The Structural Engineering Department has a mission to provide a comprehensive education and training to engineers by emphasizing and building on the commonality of engineering structures at the levels of materials, mechanics, analysis and design.
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The Structural Engineering (SE) Department of UCSD cordially invites you to attend the SE Research Showcase Day, which will be held on February 15, 2019, in
Congratulations to Professor Francesco Lanza di Scalea for receiving the 2017-2018 Best Undergraduate Teacher Award!
Professor Ken Loh and student Sumit Gupta have been awarded the "Institute of Engineering in Medicine (IEM), 10th Anniversary Symposium Best Paper Award" for
Professor John McCartney,
Professor Kenneth Loh has been awarded the 2018 Structural Health Monitoring Person-of-the-Year Award from the British Institute of Non-Destructive Testing (
On behalf of the approximately 500 undergraduate students, 200 graduate students, 26 researchers, 33 staff members, and 23 faculty members in the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California San Diego, welcome! Structural engineering plays a critical role in fulfilling the basic needs of society for safe and sustainable built environments and transportation means, and is an interdisciplinary field that provides exciting opportunities for solving problems at the forefront of research and practice. Learn more
Earthquake and geotechnical engineering, performance assessment of structural/nonstructural components, and machine l
High-performance infrastructure materials, smart materials and structures, energy-related materials, failure analysis
Earthquake engineering, structural dynamics, inelastic behavior of concrete and masonry structures, bridge structures
The Department of Structural Engineering offers a unique program
spanning across civil, aerospace, and mechanical engineering.
Center researchers are world-renowned experts in experimental and computational methods for extreme events research. We leverage this expertise to develop better ways to protect entire built infrastructures, as well as bio-systems, from extreme events such as blasts from terrorist attacks and mining explosions, car crashes, sports collisions, and natural disaster such as landslides. Learn more
The Charles Lee Powell Structural Research Laboratories are the largest and most active full-scale structural testing facilities in the world. With its 50 ft. tall reaction wall and 120 ft. long strong floor, the Structural Systems Laboratory is equipped for full-scale testing of bridges, buildings and aircraft.
One of the world's largest shake tables, the six-degree-of-freedom shake table is used for the dynamic testing of full-scale bearings, isolators, and dampers. Computer-controlled hydraulic actuators that can apply up to 12 million pounds of force during earthquake simulations power SRMD.
In 2005, the Englekirk Structural Engineering Center opened as an expansion of Powell Labs, equipped with the world's first outdoor shake table. It is adjacent to the country's largest Soil Foundation-structure Interaction Facility. UCSD Blast Simulator is the world's first laboratory to simulate the effects of bombs without the use of explosive materials.
Professor Chia-Ming Uang
Steel special moment frame is widely used for multistory building construction in high seismic regions due to its excellent ductility capacity and architectural versatility.
Professor Gilbert A. Hegemier
The UC San Diego blast simulator characterizes the response of civilian and military components and systems to terrorist explosive attack and high impact scenarios.
Professor Qiang Zhu
Since the size of red blood cells is comparable to those of micro-vessels and capillaries, in microcirculation blood cannot be treated as continuum uid.
Dr. Gianmario Benzoni with University of Salerno
The ability of pentamode lattices to have both very soft and very stiff deformation modes suggests they are potentially suitable for use as seismic isolators.
Professor Gilberto Mosqueda
Seismic isolation has been proven as an e ective strategy to protect critical facilities including Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) from the damaging e ects of horizontal earthquake ground shaking.
Professor Robert J. Asaro
The cell wall of S. cerevisae serves to protect the cell from thermal, oxidative and mechanical stresses and it is the target for anti-fungal drugs in pathogenic strains.
Professor Ahmed Elgamal
Three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear nite element simulations are becoming increasingly feasible for geotechnical applications. OpenSeesPL, created by J. Lu, A. Elgamal, and Z.
Professor Yu Qiao
Stress wave mitigation in porous materials, such as silica monoliths and PTFE foams, are investigated.
Professor Francesco Lanza Di Scalea
Internal defects in rails cause a number of train accidents worldwide, including derailments.
Professor Petr Krysl
Methodology for stabilizing mean-strain hexahedron and tetrahedron finite elements for applications to anisotropic deformation in the infinitesimal- and finite-strain was described in several paper
Professor J. S. Chen
The complex multi-scale failure modes, damage evolution, and fragmentation resulting from high velocity contact- impact processes in solids and structures pose considerable di culties in simulation
Professor Yuri Bazilevs
A fully coupled uid–structure interaction (FSI) simulation methodology for wind turbines was developed in order to address a variety of engineering questions related to their aerodynamic and struct
Kenneth J. Loh, Sumit Gupta, Gaochen Fan, and Sashank Shivakumar
Aerospace, civil, marine, and even biological structures and components are susceptible to damage that often initiate beneath the surface, which make them difficult to detect by conventional visual
Professor Michael Todd
Ultrasonic guided wave interrogation using piezoelectric arrays and full- eld laser ultrasonic inspection has evolved into a very active research area.
Associate Professor
Geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) bridge abutments are widely used in transportation infrastructure, and provide many advantages over traditional pile-supported bridge abutments, including lower c
Professor H. Alicia Kim and Dr. Hayoung Chung
With the development of Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, an architected material (a material with designed internal architecture, e.g.
Structural Engineering R.Asaro, Associate Director Y. Bazilevs, Director J.S. Chen, Associate Director G. Hegemier
Center researchers are world-renowned experts in experimental and computational methods, design optimization, sensor technology and multifunctional materials for extreme events.
Professor Falko Kuester, Professor Tara Hutchingson, Professor Joel Conte
If the prospect of a mega-earthquake has you quaking — fear not, because UC San Diego engineers are making sure our world will withstand the rumble.
Professor Hyonny Kim
Impact damage to laminated composite aircraft structures, when subjected to in-flight impact by hailstones, can be extensive internally while exhibiting low external visual detectability.
Professor Benson Shing
Buildings designed according to current codes in the US are expected to have a low probability of collapse in an extreme seismic event.
Professor Lelli Van Den Einde
A Spatial Visualization Trainer (SVT) App was developed for an iPad to enable students to freehand sketch isometrics and orthographic projections.
Professor Lelli Van Den Einde
Current Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) calls for introducing engineering design principles as early as Pre-K.