Education & Outreach
Professional Practice
A significant component of outreach for the CFS-NEES project was dedicated to professional practice. The team provided regular updates to the American Iron and Steel Institute Committee on Framing Standards and Committee on Specifications, as well as the National Institute of Building Sciences Building Science Safety Council, and the Industry Advisory Board for the project. In addition, multiple conference presentations and webinars were dedicated to professional practice outreach.
Undergraduate Researchers
Johns Hopkins University: Andrew Faulkner worked on a parametric analysis of cold-formed steel members (January 2011 - May 2011). Molly van Doren worked on cyclic testing of cold-formed steel fastener-sheathing combinations and development of a shear wall demonstration model (January 2012 - August 2012). Laura Rendos worked on the full-scale testing at the UB SEESL lab including documeting testing, documenting construction, participating in experimetnal particle tracking sensor instrumentation plan. (Summer 2013).
Tara Earley* (Summer 2011), Xiaolong Li (Summer 2012), John Puleo* (Summer 2012), Kelly Burkhart* (Summer 2013), Thet Hein Tun (Fall 2012, Summer 2013). During Summer 2011 we constructed a prototype structure for the UCIST shake table--consisting of a supporting hinged frame and rigid panel connected through rubber bushings--to demonstrate the behavior of CFS shear walls under seismic loading. During Summer 2012, we have redesigned the supporting frame and explored the use of several different types of rubber as well as other materials that exhibit degrading strength and stiffness under cyclic load. The development of the experimental models has been supplemented by computational models in OpenSees. During Summer 2013 the prototype small scale model was completed along with companion OpenSees analysis models. A draft of a lab instructor's manual was also completed which includes all of the necessary information to build the model, to perform the shake table experiments and to analyze the results using OpenSees and Matlab. The results of the educational component of the project were presented in July 2014 at 10NCEE. (* funding provided by this project)
High School Researchers
Ned Pollard, a high school junior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, built a three-dimensional computer model of the multi-degrees-of-freedom test setup using ProEngineering under the supervision of Prof. Nakata (June 2011 - August 2011). Ned also installed accelerometers on the scaled prototype structure (September 2011 - December 2011). Shake table testing in Prof. Nakata's lab of the prototype structure was completed in January 2012. Darren Saulsbury, Jr., a high school senior at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, worked on design of a scaled prototype structure in Prof. Nakata's laboratory (January 2011 - May 2011). Frances Wells a Junior at the all-girls Garrison Forest School worked on testing of fastener-sheahting stiffness and analysis and physical modeling of cold-formed steel shear walls (September 2011 - February 2012).
