Emerging Computing Technology Meeting
Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers
Analysis and Computation Technical Committee
Held in Conjunction with the first Structural Engineers World Congress, SEWC ‘98Monday, July 20, 1998
San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Marriott
Pacific B Room
Attending Members:
Baugh, John North Carolina State University
Garrett, Jim Carnegie-Mellon University
Law, Kincho Stanford University
Neggers, Meg The Premisys Corporation
Sotelino, Elisa Purdue University
Swan, Colby University of Iowa
Turkiyyah, George University of Washington
The committee members met at 8:30 a.m. Each member received the agenda and a copy of the minutes from the Portland Structures Congress meeting.
John Baugh outlined the agenda and introduced everybody in attendance.
Jim Garrett made the motion to approve the minutes, George Turkiyyah seconded it.
There are around 1500 people attending this congress. All of the Analysis and Computation sessions are being held in the Salon 1 room. The Sunday sessions filled the room. The optimization group is sponsoring 3 sessions. The Analysis and Computation committee is sponsoring 2.5 sessions. Our committee is sponsoring 3 sessions.
The Analysis and Computation sessions are represented as a separate track in the electronic proceedings.
The Methods of Analysis committee and the Computer Aided Design committee have announced that they will merge. Their mission statements are very similar. High Performance Computing may fall under our mission statement now.
The Associate Editors have reported that 56% of all articles submitted for publication in the Journal are accepted. They also report that the review process has improved. The average time from submission to publication is 11 months.
The committee reviewed the FY98 Technical Activity dated April 1, 1998.
There are three sessions in the 1998 World Congress:
"Advanced Application of Web Technology in Structural Engineering", chaired by George Turkiyyah. There are three speakers scheduled for this session, John Baugh, Jim Garrett, and Q. Fruchter. The session is scheduled for Monday 3:45 to 5:30 p.m.
"Conceptual Structural Design / Computational Models", chaired by Jim Garrett. There are four speakers scheduled for this session, Richard Balling, H. Rivand, Colby Swan, D. Grierson, and I.C. Parmee. The session is scheduled for Tuesday 3:45 to 5:30 p.m.
"Product Modeling for Structural Engineers", chaired by Meg Neggers. There are three speakers scheduled for this session, Martin Fisher, Wolfgang Huhnt, and Charles Han. The session is scheduled for Wednesday 1:30 to 3:15 p.m.
The Emerging Computing Technology Committee is sponsoring 2 sessions at the 1999 Structures Congress. The Structures Congress is scheduled for April 18-21 in New Orleans.
"Advanced Applications of Web Technology in Structural Engineering", co-chaired by George Turkiyyah and Jim Garrett. Action Item: George and Jim will verify this session.
"Advanced Technologies in Conceptual Design" chaired by Colby Swan. This session is co-sponsored with the Optimal Structural Design Committee. The session currently has 4 speakers.
Committee members should send Jim Garrett Web sites of interest with the explanation of what the example demonstrates. Jim has not received any sites yet.
Action Item: Jim will look into the web-based committee activities.
Committee membership is renewed annually during May and June. This year we have extended most of the committee member’s terms so they could stay longer than the ASCE recommended 3 year term. The ECT committee is a small yet active committee. We need to obtain a greater membership before we can retire our active members. We also need to get some new blood into our committee.
The committee reviewed initiatives that the committee members could take to recruit new members.
Our current statement of purpose is
"To provide a mechanism by which various emerging computing technologies that may be applicable to some part of the structural engineering process can be identified and brought to the attention of the structural engineering community. Example emerging computing technologies are: object-oriented programming, neural networks, machine learning, genetic algorithms."
Should we include other examples, such as web-based technologies, field-based computing, distributed computing, quantum computing, network based computing, collaboration technology, high performance computing, and sensors?
Our committee usually takes new topics that don’t have an established committee already. We can not devote ourselves to one particular technology. If we are covering topics that another committee is based upon, it may indicate that the topic is no longer an emerging technology. If there is a particular area of interest that seems to be ongoing, we can spawn a new committee based on that topic. The current statement of purpose still applies to what we are doing.
We will modify the examples to be ‘parallel and distributed computing, database and information systems, web-based and collaboration technologies, artificial intelligence, field based computing and automation’ which are broader terms and they cover the areas that the committee is interested.
