Field of ActivitiyInformation technology in structural engineering
Mission
A wide range of important and exciting opportunities to employ Information technology (IT) are available to structural engineers. For example, emerging technologies in advanced sensing, efficient search techniques, and advanced computer-based reasoning will soon facilitate highly responsive, self-monitoring structural systems. These opportunities carry a great deal of risk and require experience and knowledge.
Computer scientists alone will not deliver such systems to the structural engineering community. They cannot, because experience has showed that the complexity of structural engineering tasks is such that many standard computer science approaches need further work to apply. Only people who understand both IT and structural engineering can deliver the best solutions.
The mission of WC 6 is to strategise about, facilitate, and assess the application of information technology (IT) to structural engineering tasks, such as structural design, project planning, construction as well as management, monitoring, control, maintenance and strengthening of structures in service. Such activities must be performed in collaboration with practitioners, software providers and researchers. WC 6 provides a platform where results of these activities are presented, discussed, compared and communicated to structural engineers and students. WC 6's ultimate mission is to assist the structural engineering community to define, control and implement successful IT-projects.
Report
to theTechnical Committee
Permanent Tasks
Permanent tasks include the dissemination, to IABSE members as well as to the structural engineering community, of information, methodologies, research results, and economic evaluations concerning information technology applications in structural engineering.
Working Programme, Long-Term (2004-2008)
It is a paradox that although structural engineers were one of the first to use computers in the 50s, as a group, we are now behind most others, including architects in some countries. Aside from word processing and drafting, we only seem to want to use IT to perform computations.
Those of us researching the applications of IT in structural engineering must now commit to make it clear to practicing structural engineers, using a variety of forums, that many effective uses of IT are possible. We must also convince them that the responsibility of specifying the needed functionality is with us structural engineers. Finally, we must make it clear where IT has already made convincing economic impacts on the practice of structural engineering and provide guidelines as to where IT can be employed effectively and have a noticeable and positive economic impact.
As our primary mission is one of exposing the structural engineering community to what IT applications are possible and likely to have positive economic impact, WC 6 commits to ensuring that yearly Symposium have at least one session in which IT applications are discussed. It is our intention that clear discussions and demonstrations of the economic impact of these applications be provided in at least in one session. We also intend to focus the WC 6 BASAAR sessions at the next IABSE conferences on demonstrating the economic impacts of IT in structural engineering.
A second, long-term commitment of WC 6 is to create a Structural Engineering Document (SED) by 2008 that identifies the various applications of IT in structural engineering, discusses the economic impacts of these various applications, and provides guidelines and evaluation criteria for assessing the potential of new IT applications.
A third priority will involve continuing a dialogue among academia, industry, and government on the topics that the "next generation" of engineering students should have in their civil engineering IT curriculum. We will also discuss the role that technology may play in delivering the content of this curriculum. Such an effort will require a study of emerging computing technology and potential changes over the next 20-40 years.
A fourth long-term commitment is to allow time at each meeting of the WC 6 for the members to describe their current research activities, thereby keeping the members of WC 6 abreast of international IT-related research activity.
Liaison with other IT-related groups
It is our intention in WC6 to remain aware of the activities of the following groups and where possible, collaborate with them to achieve our stated goal of increasing the awareness of the impact and potential of IT in structural engineering:
• The European Group for Intelligent Computing in Engineering (EG-ICE)
• European Association of Product and Process Modelling (EAPPM)
• The Intelligent Computing Committee, Technical Council on Computers and Information Technology (TCCIT) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
• The Emerging Computing Technology Committee , Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
The International Society on Computing in Civil and Structural Engineering (ISCCSE)
• CIB W78: Information Technology in Construction
• Arbeitskreis Bauinformatik
Meeting
1 - 2 per year
Membership from November 1, 2009 on:
Chair
M. Schnellenbach-Held, Germany (2007-2011)
Vice-Chair
vacant
Members
B. Adey, Switzerland (2005-2013)
A. Albert, Germany (2005-2013)
C. Anumba, USA (2003-2011)
M. Blumenstein, Australia (2009-2013)*
Y. Cao, USA (2009-2013)*
H. Denk, Germany (2007-2011)*
W. Huhnt, Germany (2007-2011)*
D. Janjic, Austria (2009-2013)*
B.S. Kang, Korea (2009-2013)*
I. Paya-Zaforteza, Spain (2009-2013)*
L. Soibelman, USA (2003-2011)
*re-election possible
