Published: April 2, 2002

The department of civil, environmental and architectural engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder will host a special lecture April 8 on structural engineering and design in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Jeremy Isenberg, president of Weidlinger Associates Inc. in New York, will present the Richardson Lecture, titled "Structural Engineering in Homeland Security," at 6 p.m., Monday, April 8. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be in room ECCR 265 of the Engineering Center, located at Regent Drive and Colorado Avenue.

Weidlinger Associates is a highly recognized structural engineering and software development firm in the design and retrofitting of civilian and military structures to resist explosive blasts from conventional and terrorist weapons. The firm has been involved in research, assessment and protective design since the 1950s.

The lecture will trace the development of blast-resistant structural engineering and protection efforts, which originated during the Cold War and were further developed in the early 1980s in response to the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and attacks on U.S. embassies.

Isenberg also will discuss timely issues emerging from current investigations into the structural performance of the World Trade Center including the development of probabilistic risk assessment for terrorist attack, a concept that has proved useful in the quantification of earthquake hazards.

The response of tall building systems to fire also will be discussed and new trends in structural engineering and protection research will be delineated.

The Richardson Lecture is being presented by the graduate program in Structural Engineering and Structural Mechanics. For more information, call Cyndi Alvarado at (303) 492-7315.