Welcome to the online home of the Fahnestock Research Group within CEE at Illinois. Led by Prof. Larry Fahnestock, and collaborating with colleagues at Illinois and other universities, the group conducts research broadly related to behavior, design and performance of large-scale structural systems. We employ laboratory and field testing in conjunction with analytical and numerical models to illuminate critical aspects of behavior that inform advances in system configurations and design methods, ultimately leading to superior performance that contributes to infrastructure resiliency and sustainability. Research topics span across buildings and bridges, moderate and high seismic design, low and high ductility response, service and extreme load conditions. Current projects are sponsored by the National Science Foundation, American Institute of Steel Construction, Illinois Center for Transportation and Illinois Tollway. This site provides a brief overview of the group activities, so please inquire for more details about anything posted here.
Alumni Spotlight – Steelman Promoted at Nebraska
Congratulations to Josh Steelman (PhD, 2013) for his recent promotion to Associate Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln! Prof. Steelman’s areas of professional and research interest include: structural risk and reliability at the component, structure, and regional levels; response of structures to extreme events and innovative methods for structural protection; experimental investigation of structural response; performance-based evaluation and design of structures. He is involved with the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility and is the PI for a new NCHRP project related to railing collision loads.
Zhou Passes Prelim
Congratulations to Siang (Sunny) Zhou on passing her PhD preliminary exam! Sunny is co-advised by Prof. Larry Fahnestock and Prof. James LaFave, and she is studying superstructure response and load distribution in skewed steel girder bridges under thermal and traffic loading as part of a project sponsored by the Illinois Center for Transportation. Best wishes to Sunny as she continues her research!
2021 SSRC ASC Call for Papers
Abstracts are now being accepted for the 2021 SSRC Annual Stability Conference, which will be held in conjunction with the AISC North American Steel Construction Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, April 13-16, 2021.
Paper on Bolted Angle Connections
A new paper, which documents an extensive experimental program that was conducted to characterize the nonlinear response of bolted steel angles, is now available online:
Beland, T., Bradley, C.R., Nelson, J., Sizemore, J.G., Davaran, A., Tremblay, R., Hines, E.M. and Fahnestock, L.A. “Experimental parametric characterization of bolted angle connection behavior,” Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, August 2020, 146 (8): 04020160. dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0002662
Paper on Gravity Connections
A new paper on full-scale testing of steel gravity connections is now available online:
Beland, T., Tremblay, R., Hines, E.M. and Fahnestock, L.A. “Rotational Capacity of Bolted Double-Web-Angle Beam-Column Gravity Connections through Full-Scale Experimental Testing,” Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, July 2020, 146 (7): 04020111. dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0002661
SSRC Awards
Although the 2020 Structural Stability Research Council Annual Meeting / Stability Conference was canceled, SSRC is pleased to announce the annual awards. Congratulations to all winners!
Conferences Canceled
Considering the current COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 SSRC Annual Stability Conference and the 2020 Illinois Structural Engineering Conference are canceled. Stay safe everyone!
2020 Illinois Structural Engineering Conference
Registration is now open for the 2020 Illinois Structural Engineering Conference, which will be held at the I Hotel and Conference Center!
Beland Defends Dissertation
Congratulations to Thierry Beland for successfully defending his PhD dissertation at Polytechnique Montreal in December! Thierry’s research, “Improving the Seismic Robustness of Conventional Construction Concentrically Braced Steel Frames by Mobilizing the Gravity Load Framing System,” was conducted under the direction of Robert Tremblay (supervisor) and Larry Fahnestock (co-supervisor). As part of his graduate studies, Thierry was a visiting researcher at the University of Illinois in 2015. Thierry is currently working as a structural engineer for WSP.
Fahnestock and Tao attend NHERI-NIED/E-Defense Meeting
Larry Fahnestock and Zhuoqi Tao attended the 3rd NHERI-NIED/E-Defense Research Collaboration Meeting in Miki, Japan, along with collaborators from Lehigh University and Oregon State University. The research team for the new NSF-funded project “Frame-Spine System with Force-Limiting Connections for Low-Damage Seismic Resilient Buildings” observed shake table testing of a reinforced concrete building, participated in discussions with researchers from other projects and planned for shake table testing that will be conducted at E-Defense in 2020.
Meeting participants at E-Defense.