| Biography | |
|---|---|
 Prof. Nur Yazdani University of Texas at Arlington, USA |
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| Title: Performance of Light-Frame Residential Wood Structures under Combined Wind and Flood Hazards | |
| Abstract: Although simultaneous flood and wind events may cause catastrophic damage in areas outside the special flood hazard areas, there are no current building code requirements for light frame wooden structures (LWFS) to be elevated and/or designed for the combined loads. This study numerically investigated the performance of typical elevated and a non-elevated LFWS buildings in 100- and 500-year flood plains,respectively, against global failure due to combined flood and wind forces. Factors such as the direction of lateral loads, effect of buoyancy and flood level difference between the building interior and exterior were considered. The adequacy of foundation anchor bolts spacing provisions from the International Building Code (IBC) and Bureau of Recovery and Mitigation (BRM) were investigated. For the non-elevated type building, it was found out that a non-engineered building complying only with the minimum requirements set by building codes is likely to fail locally at the wall-foundation connection before any global failure. In case of elevated buildings, two-story elevated buildings are safer against overturning, sliding and uplifting failures, as compared to one-story counterparts. | |
| Biography: Dr. Yazdani is a Professor and Former Chairman of Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. He received a PhD degree from the University of Maryland and is a licensed Professional Engineer. He is well known for his research on concrete/timber bridge design and rehabilitation, sustainable technologies for the built environment, resilient and high performing infrastructure design and rehabilitation, infrastructure protection for natural and man-made hazards, concrete properties, and engineering education. During his career, Dr. Yazdani has received numerous awards for his teaching and research abilities and has secured more than $15 million from externally-funded research projects, on most of which he is/was the principal investigator. Funding sources have included a variety of federal, state and local entities, such as the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), U. S. department of Transportation (USDOT), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U. S. Army, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT). Dr. Yazdani’s significant relevant research work involves multi-hazard performance and behavior of coastal structures, building code implementation, tornado shelters, elevated construction for flood mitigation and fire hazards evaluation. He is the founder and Director of the Disaster Mitigation Center at UT Arlington. Dr. Yazdani serves on editorial boards of ASCE and Elsevier journals, the Florida Hurricane Loss Prevention Commission and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) panels. A Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), American Concrete Institute (ACI) and ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr. Yazdani is the author or co-author of over 136 journal articles and 110 conference papers. He is an invited speaker at conferences and seminars on disaster mitigation and structural engineering. Dr. Yazdani has been very active in leadership roles national societies such as the ASCE, ACI and SEI. Dr. Yazdani has organized many technical sessions at national/international conferences. He is an ASCE certified ABET civil engineering program evaluator. | |
