The Cold-formed Steel Engineers Institute will host a webinar on “Seismic Engineering of Cold-formed Steel Framed Buildings and the CFS-NEES Effort” on Thursday, Feb. 18 at 3:00 p.m. EST. The webinar is designed for architects, engineers, building officials and contractors. Participants are eligible for 1.5 PDHs. 

A definitive shift is emerging in the cold-formed steel framed building industry towards system-level seismic evaluation in both the codes and specifications and in the tools that engineers use to evaluate existing buildings. The steel industry has always had empirical evidence that repetitive framing benefits system reliability and efficiency. Efforts to quantify these effects through recent research grants from the National Science Foundation and long-term industry investment are starting to make broad positive impacts. This webinar will showcase these beneficial impacts with project-specific examples and case studies. Topics are presented from both practitioner and researcher perspectives. The content is tailored to practicing structural engineers who will be the end users of these forthcoming cold-formed steel framing seismic evaluation methods, tools and specifications. The webinar will be presented by Dr. Benjamin Schafer.

Benjamin Schafer, Ph.D., P.E., is the Swirnow Family Scholar Professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Schafer is current chair of the Structural Stability Research Council, director of the Cold-Formed Steel Research Consortium, and North American editor for the Journal of Thin-Walled Structures. Dr. Schafer serves on standards committees for both the American Iron and Steel Institute and the American Institute of Steel Construction and is a past president of CFSEI. He was a practicing engineer at SGH before starting his academic career, and continues to engage in engineering practice through his research and role as a consultant to NBM Technologies.

More information on the webinar and registration details are available at cfsei.org.