Structural Dynamics in Infrastructure with Nicholas Haritos

Introduction:

In this episode, Maithili Ghadge, podcast host, talks with Nicholas Haritos, a long-serving staff member since 1974 at the University of Melbourne in Civil Structural Engineering. He retired in 2010. He is now a Principal Fellow. Nicholas is also an Adjunct Professor at the Swinburne University of Technology and Managing Director of Strucomp, promoters of Continuing Professionals Development event sin Engineering.

Nicholas shares some insights on his background that led to gaining skills and experience in structural dynamics in infrastructure and why structural dynamics is considered necessary in designing infrastructure and infrastructures that can exhibit dynamic behaviours. He also talks about conditions under which dynamic responses in structures might become a problem. Tune in to learn more about structural dynamics in infrastructures, what causes buildings and bridges to collapse and how to control them.

Timestamps

[01:44] Nicholas Haritos background that led to gaining skills and experience in Structural dynamics in infrastructure

[04:03] Why structural dynamics is considered necessary in the design of infrastructure

[06:10] Infrastructures that can exhibit dynamic behaviours

[13:21] Conditions under which dynamic responses in structures might become a problem

[30:22] Measures to take with dynamic responses

[37:56] Nicholas Haritos’s conclusion for structural dynamics in infrastructure

Quotes

● Office floors exhibit dynamic behaviours because you would like to have open space, and there will be fewer columns to support the floor system.

● Since the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse, a lot more attention has been paid to the turbulence in the wind and how it can promote a dynamic response in structures.

● What influences the dynamic responses in structures is their mass and stiffness.

● Understanding structural dynamics and being able to model structures properly does not happen overnight. It takes a while and also experience.

● It is not just energy at the natural frequency of a structure but energy that might be available at a fraction of that frequency or a multiple of that frequency that can also create an excessive response of that structure.

● It often gives you an excellent idea of the first mode if you can visualize how the structure will deflect under its weight. The shape in which it could vibrate had it been forced at the first mode frequency.