The steel sector is so excited about structural engineer Ron Klemencic’s composite steel superstructure, expected to speed office tower construction, that at least three steel fabricators are studying it, many months before erection is set to begin on Seattle’s 850-ft-tall “proof of concept.”
As ENR’s 53rd Award of Excellence winner Ron Klemencic tells it, he answered the phone on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2001, two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and heard someone saying, “What are you going to do? This is Nadine Post from ENR. You’re the chairman of the tall buildings council. What are you going to do?”
A recent series of dynamic tests demonstrates that there are several types and doses of steel-fiber reinforcement that can be used in performance-based seismic design of coupling beams—headers that link openings in concrete shear walls—to reduce rebar congestion.
