It is with pleasure that I introduce two new associate editors who joined our editorial team late last year: Laura Lowes will lend her expertise in the area of analysis and computation with particular emphasis on reinforced concrete structures while Genda Chen replaces Anil Agrawal from the technical committee on structural control and health monitoring.
Laura Lowes (Fig. 1) has a BSCE from the University of Washington and MSCE and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she teaches classes on structural analysis, finite-element methods, and nonlinear analysis, as well as numerical methods and computing. Dr. Lowes’s research focuses on analysis and computation to support performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE). Her research has addressed the development of earthquake response models for reinforced concrete beam-column joints as well as earthquake performance models for reinforced concrete bridge columns. With funding from the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center, she worked with graduate students to implement response models in the OpenSees analysis platform (OpenSees is an open-source framework for earthquake analysis of structural and geotechnical systems developed by researchers at PEER: http://opensees.berkeley.edu) as well as evaluate the application of these and other response models available in the OpenSees platform for earthquake simulation of older reinforced concrete buildings. With funding from PEER and the Applied Technology Council, Dr. Lowes has worked with colleagues to develop earthquake damage prediction models (i.e., fragility functions) for reinforced concrete beam-column joints, walls, and frames. Dr. Lowes was a coauthor of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s Outstanding Earthquake Spectra Paper for 2007 that presented revisions to ASCE/SEI Seismic Rehabilitation of Existing Buildings related to existing reinforced concrete buildings; these revisions were adopted as Supplement 1. Currently, Dr. Lowes is leading a multiuniversity effort, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation Research (NEESR) Program and the Charles Pankow Foundation, to investigate the earthquake performance of slender reinforced concrete core-wall systems and develop the response and performance-prediction models required for PBEE of these systems. Dr. Lowes is also working currently on NSF-NEESR-funded research projects to advance the numerical modeling of squat concrete walls and steel-plate shear walls. Continuum-type finite-element analysis of concrete structures is also an area of interest for Dr. Lowes. She has investigated the development and application of constitutive models for simulating local response mechanisms in reinforced concrete bond zones, beam-column joints, and walls; she has also applied finite-element methods to investigate the behavior of prestressed concrete components. From 2003-2009 Dr. Lowes was a co-chair of ACI/ASCE Committee 447: Finite-Element Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Structures. In 2005, Dr. Lowes with her colleagues was awarded the George D. Nasser Award by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute for a paper presenting an analytical and numerical investigation of damage in precast, prestressed, double-tee beams subjected to torsion.
Fig. 1. Laura Lowes
Genda Chen (Fig. 2) is a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T, formerly University of Missouri-Rolla), located in Rolla, Missouri. A licensed professional engineer and ASCE Fellow, he currently serves as interim director of the Center for Infrastructure Engineering Studies at Missouri S&T and associate director of the Mid-America Transportation Center headquartered at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Before joining the Missouri S&T faculty in 1996, Dr. Chen had more than three years of bridge consulting experience in structural analysis, design, inspection, and assessment of highway and long-span bridges. His research interests are related to structural control, structural health monitoring, interfacial mechanics of composite structures, forensic investigation of metal structures, and earthquake and blast effects on civil infrastructure. Specialties within these fields include semiactive devices, passive energy dissipation systems, sensor development and interaction with structures, bond mechanism and characterization at material interfaces, and structural performance assessment under dynamic loads. Dr. Chen is a member of the editorial board of Structural Control and Health Monitoring, and a recent guest editor of a special issue of Structural Engineering and Mechanics. He is the author of more than 150 papers, including more than 45 journal articles. Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in civil engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, in 1992. He was a recipient of the 1998 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Awards. He has served on the organization and program committees of more than 10 national and international conferences. He is the current chair of ASCE Performance-based Design for Buildings and Secretary of ASCE Structural Control Committee.
Fig. 2. Genda Chen
This Month in JSE
This issue of the Journal contains ten technical papers and two technical notes.
The first paper, by Koduru and Haukaas, demonstrates a methodology for unified reliability analysis applied to the “Probabilistic Seismic Loss Assessment of a Vancouver High-Rise Building.” This is followed by two papers dealing with seismic response of structures: the “Experimental Seismic Response of a Full-Scale Light-Frame Wood Building” is presented by Filiatrault et al., wherein the influence of interior and exterior finishes is highlighted; the second paper by Ou et al. describes findings from a “Large-Scale Experimental Study of Precast Segmental Unbonded Posttensioned Concrete Bridge Columns for Seismic Regions.”
The next three papers fall into the general category of analysis and computation. Giussani and Mola propose a “Displacement Method for the Long-Term Analysis of Steel-Concrete Beams with Flexible Connection;” Yu et al. present the “Development and Validation of 3D Composite Structural Elements at Elevated Temperatures;” and a scheme for “Finite-Element Modeling of Nonlinear Behavior of Masonry-Infilled RC Frames” is proposed and validated by Stavridis and Shing.
In “Finite-Element Analysis of Fluid-Structure Interaction in a Blast-Resistant Window System” Chung et al. examine the influences of shock wave propagation and fluid venting inside the damping chamber of a flexible window system. A sensitivity-based “Damage Identification in a Truss Tower by Regularized Model Updating” is demonstrated by Weber and Paultre.
Two papers on metal structures comprise the final group of technical papers. Results of experiments and procedures to assess capacity are presented by Cheng Yu for “Distortional Buckling of Cold-Formed Steel Shear Wall Studs under Uplift Force.” “The Influence of Flexibility on the Fatigue Performance of the Base Plate Connection in High-Mast Lighting Towers” is investigated by Warpinski et al.
Also included in the issue are two technical notes. Duthinh and Simiu contend that the ASCE 7 provisions are not risk-consistent in their paper “Safety of Structures in Strong Winds and Earthquakes: Multihazard Considerations.” Morrison and Kopp attempt to resolve a previously reported research finding in “Analysis of Wind-Induced Clip Loads on Standing Seam Metal Roofs.”
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