Structural Engineering Research

The large scale structural strong floor facility located at the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory.

Currently there are four structural engineering faculty members in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering: Dr. Chris Higgins, Dr. Tom Miller, Dr. Michael Scott and Dr. Solomon Yim. While all four members have an interest in structural analysis and seismic related issues, Dr. Higgins and Dr. Miller specialize in design and experimental studies, and Dr. Scott and Dr. Yim emphasize structural mechanics, dynamics, computer application and numerical modeling.

In recent years the teams research projects have been supported by the National Science Foundation, Oregon Department of Transportation, United States Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Naval Research. Collaborative work has been developed with researchers at Lehigh University, Cornell University, the Transportation Ministry (Japan), and the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Researchers also belong to the Consortium of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering (CUREE) and are affiliated with with the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center.

Strong Floor

Many structural engineering research projects take advantage of OSU's large scale structural strong floor. This facility is the second largest structural testing floor on the West Coast and allows researchers to simulate earthquakes and forces up to one million pounds and frames up to two stories high. The floor is steel-reinforced concrete five feet thick, with massive bolts and anchors to which materials can be attached and their strength tested. The facility has recently been used for studies of bridge cracking that have been undertaken on behalf of the Oregon Department of Transportation. Of the states 1800 bridges constructed in the 1950's, 500 have been identified as cracked. Replacement and repair costs could cost several billion dollars. OSU researchers are developing modeling tools and data banks to forecast how the cracked bridges will perform over time, develop ways to assess bridge reliabiliy, and identify repair options. Read more about the strong floor here...

A moving load test.

Recent Projects

Below you can link to descriptions of several recent research projects:

• Behavior of Conventionally Reinforced Concrete Beams with Corrosion Damaged Stirrups
• Pacific Stair Tests
• FE Models of GFRP and CFRP Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Beams
• Finite Element Modeling of RC Beams with Shear Dominated Behavior
• Field Tests of In-Service Bridges
• Moving Load Tests of Full-Scales RC Girders to Failure
• Developments of a Confined Yielding Brace for Seismic Resistant Design
• Reliability Based Assessment of CRC Girders
• Shear Behavior of CRC Girders Under High-Cycle Fatigue
• Low-Cycle Fatigue Performance of CRC Girders in Shear
• Orthotropic Plate Theory Applications for Partially and Fully Filled Grid Decks

Images and Video

View images and videos of structural engineering facilities and experiments.

Images:

• CFRP Repair

Video:

• CFRP Failure Videos

  Specimen 1	Specimen 2	Specimen 3	Specimen 4
  Specimen 5	Specimen 6	Specimen 7	Specimen 8