Past Conferences

Innovative Technologies for Disaster Mitigation: An Architectural SuretyÒ Conference Georgetown University Conference Center, Washington, DC October 27 – 30, 1999

Sponsors:

Purpose: Provide a forum for exchanging information between government agencies and the professional architectural, civil engineering, and design-construction communities, presenting technology and other resources with application to disaster mitigation, and creating partnership opportunities.

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Objective: Identify and stimulate awareness of the complex and interrelated problems of the constructed environment and the potential for available technologies to improve structural resistance to natural or man-made disasters.

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Participants: Architects, engineers, scientists, and managers from government (FEMA, DOE, GSA, DOT, FAA, DOJ), the professional societies (AIA, ASCE, ASTM), national laboratories, academia, and the design-construction industry (including building institute and trade association officials).

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Conference Format: Two and a half days of the technical program includes a plenary session, two-track breakout sessions, and panel discussions followed by an optional tour to demonstrate the concepts presented, developed, and discussed.  Presenters will address such topic areas as:

A. Architectural and Infrastructure Surety Overview

B. Disaster Planning, Mitigation, Emergency Response, Recovery

C. New Technologies for Disaster Mitigation

D. Obstacles to New Technologies

E. Human Casualty and Property Loss Prevention

F. Technology in Facility Planning, Design, Construction, Operations and Management

G. Modeling, Simulation, and Validation Testing

H. Counter Terrorism Technologies

I. Building Codes, Standards, and Performance Measures

J. Structural Risk Mitigation

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Keynote Speaker:

FEMA Director, James Lee Witt, has been invited to present the keynote address.

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Conference Focus:

As we enter the new millennium, let us recognize that the losses resulting from natural or malevolent events that cause major property damage, severe injuries, and unnecessary death are not always due to forces beyond our control. The Architectural Surety^SM program addresses ensuring the safety, security, and reliability of the nation’s buildings and infrastructure in the face of natural disasters, terrorist activities, and the inevitable aging of the constructed world. The very large costs associated with damage to the nation’s buildings from natural disasters ($42.6 billion in hurricanes alone between 1990 and 1997) and terrorist activities (such as the embassy bombings in Africa) hold national implications of potentially catastrophic proportions. Ongoing efforts in private industry, government agencies, and academia to understand, manage, mitigate, and control the impacts of such events primarily consider very specific needs and issues. The goal of this Architectural Surety^SM conference is to identify technology that can be applied to improve the complex and interrelated responses of our built world which actually occur in disaster environments.

Within the government, our science and engineering laboratories are a repository of technologies, tools, and techniques developed to serve national high-consequence defense missions. Risk management approaches, advanced modeling and simulation capabilities, nondestructive evaluation techniques, and structural health monitoring capabilities are a few of the tools available at the national laboratories that can be used to improve structural performance in such hazardous environments as tornadoes, explosions, floods, or earthquakes.

Architects and engineers can take a lead role in improving the life-safety features of buildings and physical infrastructure by increasing our responsibility to stay abreast of new methods to improve the performance of our structures against natural and malevolent disasters. There are questions we can ask ourselves as we seek to meet the new responsibilities of our profession:

· Why do we evacuate buildings during natural disasters or acts of violence? Buildings should be designed as a refuge to protect lives and property investments.

· Why do we often wait for the next disaster to test the effectiveness of a building retrofit or enhancement that resulted from studying the previous disaster? There are now ways to evaluate an upgrade for its effectiveness before being incorporated into buildings. New testing methods for architect/engineers to use include:

          - Improved scale-modeling and simulation techniques.

          - Massively parallel processing computers to evaluate full structural models.

          - Component material performance predictions.

          - Non-destructive health monitoring systems throughout the life of a building.

          - Instrumentation during construction for life-cycle monitoring.

This Architectural Surety^SM conference provides a forum for the nation’s architects, engineers, and research scientists to meet and to share ideas, to make apparent the state of knowledge and technology in the area, to clarify ongoing research thrusts, and to identify new or needed areas of research collaboration. Research collaborations to address emerging problems will be encouraged. Further more, the conference will promote a better understanding of how to mitigate natural disasters, malevolent attacks, and aging in order to prevent failures of infrastructures and to mitigate and reduce risks.

There is so much more that A/Es can be doing to protect against loss from disasters. Structure owners, users, and occupants are coming to expect such protection. In turn, the changing expectations will necessarily change the way we protect against the effects of disasters. We need to recognize the changing expectations for disaster protection and upgrade our professional standards, building codes, and toolkits to address the challenges of disasters and stop blaming forces beyond our control.

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For Further Information contact:

Donna Bruce, Registration Sandia National Laboratories Voice:  505-844-5614 Fax:     505-844-4701 Email: Donna Bruce

Technical Program Manager Jeff Danneels 505-284-3897 Architectural SuretyÒ Program Leader Rudy Matalucci 505-844-8804

See the Web page at: www.sandia.gov/archsur