SEAoT - Houston/Gulf Coast Chapter News

Dan Barbuto

President’s Corner

Where has the year gone? November is our last meeting of 2019. It has been a good year of transition, with good presentations, and increased involvement. Please remember to come to our golf tournament this coming Thursday, November 7th. You should have received an invite in your email. Additional information is also available on our website.

The November meeting will conclude my SEAoT Houston Chapter Presidency. It has been an honor to serve you and our structural engineering community. Emily McCarthy will be taking over as President of our chapter... [MORE]

Joshua White

Secretary’s Corner

At our last monthly meeting at Maggiano’s, Dr. Joseph Colaco presented on his contributions to the design of Pennzoil Place, a unique icon of downtown Houston. Dr. Colaco shared intriguing photographs from construction, and walked through several of the design challenges that he and his team took on to ensure the timely completion of the project. Some of the interesting challenges included the scaled wind tunnel tests to model the trapezoidal-shaped twin structures, which were constructed only 10 feet from each other; and the location of the stiff, inner core to resist torsion... [MORE]

TAMU Chapter Updates

For the second meeting of the Fall 2019 Semester, we had the privilege of hosting Saroj Shrestha, P.E., and Ryan Sbrusch, E.I.T., from Dunham Engineering, Inc. Dunham Engineering is a local structural and corrosion engineering consulting firm specializing in tanks, towers, buildings, and bridges throughout Texas and the surrounding region. They discussed two projects which highlighted the need for adaptability in engineering... [MORE]

Bookkeeping Note

SEAoT's Wild Apricot site now generates invoices for any event or meeting registrations involving a fee, but the software does not know when people cancel or pay in person.

As a result there are a lot of invoices generated that are not marked paid, but no money is actually due. We are in the process of clearing these out. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Dr. Silky Wong

 November Meeting 

Onshore Modularization in the Refining and Petrochemical Industries

Dr. Silky Wong of Dow will present at our November meeting.

Abstract: In response to the reduced labor availability and other changes in the construction industry, onshore modularization of facilities has become popular for capital projects in the refining and petrochemical industries in order to reduce project costs and thus making projects viable. Whether to modularize an onshore facility in the refining and petrochemical industries depends on various factors, such as schedule, local labor conditions, environmental conditions, equipment complexity, constructability, and local permit and environmental... [MORE]

Bio: Dr. Silky Wong is a lead Civil and Structural Engineer with Dow. She is a licensed Structural Engineer with more than 13 years of experience in both Oil & Gas and petrochemical industries. She is an active voting member of the following ASCE Committees: Energy... [MORE]