Dr. Božidar Stojadinović is the Chair of Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich. Before coming to ETH, he was a Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and a Geological Faculty Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. His degrees are in Civil Engineering: PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1995, MS from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1990 and BS from the University of Belgrade, Serbia in 1988. His main research is in the probabilistic performance-based seismic resilience evaluation and design of civil structures and infrastructure systems. In this area, he specializes in performance-based fragility evaluation of buildings, bridges, civil infrastructure systems and nuclear facility structures. In his second research area, Dr. Stojadinović is using the performance-based design principles to develop and apply new response modification techniques, such as rocking and seismic isolation, for seismic protection of civil infrastructure assets. His third research area is focused on the development of new experimental testing methods, such as the coupled thermo-mechanical hybrid simulation method, for evaluation of the response of civil structures to dynamic excitation and fire using hybrid models that combine physical and numerical substructures. Dr. Stojadinović teaches courses in Seismic Design, Structural Dynamics and Theory of Structures.
ABSTRACT -Experimental Structural Engineering: Past, Present and Future
Experiments inspire theory, theory enables practice, and practice that goes “out of the box” is a new experiment. Advances in structural engineering over time keep changing the role of each element of this triad. Lacking the theory, engineers used prototype structures and sophisticated scaled model tests to prove their structures work. The invention of computers and the theoretical advances that lead to the implementation of the finite element method shifted the focus from experiments to numerical simulation in last half of the 20th century. Today, experiments are key in the verification and validation of design, numerical and analytical models, making simulation-based design possible. Modern hybrid simulation methods open new horizons: they enable separate tests of non-structural and structural components under complex boundary conditions and mechanical and thermal loads, as well as integral experiments to assess the dynamic response of structural systems comprised of such components. In the meantime, the practice developed too. Future experimental campaigns must fully embrace uncertainties and quantify them in ways that support probabilistic performance-based design. New ways to observe the experiments and integrate and correlate large amounts of collected data give new insights. Ubiquitous sensors and the data streaming from them promise to turn prototype structures into experiments, enabling continuous model updating, thus blurring the line between engineering design, modeling and experimentation. The time to shape the future of experimental structural engineering is now.
