Michael D. Engelhardt
Adnan Abou-Ayyash Centennial Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Texas at Austin

There is growing interest in transforming US practices for building fire safety from a prescriptive-based to a performance-based approach. This interest is being driven by the need to reduce human and economic losses from fire; to reduce the high cost of building fire safety; and to accommodate the increasing complexity, size and architectural diversity of buildings. Structural engineers will likely play an increasingly important role in this process in the future, by developing engineered approaches for structural fire safety. This presentation will examine, in a broad manner, the fire problem in the US and the role of the structural engineer in solving these problems, both at present and in the future.

Michael D. Engelhardt received BS and MS degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Engelhardt has been on the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin since 1989. His primary emphasis in research has been on the behavior and design of steel structures. He has been a recipient of the AISC T.R. Higgins Award for outstanding contributions in structural steel research and the Engineering News Record Construction Industry Newsmaker Award.  He is a registered Professional Engineer in Texas and California.