"To provide a mechanism by which various emerging computing technologies that may be applicable to some part of the structural engineering process can be identified and brought to the attention of the structural engineering community. Example emerging computing technologies are: parallel and distributed computing, database and information systems, web-based and collaboration technologies, artificial intelligence, field based computing and automation."
Our current election method is to elect a Chair and Secretary every two years. The current Chair and Secretary will complete their two year terms after this meeting. It is time to proceed with the new election.
The current 2 year term seems too short to accomplish anything.
Jim Garret made a motion to add one more level, a Vice-Chair, to our officer structure. Therefore, we will have 4 officer positions, a Secretary, Vice-Chair, a Chair, and a Past-Chair. Each officer will move up to the next position every 2 years. A new secretary will be elected every 2 years. Elisa Sotelino seconded the motion.
Jim Garrett made a motion to re-elect John Baugh as Chair, to elect Meg Neggers as Vice-Chair. Jim will remain as Past-Chair. Elisa Sotelino seconded the motion.
Jim Garrett made a motion to elect Elisa Sotelino as Secretary. Meg Neggers seconded the motion.
The ECT Committee Officers until the year 2000 are:
|
Chair: |
John Baugh |
|
Vice-Chair: |
Meg Neggers |
|
Secretary: |
Elisa Sotelino |
|
Past-Chair: |
Jim Garrett |
The 2000 Structures Congress will be held in Philadelphia, PA. There will not be a separate Analysis and Computation track at this congress.
Proposed Sessions include:
"High Performance Computing", chaired by Elisa Sotelino and John Baugh.
"Emerging Computing Technology in Structural Engineering" co-chaired by Meg Neggers, Jim Garrett and Kincho Law. This session will introduce the "pie-in-the-sky" technologies that are just now emerging. Topics will include MEMS, E-Commerce, Fiber-optic keynote. Potential speakers are Jim Garrett, Kent Reed and Ian Smith.
"Collaborative Design over the Network", chaired by Colby Swan and cosponsored with the optimization committee. This session shall identify information technology needs.
The committee tallied the interests of the attending members. Their area of interest was categorized by the tools used, the themes and the applications. This exercise was performed to find themes that we should be targeting with the committee activities:
|
Tools |
Themes |
Applications |
|
Mobile Hardware |
Inspection AI Field Support Computing |
Bridge Inspection
|
|
PVM, MPI, Java (libraries for network computing) |
High Performance Computing |
Finite Element Fluid Structure NonLinear Analysis |
|
C++ |
Object Oriented Computing |
Steel Analysis and Design |
|
MPI, C++, PCI, OpenGL, Motif |
Distributed Computing Object Oriented Computing |
Building Systems FEM Life Cycle Analysis Soil Structure/Water Interaction Fiber Reinforced Plastic Modeling Composite Columns |
|
Non Linear Programming Sequential Linear Programming GAS, FEM |
Concept Design Optimization |
Truss optimization |
|
Interface Builders Evidence Collectors Bayeslan nets |
Field Support Computing |
Bridge Inspection |
|
PETSC (portable extensible toolkit) |
High Performance Computing Object Oriented Computing Distributed Computing |
Rigid Pavements Modeling |
|
MPI Software Verification Tools Logic Based, Finite State Verification JAVA |
High Performance Computing |
Structural Control Environmental Engineers (N/A) |
|
Java |
Agent Based Computing |
Standards Processing for Buildings |
The committee discussed where we would like to go from here. It seems that other committees have currently have activities, such as writing a monograph, etc. that are bringing the committee together.
The committee agreed that we are not interested in writing a monograph. A monograph is very time consuming and its value becomes questionable.
Instead of a monograph, the committee would like to organize an "ECT Workshop" at every Structures Congress to demonstrate about what we are doing. Each demonstration will last about 10 minutes. At first, this will be mainly the committee members demonstrating their current areas of interest. Each demonstration will introduce the technology, explain why it is important, and show an application. This event would take place before our normal committee meeting. The ECT Workshop dry run will take place at the New Orleans structures congress in 1999. The 1st annual real "ECT Workshop" will take place in Philadelphia.
Action Item: Jim Garrett: Get the titles and names of demonstrations. John Baugh: Remind Jim to get the titles and names of demonstrations.
None.
The committee adjourned at 12:30 p.m.