Local buckling is an important phenomenon in steel structures, and this talk aims to place the phenomenon in the much larger global context of what structural engineers have achieved for society and what work we have left to do. Utilizing an historical lens the talk explores the origins of local buckling in civil structures and how engineers harnessed the best theory of the time to understand and control local buckling.
Benjamin W. Schafer
Johns Hopkins University
The simple ideas that underpin local buckling limits in current structural design are revealed, and along with it the possibilities for harnessing local buckling to create new thin efficient solutions for the future. Given the extreme state of current global infrastructure challenges, specific examples of steel innovations rising to meet these current conditions, and the importance of local buckling in these solutions is highlighted.
Benjamin Schafer, Ph.D., P.E., is the director of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute and Hackerman Professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is also active in engineering consulting and is currently a consulting principal at Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger. He holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Cornell University in structural engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Iowa. Schafer has led numerous research projects on the behavior and design of thin-walled steel structures.
He is dedicated to the codes and standards process with over 20 years of service to AISC, AISI, and ASCE, and currently serves as Chair of AISC TC4 on Members, Vice Chair of the AISC Committee on Structural Stainless Steel, and Chair of ASCE 8 on cold-formed stainless steel. He has previously served as Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins, Chair of the Structural Stability Research Council, President of the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute, and North American Editor of the journal Thin-Walled Structures.