STRUCTURAL DIVISION, ASCE Report on Activities FY95 Report on Plans FY96 Committee on: Emerging Computing Technology TAC: Analysis and Computation Submitted by: James H. Garrett, Jr., Chair Date: March 15, 1995 ************************************************************* I. Administration A. Membership (number of committee members): 15 B. Meetings: 1. Meetings held during FY95: - April 2, 1995, Boston, MA - June 5, 1995, Atlanta, GA 2. Meetings planned for FY 96 (date location) - April 1996, Chicago, IL - June 1996, At the TCCP 3rd Computing Congress C. Subcommittee and Task Committees (reporting to this committee): None II. Papers in FY95 (10/94 - 9/95) Journal of Structural Engineering A. Number of papers reviewed for Journal: 0 as committee activity (No record is kept of this activity for individual members) B. Number of Papers published in Journal: 0 as committee activity (No record is kept of this activity) III. Publications (Special Publications, Manuals, other) A. Publications completed during FY95 (10/94 - 10/95) (title, where and when published) None. B. Publications in preparation (title, expected completion date) - ASCE Monograph on Neural Networks in Civil Engineering Most of the chapters have been through two rounds of review. We are in the processing of editing and modifying the first few introductory chapters to take account of the material in the latter chapters. We are also editing the introductory material to provide an overview of all of these various applications of ANNs. It is expected that the monograph will be prepared for submission to the ASCE by the middle of 1995. The co-editors of this monograph are: Nabil Kartam (U. Maryland), Ian Flood (U. Maryland), and Jim Garrett. The first two editors are representing the ASCE/TCCP-AI and Expert Systems Committee and Jim Garrett is representing the ASCE/SD-ECT Committee. - IEEE Expert Magazine: Special Track on Applications of AI in Civil Engineering This special track is a series of papers on applications of AI to Civil Engineering problems. It is being co-edited by Jim Garrett (representing ASCE/SD-ECT Committee) and Ian Smith (from EPFL representing the European counterpart of this committee, EG-SEA-AI). We were invited to do this by the editor of the IEEE Expert Magazine and felt it was an excellent opportunity to illustrate the many exciting and very useful applications of AI in Civil Engineering. Expected Completion Date: September 95 - January 96. C. Publications planned for the future (topic, expected starting date) None at this time. At our meetings in April and June, we will discuss possibilities. We are very busy with our current publication activities. IV. Technical Sessions (ASCE Annual Convention, Structures Congresses, Specialty Conferences, other meetings) A. Sessions held during FY95 (10/94 - 9/95) - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIII April 3-5, 1995, Boston MA "Logic Programming for Structural Engineering" Sivand Lakmazaheri, Catholic University, Stuart Chen, State University of New York at Buffalo, and Kim Roddis of the University of Kansas. - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIII April 3-5, 1995, Boston MA "Fuzzy Logic Applications in Structural Engineering Hani Melhem, Kansas State University B. Sessions Planned for FY96 (10/95 - 9/96) - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIV April 1996, Chicago, IL "Computational Support for Intelligent Structures" Stuart Chen, State University of New York at Buffalo, and - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIV April 1996, Chicago, IL "Demystifying the Alphabet Soup of Emerging Computing Technology" John Baugh, North Carolina State University Jim Garrett, Carnegie Mellon University - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIV April 1996, Chicago, IL "Computer Models for the Life Cycle of Building Projects" Meg Neggers, Premisys Corp. - Technical Session in Structures Congress XIV April 1996, Chicago, IL "Emerging Computing Technology in Practice" Mohamed Elkordy, New York Department of Transportation - Tutorial Session in Structures Congress XIV April 1996, Chicago, IL "Object-Oriented Programming Techniques" Meg Neggers, Premisys Corp. C. Sessions Planned for the future: - Sessions and workshops are being planned for both the 1997 Structures Congress. Some of the topics being considered are the following: A session on Physically Based Modeling and Simulation as it relates to Structural Engineering A session on Engineering Communication via technology tools such as networking hardware/protocols(ATM, etc.), networking software (WWW stuff of whatever is used by then), collaborative software, existing information servers on engineering, distributed multimedia (which by 1997 will probably be implicit within all the above), and methods for distance learning to remain competitive. V. Other activities (type of activities, action completed or planned) A. Completed during FY95 (10/94 - 3/95) - We now have a World Wide Web homepage that describes the mission of the committee and is a mechanism by which other information can be disseminated. This approach and direction will be discussed extensively at our upcoming meetings. The URL for this homepage is: httpd:\\www.ce.cmu.edu:8000/afs/ce/usr/jg9d/www/ect/home.html\ - We have conducted a servey of members of the ASCE Structures Division to determine the topics on which they would like to see the ECT present sessions and tutorials. B. Planned for FY96 - International joint activity with the European community Ian Smith, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, is a member of a newly formed European Group for Structural Engineering Applications of AI, EG-SEA-AI (20-30 persons). This group stemmed for the somewhat fragmented situation in Europe in AI research and development. Smith and J. Garrett are keeping contacts through e-mail and other means for possible joint activity between this group and the ECT. A workshop is being held in August 1996, sponsored by EG-SEA-AI, and ECT members will strongly participate. - We will continue to develop our WWW Homepage and investigate other mechanisms on the WWW that could be of benefit to the Structural Engineering community. By maintaining a presence on the Web, we will be able to quickly disseminate information and possibly provide other services. The nature and extent of these services will be investigated as part of this committee's activities. C. Planned for the future - An ASCE monograph on Logic Programming is planned for the year 1997. - Multimedia products are being considered by the committee for educational purposes (ASCE continuing education department). Nelson Baker would take the lead in this activity in the later part of 1996. VI. Plans for the Future (goals, areas of opportunity, etc.) The main objectives of this subcommittee of the Analysis and Computation TAC of the ASCE Structures Division are to: 1. bring to the attention of the structural engineering community emerging (or possibly existing) computing technology (including hardware and software technologies) that may be applicable to some part of the structural engineering process and is not currently being employed; and 2. transfer to that community some degree of understanding of these technologies so that the community begins to experiment with these computing technologies. The following is our proposed plan of activity for the next few years. The names of people expressing interest in taking the lead on these activities is also listed next to the topics. These topics include: 1) Neural Networks (Garrett, Ghaboussi) 2) Multimedia (Baker, Sause) 3) Logic Programming (Lakmazaheri, Roddis, Chen) 4) Fuzzy logic (Melhem) 5) Distributed Computing (Baugh) 6) Virtual Reality 7) Genetic Algorithms 8) Advanced Communication (Garrett, Baker, Chen) 9) Information Management (Neggers) 10) Concurrent Engineering (Garrett) 11) Standards Representation (Garrett, Law) VII. List activities that have been delayed or tabled due to lack of funding. - None.