Structural Engineering
What gives an engineer confidence to project and build something as large and graceful as the Golden Gate Bridge (the creation of late Purdue professor Charles A. Ellis) knowing that it has to withstand the demands of gravity, wind, and earthquakes?
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California
Why did Gaudi think of the Sagrada Familia “upside-down” before he started building it?
The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain (inverted model on the left, actual structure on the right)
Who decides how much reinforcing steel goes into a reinforced concrete column supporting 100 floors in a skyscraper? And how do they make that decision?
How far apart can we place the supports of steel girders in our bridges?
If these questions spark your interest, if you would like to test to failure structural models in one of the largest laboratories in the country, then structural engineering is the right career choice for you. Join Purdue’s School Civil Engineering and enroll in structural engineering courses to leave a mark that will benefit and inspire many, and last the test of time as the Golden Gate has.
Spotlights
April 22, 2025
Manuel Salmerón, a PhD student in the Lyles School of Civil and Construction Engineering under the supervision of professor Shirley Dyke and co-advised by professor Julio Ramirez, wants to develop a framework that will allow us to better understand infrastructure and product degradation so we can design smarter and optimize maintenance for more predictable performance and reliability.
April 13, 2025
This course, open to both undergraduate and graduate students, will seek to understand and recognize the importance of variability and incomplete information in civil engineering, particularly structural engineering. Students will be equipped to know how to measure the safety of structures, and how a designer implements the optimum safety level.
April 11, 2025
Terrence F. Paret, Senior Principal at Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., will be presenting a seminar titled, "Why Do You Believe that Performance-based Engineering Really Works? Should you?" on Tuesday 4/15 at 4:30 p.m. in HAMP 1144.
March 26, 2025
Akanshu Sharma, the Jack and Kay Hockema Associate Professor in Civil Engineering, explains that most older buildings were not built with earthquakes in mind and how a new construction method could help reinforce them. At Bowen Lab, Sharma is testing a two-story structure meant to mimic buildings constructed before earthquake codes went into effect.
January 27, 2025
PhD student Omair Bin Saleem has been presented with the Young Investigator Award for his contributions at the 6th International Conference on Protective Structures and the Special Issue of the International Journal of Protective Structures.
November 29, 2024
Dr. Roberto T. Leon, P.E., the C.E. Via Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech University, will present the next Dennis & Leslie Drag Distinguished Lecture, titled "Complexity Lessons from Recent Structural Failures," on Friday, February 28th, 2025 at 5:00pm in HAMP 1144.
October 25, 2024
An INDOT study on the redundancy in built-up steel bridge members led by Robert Connor, Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering and Director of CAI and S-BRITE, is the 2024 recipient of the Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) Excellence Award.
September 20, 2024
Dr. Akanshu Sharma has been named the Jack and Kay Hockema Associate Professor in Civil Engineering. This professorship has a 5-year term that will extend through Fall 2029.
August 8, 2024
How will machine learning and AI revolutionize the practice of structural design and evaluation? That’s the question being addressed by a collaboration between Purdue University and the University of Houston, with funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF). They are establishing a new center to empower engineers that are responsible for designing and inspecting structures to use AI and machine learning in their everyday tasks.
April 11, 2024
Robert J. Connor, Jack and Kay Hockema Professor of Civil Engineering, received the Walter P. Moore, Jr. Award, presented by the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
April 9, 2024
Heidi Shyu, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, paid a recent visit to Purdue and the Robert L. and Terry L. Bowen Laboratory for Large-Scale Civil Engineering Research. Director Amit Varma led Shyu on a tour to see the national security work with military construction applications.
March 6, 2024
Robert Connor, the Jack and Kay Hockema Professor in Civil Engineering and Director of the Center for Aging Infrastructure (CAI) and the Steel Bridge Research Inspection Training Center (S-BRITE), has helped make Purdue University a leader in steel bridge research. In this article, he speaks with Modern Steel Construction about his career, research projects, and more.
February 28, 2024
Researchers at Bowen Laboratory welcomed U.S. Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., on Tuesday (Feb. 27) to tour facilities and learn about national security related efforts at the West Lafayette campus. This was a first campus visit for Banks, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.
January 23, 2024
For more than four years, Shirley Dyke, Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering, has led a team of researchers who aim at developing moon dwellings that can detect and respond to the worst disasters space can muster.
January 11, 2024
PhD students Zixin Wang, Wen Tang, and Malleswari Kachireddy participated in the 3rd International Competition for Structural Health Monitoring (IC-SHM 2022) and placed third in a field of 45 teams representing 9 countries.
November 8, 2023
Purdue-led guide to natural hazards research now incorporates methodologies in hazard simulation and modeling, social science, and extreme events reconnaissance.
October 19, 2023
Julio Ramirez, Karl H. Kettelhut Professor in Civil Engineering and Director of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Network Coordination Office (NCO) Center, has accepted a 2-year appointment to serve as a Special Government Employee (SGE) member of the Advisory Committee on Structural Safety of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Facilities.
August 15, 2023
In this segment from the August 13th broadcast of CBS Sunday Morning, CE alumnus Ron Klemencic and Prof. Amit Varma are interviewed offering insight into an innovative new construction technique called SpeedCore which recently yielded an ASCE Opal Award for the Rainier Square project in Seattle.
July 26, 2023
Julio Ramirez, Karl H. Kettelhut Professor in Civil Engineering and Director of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Network Coordination Office (NCO) Center, has been appointed as the ASCE representative on the Technical Committee 29 Network Construction and Joint Utilization of Large Scale Experimental Facilities of the The Asian Civil Engineering Coordinating Council (ACECC).
June 23, 2023
CE grad students Herta Montoya and Wen Tang received first and third place awards, respectively, in the best student paper competition held by the ASCE Structural Health Monitoring and Control Committee at the 2023 ASCE Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI) Conference.
