Seminar sponsored by MCEER Networking and Education Programs, MCEER
Student Leadership Council, the UB-EERI Student Chapter and the UB
Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.
Mete A. Sozen
Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural Engineering, Purdue University
2002 EERI Distinguished Lecturer
A WAY OF THINKING
Date and time: FRIDAY, APRIL 5th 2002, 2:00 – 4:00 PM (EST).
Location: 140 Ketter Hall, University at Buffalo (UB), Department of Civil,
Structural and Environmental Engineering (CSEE)
Minutes of the seminar:
With the generous support of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute’s
(EERI) the University at Buffalo EERI Student Chapter (UB-EERI) invited Dr.
Mete A. Sözen of Purdue University to visit the student chapter. The visit took
place on April 5, 2002 and was a great opportunity for students at UB to get a
chance to interact with Dr. Sözen, who has made and continues to make
fundamental contributions to the advancement of seismic design technologies
and their application to the design of structures. Dr. Sözen’s visit included his
2002 EERI Distinguished Lecture titled “A Way of Thinking”.
Mr. Sozen’s lecture was furthermore included as the ninth presentation in the
ongoing seminar series at UB on earthquake engineering topics. The purpose of
the seminar series is to widen accessibility to timely, technical presentations by
students, researchers, visitors and affiliates of MCEER. The sponsors of the
seminar series are the the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering
Research (MCEER) Network and Education Programs, the MCEER Student
Leadership Council (MCEER-SLC), the University at Buffalo Earthquake
Engineering Research Institute Student Chapter (UB-EERI) and the University at
Buffalo Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering (CSEE).
Follow http://civil.eng.buffalo.edu/UBEERI/ for more information on the
seminar series and Dr. Sozen’s visit.
Mr. Darren Vian, Ph.D. candidate at the CSEE department and the president of
the UB-EERI Student Chapter and a member of the MCEER SLC, opened the
seminar by welcoming the audience, introducing the seminar series and
explaining the format, and finally welcomed and introduced the speaker with
some background information.
Mr. Sozen commenced his presentation by explaining its nature and how it
differs from most technical presentation on engineering topics.
The abstract of Dr. Sözen’s presentation reads: “Structural engineering is a
profession. A profession is characterized by the need to exercise judgment
within a domain defined by a set of canons. The structural-engineering canons
have developed sometimes as a result of and sometimes despite the interaction
between science and experience. That structures were built successfully without
science and, worse yet, even with the wrong science for hundreds of years and
that science has, so far, been insufficient to guarantee predictability (ecce
engineering for earthquake response), emphasize the challenge in discriminating
between the poles: “Science is all!" and “Experience is all!" The territory in
between is vast and slippery. It is difficult to navigate a true course without
giving in to the lure of one pole or the other. Today, ready access to versatile and
powerful software enables the engineer to do more and think less. It is not often
questioned whether the exact analysis of the approximate model qualifies as an
approximate analysis of the structure itself. To contemplate once again the role of
analysis in design is not a waste of time.
Figure 1 – 2002 EERI Distingushed Lecturer, Dr. Mete A. Sozen introducing
the topic of his presentation.
A way of thinking about structural design was developed in a series of iterations
in mid 20th century by three engineers. Their goals were not global. The whole
was made up of specific solutions for specific problems. But when their
contributions are viewed together, a complete way of thinking about structural
design becomes discernible. The goal of this talk is to encourage engineers to
review the works of Harald M. Westergaard, Hardy Cross, and Nathan M.
Newmark as a whole not for the specific processes but for the general principles
of their art of thinking about structural design.”
Figure 2 – The 2002 EERI Distingushed Lecturer, Dr. Mete A. Sozen, and three of
the UB-EERI officers. From left: Darren Vian, president; Gordon P. Warn, VicePresident; Benedikt Halldorsson, Secretary. The officer missing from the picture is
Methee Chiewanichakorn, Treasurer).
After Dr. Sozen’s interesting and personal presentation, Mr. Vian moderated the
discussions and finally, after thanking our guest with a generous applause, the
seminar was closed.
We at the UB-EERI are very grateful to Dr. Sozen for making the effort of visiting
us here in Buffalo, and to the EERI for supporting his. Dr. Sozen’s visit to the
UB-EERI was highly enjoyable and our members enjoyed frequent interactions
and dialogue with our guest. These discussions and his presentation were a
refreshing reminder to us students about not loosing the sight of the “big
picture” in our work and research. Even when we feel we have attained a deep
understanding of a research topic, a real challenge lies in presenting it in a
concise and more importantly, in a “simple” way – in the true spirit of Cross,
Westergaard and Newmark.
Submitted on behalf of the UB-EERI Student Chapter
Benedikt Halldorsson
UB-EERI secretary