental program and to validate analytical models, and standardized test protocols will be developed. PI: Dr. Frieder Seible with Co-PI: Dr. Gilbert Hegemier
•A $1.087M contract from Caltrans studying the “Required Embedment Length of Column Rebar Cage into Type II Shaft.” This research began in June, 2009 and runs through June, 2012. PI: Dr. Benson Shing
•A $1.20M contract from the National Science Foundation (NSF) researching “NEESR-CR: Full-Scale Structural and Nonstructural Building System Performance during Earthquakes”. This project is set to begin this October, 2009, and will go until September, 2012. PI: Dr. Tara Hutchinson with Co-PIs: Dr. Jose Restrepo and Dr. Joel Conte
Additionally, the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center (ESEC) recently received full accreditation (by an independent agency) as having “demonstrated compliance with general criteria for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories, and has been accredited, commencing June 15, 2009.” (ANS/ISO/IEC Standard 17025:2005)
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US News and World Report™ Ups UC San Diego's
Department of Structural Engineering in National Rankings
It was recently reported by US News and World Report that UC San Diego's Department of Structural Engineering program (within the specialty of "Civil Engineering") rose in rankings from #16 (in 2008) to #15 (2009) of Graduate Schools in the United States.
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2/15/10 - Holiday
4/15/10 - 
