Emerging Computing Technology Meeting

 

Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers

Analysis and Computation Technical Committee

 

1997 Structures Congress

 

Sunday, April 13, 1997

Portland, OR

Hilton Galleria 1

 

Attending Members:

Baugh, John North Carolina State University

Chen, Stuart State University of New York at Buffalo

Garrett, Jim Carnegie-Mellon University

Neggers, Meg The Premisys Corporation

Swan, Colby University of Iowa

Turkiyyah, George University of Washington

Guest:

Greerson, Don University of Waterloo

 

  1. Introduction of members and guests

    2. The committee members met at 2:30 p.m. Each member received the agenda and a copy of the minutes from the Chicago Structures Congress meeting.

  2. Approval of the agenda

    3. John Baugh outlined the agenda and introduced everybody in attendance.

  3. Review and approval of the minutes of the last meeting, April 14, 1996 in Chicago.

    4. The Emerging Computing Technology sponsored 5 sessions at the 1996 Structures Congress. For the most part, they were fairly well attended with about 20 to 25 people in each session. The sessions late in the Congress, on Thursday, were not so well attended.

    Jim Garrett made the motion to approve the minutes, George Turkiyyah seconded it.

  4. Status reports
    1. Review of committee roster

      2. The official terms for membership on SEI committees is an initial 3 year membership period with one 1 year renewal period. SEI has been recently enforcing this regulation. Since the ECT committee is a fairly young committee with most of its membership consisting of original members, a strict enforcement of this regulation would essentially wipe out the committee. The committee will review the official committee roster, distinguish committee members from those that are interested in the committee on the Web Page, and fight to extend the membership period for the active committee members. Jasbir is currently looking into this issue.

      Action item: Clean up the official committee roster. John Baugh, Jim Garrett

      Initiative: Add 5 new members to the official committee roster in the upcoming year. Each committee member should try to recruit a new member.

    2. Report on Analysis and Computation Committee Meeting

      3. The Analysis and Computation track for the 1998 World Structures Congress had 23 proposed sessions. 2 were rejected. 4 were merged. 13 were approved. 3.5 of the sessions are sponsored by the Emerging Computing Technology Committee. (One is shared with the optimization committee). The 4 panels/tutorials were not accepted.

      Each session chair should inform the speakers of the guidelines for authors. The timing for each session is 105 minutes for 6 speakers. Each speaker will have 13 minutes to talk, 3 minutes for questions, and 1.5 minutes to turnover to the next speaker. The proceedings for the 1998 Structures Congress will be published on CD-ROM. All papers will be 8 pages long.

      The Analysis and Computation committee wants ECT to investigate the possibility of electronic publishing as a journal activity.

    3. Review of FY97 technical activity report

      4. Jim Garrett is still responsible for maintaining the ECT Home Page. He still has an offer out to anybody that wishes to take over this activity.

      Action Item: Resolve the Technical Activity Report: John Baugh, Jim Garrett.

    4. Sessions in the 1997 Structures Congress

    There are two sessions in the 1997 Structures Congress

    "Emerging Technologies for Monitoring Structures", chaired by Hani Melham. This session is cosponsored by the Methods of Monitoring Performance of Structures committee.

    "Virtual Reality Applications in Structural Engineering", chaired by George Turkiyyah. There are three speakers scheduled for this session, Stephen Cooper, Greg Miller, and Jim Garrett (filling in for Dan Rehak).

  5. Current business:
    1. Sessions for 1998 Structures Congress

    The Emerging Computing Technology Committee is sponsoring 4 sessions at the 1998 Structures Congress.

    "Advanced Application of Web Technology in Structural Engineering", chaired by George Turkiyyah. The speakers for the Web Applications in Structural Engineering Session will be encouraged to submit the standard 8 page paper to be published in the proceedings as well as an alternative web site augmentation. This is an exciting method to investigate the possibilities of electronic publishing on the World Wide Web. This session currently has 6 speakers.

    "The State of Product Modeling for Structures & Structural Engineering Process" cochaired by Meg Neggers, Jim Garrett, and Kincho Law. This session currently has 6 speakers.

    "Data Management/Evaluation/Interpretation Applications for Structural Engineering", chaired by Stu Chen. This session currently has 6 speakers (3 from the Pacific Rim, 3 from the United States).

    "Computing Support for Conceptual Structural Design", charied by Jim Garrett. This session has 6 speakers. This session is cosponsored by the optimization committee.

  6. New business
    1. Sessions for 1999 Structures Congress

      2. The 1999 Structures Congress will be held in New Orleans, LA. There will not be a separate Analysis and Computation track at this congress. The call for sessions will be out in a few weeks.

      Proposed Sessions include:

      "Advanced Applciations of Web Technology in Structural Engineering" cochaired by George Turkiyyah and Jim Garrett. This session will continue the discussion shown in the 1998 Structures Congress session. It will also be a reporting ground for the success of the electronic publishing experiment.

      "Advanced Technologies in Conceptual Design", chaired by Colby Swan and cosponsored with the optimization committee. This session shall identify information technology needs.

    2. New initiatives:
      1. Emerging technologies of interest

The committee brainstormed for topics of emerging technologies. They include:
      1. Support for continuing education, electronic dissemination
      2. Web-based committee activities, monograph

        3. The Emerging Computing Technology Committee considered sponsoring a structural engineering information repository site for ASCE. Topics could include access to reference materials, links to sites of interest, and forums for practicing structural engineers to exchange information. As a first pass, the committee decided to create a site that points to other sites that try to accomplish these goals. Each site should be preceded by an explanation of how the site demonstrates a benefit to the membership of SEI and ASCE.

        This electronic site is the third of a one-two-three Web based theme that Emerging Computing Technology Committee is establishing. (The Web session at the 1998 Structures Congress, the alternative web published papers for the session, and this site demonstrating the potential of web activities and their benefits to the SEI.) This activity may be the beginning of a preliminary version of an on-line monograph.

        Action Item: Setup the site. Jim Garrett

        Initiative: Send Jim Garrett sites of interest with the explanation of what the example demonstrates. All members of the committee.

      3. Suggestions
  1. Other business, announcements

    2. Dave Rosowsky from ASCE News introduced himself to the committee. The ASCE News should be used as a method for inforkiyyah, Jim Garrett.

  2. Adjourn

The committee adjourned at 6:30 p.m.

ah, Jim Garrett.

  • Adjourn

    • The committee adjourned at 6:30 p.m.