Venkatesh Kodur

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering | Michigan State University

East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES

An internationally renowned expert in the evaluation of fire resistance of structural systems through large-scale fire experiments

Biography

Dr. Venkatesh Kodur is a University Distinguished Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan State University. He also serves as Director of the Centre on Structural Fire Engineering and Diagnostics at Michigan State University. His research interests include: Evaluation of fire resistance of structural systems through large scale fire experiments and numerical modeling and Characterization of materials under high temperature. His research contributions has lead to the development of fundamental understanding on the fire behavior of material and structural systems and also resulted in numerous design approaches and innovative and cost-effective solutions for enhancing fire-resistance of structural systems. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conferences, and has given numerous invited key-note presentations. He is one of the highly cited authors in Civil Engineering and as per Google Scholar, he has more than 7900 citations with an "h” index of 51.

Prof. Kodur is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is a professional engineer, Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of Structural Engineering Institute, Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of American Concrete Institute, Associate Editor of Journal of Structural Engineering, Chairman of ACI Fire Protection Committee, Chairman of ASCE-29 (Fire) Standards Committee and a member of UK-EPSRC College of Reviewers. He has won many awards including MSU University Distinguished Professor, AISC Faculty Fellowship Award, MSU Distinguished Faculty Award, NRCC (Government of Canada) Outstanding Achievement Award and NATO Award for collaborative research. Dr. Kodur was part of the FEMA/ASCE Building Performance Assessment Team that studied the collapse of WTC buildings as a result of September 11 incidents.

Industry Expertise (3)

Fire Protection

Research

Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise (3)

Building Collapse Investigation

Fire Resistance of Structural Systems

Concrete and Steel Structural Systems

Education (3)

Queen's University: Ph.D., Structural Engineering

Queen's University: M.S., Structural Engineering

Bangalore University: B.S., Civil Engineering

Journal Articles (3)

Cognitive Infrastructure - A Modern Concept for Resilient Performance under Extreme Events

Automation in Construction

M. Z. Naser, Venkatesh R. Kodur

2018 The increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, as well as escalation of manmade threats, are posing significant threats to built environment. Further, much of civil infrastructure in developed countries, built after World War II, is experiencing age-related deterioration and thus are vulnerable to damage under extreme loading conditions. This vulnerability of infrastructure under severe loading conditions can be assessed through a coupled sensing-structural framework that extends principles of the recently developed "Internet of Things" (IoT) technology into civil infrastructure. This concept aims at monitoring key response parameters (i.e. temperature, strain, deformation, vibration levels etc.) by incorporating cognitive abilities into a structure through interaction of various sensing devices and socio-environmental factors. These response parameters can be utilized to trace performance of critical infrastructure during the course of a disaster so as to predict signs of imminent failure and to provide first responders and occupants with much needed situational awareness. The practicality of the proposed concept in enhancing resilience of new and existing infrastructure is illustrated through two case studies.

Mechanical Properties of High-Strength Q690 Steel at Elevated Temperature

Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering

Weiyong Wang, Kang Wang, Venkatesh R. Kodur, Bin Wang

2018 High-strength steels are finding wide applications in steel-framed buildings. Therefore, fire resistance design of high-strength steel structures has gained more attention in recent years. Rapid reduction in mechanical properties, together with high creep deformations, are the most significant factors influencing the fire behavior of high-strength steel structures. A comprehensive experimental investigation was carried out to evaluate temperature-dependent mechanical properties and creep deformation of high-strength Q690 steel with nominal yield strength of 690 MPa. Standard tensile tests were conducted to obtain the mechanical properties of Q690 steel at temperatures ranging from 20 to 900°C. Test data on strength and elastic modulus properties show that the reduction factors developed for carbon (mild) steel are not applicable to high-strength Q690 steels. Therefore, new reduction factors for temperature-dependent yield strength and elastic modulus, as well as the stress-strain relationship, were developed. Creep tests were also carried out to quantify the creep deformation of Q690 steel at temperatures ranging from 450 to 900°C. Data from creep tests are used to develop relations for expressing creep as a function of temperature and stress. These relations, which are based on the Fields and Fields model, can be used to account for creep effects in modeling the response of Q690 steel structures exposed to fire.

Comparative fire behavior of composite steel girders under flexural and shear loading

Thin-Walled Structures

M. Z. Naser, Venkatesh Kodur

2017 This paper presents results from an experimental study on the fire behavior of composite steel girders subjected to high shear loading. Four steel–concrete composite girders, comprising of steel girders and concrete slab, were tested under simultaneous structural loading and fire exposure. The first composite girder was subjected to typical flexural loading and fire conditions, while the other three girders were subjected to high shear loading and exposed to fire conditions. The main test variables are level of composite action, type and magnitude of loading. All tested girders failed in less than one hour of fire exposure, however, their failure mode varied significantly. For instance, composite girder subjected to flexural loading failed through flexural yielding of steel girder with large rotation at end supports, while girders subjected to high shear loading failed with no signs of large deflections or rotations at end supports.