Speaker:

Ashraf El Damatty, Ph.D., P.Eng.,  F.CSCE
Professor and Chair
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Faculty Scholar
Research Director, WindEEE Research Institute
The University of Western Ontario, Canada
Time:  2015-12-14 9:50-10:40
Venue: Civil Engineering B504
Chair：Huanjun Jiang

Outline :
An extensive research program in various applications in Structural and Wind Engineering is currently undertaken at The University of Western Ontario. The research is supported by unique infrastructure and testing facilities recently established at Western. Two research facilities, the Insurance Lab for Better Homes (ILBH) and the WindEEE dome, enabling full and model scale testing of structures under various types of wind storms will be described. The ILBH is a $7M research infrastructure that allows testing full-scale residential houses under simulated wind loads. The WindEEE dome was established through a $30M infrastructure grant provided by the Federal and Ontario governments. It has about 120 fans that can be controlled separately, presenting the first and only three-dimensional wind testing chamber in the world. A number of unique and exciting projects currently undertaken at both facilities will be presented. This includes research that the group is leading worldwide on the effect of tornadoes and downbursts on transmission line structures. This large research project is supported by the major electrical utility company in Ontario “Hydro One”. Other projects including investigation smart tuned liquid dampers for mitigating the wind-induced vibration of tall buildings, the development of an innovative retrofit system for upgrading the uplift resistance of wooden houses, the aerodynamic shape optimization of tall buildings, and the effect of steep topography on wind flow.

About the Speaker :
Dr. Ashraf El Damatty is a Professor, Faculty Scholar, and Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. He has 30 years of experience in teaching, research and consulting in Structural Engineering, with special emphasis on Wind and Earthquake Engineering. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering. He is Founder and Past Chair of the Steel Committee of the Canadian Society of Civil engineering. He has been a consultant to many private and government organizations in Canada, USA, and the Middle East. He has over 150 publications in the area of structural engineering and supervised the research of more than 40 graduate students. He served on many technical and professional committees in Canada and in the USA and was invited as Keynote speaker in international conferences in China, India, Korea, Egypt and UAE.  He received several awards including the Alan Yorkdale Award by the American Standard for Testing Methods (ASTM), the Best Paper Award at the Canadian Conference on Effective Design of Structures, the Honourable Mention in 2014 Casimir Gzowski Medal competition, Western University Faculty Scholar Award, and the 2015 CSCE E. Whitman Wright Career Award. He is the Co-Editor-in-chief of the Journal and Wind and Structures.

All interested are welcome!