Presentation Outline: A definitive shift is emerging in the cold-formed steel framed building industry towards system-level seismic evaluation – both in the codes and specifications and in the tools engineers use to evaluate existing buildings. The steel industry has always had empirical evidence that repetitive framing benefits system reliability and efficiency, and efforts to quantify these effects – through recent research grants from the National Science Foundation and through long-term industry investment, are starting to make broad positive impacts. This seminar will showcase these beneficial impacts with project-specific examples and case studies. Topics are presented from both practitioner and researcher perspectives, and the content is tailored to practicing structural engineers who will be the end users of these forthcoming cold-formed steel framing seismic evaluation methods, tools, and specifications.

The webinar is designed for architects, engineers, building officials and contractors. Participants are eligible for 1.5 PDHs. 

Benjamin Schafer, Ph.D., P.E., is the Swirnow Family Faculty Scholar, Professor, and Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Ben is a past-president of CFSEI, current Chair of the Structural Stability Research Council, Director of the Cold-Formed Steel Research Consortium, and North American Editor for the Journal Thin-walled Structures. He serves on standards committees for both AISI and AISC. Ben worked as a practicing engineer at SGH before starting his academic career, and continues to engage in engineering practice through his research and role as a consultant to NBM Technologies.