We had a great turnout for February’s chapter meeting, as our engineering community gathered to hear from Paul Summers, PE, SE, and Dr. Guzhao Li, PE, SE, from Simpson Gumpertz & Heger (SGH).
Paul and Guzhao jointly presented on blast-resistant window and curtain wall design. While we are all familiar with typical wind loads these elements must be designed for, it was intriguing to hear SGH discuss performance criteria and design considerations for blast loads. SGH provided a brief overview of typical design approaches for various types of blast loads (e.g., vapor cloud versus terrorist attack), as well as available guidelines that address response criteria and blast design tools.
Paul and Guzhao presented a case study on a blast-resistant project for a federal research facility. This project had to consider how the curtainwall system absorbed and transferred blast loads from an external event into the framing system. Among many challenging aspects of this project, SGH had to consider and account for the geometry effects on blast design, considering the structure’s unique plan view.
If you have not yet already, please take an opportunity to complete our chapter survey. We would like to get your input on various topics so we can organize this chapter to meet the needs of its members.
Stay tuned in for upcoming announcements for our March meeting, as TBPE will join us to provide our ethics seminar and an update on the professional practice.
