2024

The Big Build III. Are Efficient Designs Enough?

From 14-16 October 2024, the Spanish Group of IABSE, chaired by Dolores Pulido and Vice-Chaired by Laurent Rus, along with the Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), the Escuela de Arquitectura of the University of Alcala (UAH), and the Profesional Association of Civil Engineers in Madrid organised the Seminar–Workshop, Lectures, Site Visit, and Round Table: The Big Build III. Are Efficient Designs Enough? More than 150 attendees participated in the different events, including 50 students from 5 universities from all over Spain.
 
The international design community is facing significant challenges in considering high density development in a post-Covid 19 environment. Human behaviour, at least for the near term, has shifted toward a hybrid work where building occupancy in our major international cities has declined. Surplus of building stock is common. In addition, stricter expectations, and in some regions code requirements, are becoming widespread regarding limiting carbon emissions associated with construction and long-term operations. Some believe this adds significantly to building costs, others have found ways of incorporating new ideas for only modest or no cost, recuperating initial costs over time. Are efficient designs enough? Arguably designs for the future must consider efficiency of space and material, commercial value, reduction or even more importantly absorption of carbon throughout a building life, and unique urban and building plans that attract people back to cities. 
 
With these ideas in mind, national and international structural engineers and architects specialised in tall buildings participated in the event as speakers and workshop tutors, such as Mark Sarkisian (SOM), Álvaro Serrano Corral (MC2 & UPM), Jorge Bernabéu Larena (Bernabéu Ingenieros & UPM), Juan Carlos Arroyo Portero (Calter), Rosa Cerver Cerdá (University of Alcala & Cervera Arquitectos), Enrique Gutiérrez de Tejada Espuelas (Florentino Regalado Ingeniería & Arquitectura), José A. Martín-Caro (INES Consultant Engineers), and Javier Sánchez Alejo (UPM). 

https://issuu.com/geiabse/docs/thebigbuildiii

Innovating Reinforced Concrete Design for More Sustainable, Durable and Intelligent Infrastructures - Webinar (Click Here for Recording)

On 22 November 2024, the Spanish Group of IABSE, ACI (American Concrete Institute) y NEX (an ACI Center of Excellence for Nonmetallic Building Materials) organised a joint webinar entitled Innovating Reinforced Concrete Design for More Sustainable, Durable and Intelligent Infrastructures. The panelist were Prof. Antonio Nanni (University of Miami, USA, president of ACI), Prof. Guido Camata (University G. D’Annuzio, ASDEA S.r.l., Italy), PhD. Paolo Casadei (Owens Corning, Europe), and Ing. Pedram Manouchehri (Carlos Fernández Casado, Spain), moderated by M. Dolores G. Pulido, Spanish Group of IABSE.

The purpose of the webinar was to promote innovation in concrete structures by presenting the point of view of industry, academia and designers on how composite materials and smart engineering can provide more sustainable, cost effective, durable and intelligent structures.  
Prof. Nanni presented how GFRP rebars have revolutionized international standards and how standardization has made possible allowing this technology grow fast from north America all the way to Middle East and how current largest globe projects are looking at composite materials as the only material that can allow true and constructive sustainable growth. Eng. Casadei provided an update on composite GFRP rebars in terms of mechanical properties, advantages, applications and most importantly the current standard for certification in Europe to guarantee quality and constancy of performance. Prof. Camata presented how innovation in design and intelligent monitoring can really make the difference especially for infrastructures. AI implemented in the monitoring system allows to continuously modifying the FEM model with data implemented from the real structure allowing a continuous update of the structural model and a much safer adoption of innovative material. Eng. Manouchehri told about the application possibilities of FRP bars in bridges and structures.The Chair acted as the Moderator for the Webinar, which had over a hundred online participants and the recording received over 1400 views within the first 10 days. The video recording of this webinar is open access and can be watched here: www.iabse.org/elearning/webinars.

23-28 September Participation at IABSE Annual Meetings and Congress San Jose 2024

 

Laurent Rus, Vice Chair, Spanish NG participated at the IABSE Congress and the Annual Meetings that took place in San Jose. He was also one of the instructors at the Pre-Congress Forensics Workshop, and a mentor at the Young Engineers Speed Mentoring session, that took place onsite at the Congress venue. During these meetings he also took the opportunity to exchange ideas with various other National Groups (Video 1) for future collaborations, and discussed about upcoming events organised by the Spanish NG.

4-6 June Spanish & Ecuador - collaborative NG event:

From 4 to 6 June, the Spanish Group of IABSE and the Ecuadorian National Group, in collaboration with Pontificia Universidad Católica de Ecuador, Ibarra Campus (PUCE-SI ) and the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), organised the first International Civil Engineering Week; Urban and Rural Infrastructure, with speakers from Ecuador, Colombia and Spain, intervening in person and online. With more than 200 attendees, including students, engineers and professors, this event was held at Ibarra, Ecuador. This event is a starting point for future collaborations and exchanges of ideas and knowledge between Ecuador, Colombia and Spain in the field of Civil Engineering.

Download the leaflet with further details.

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A tribute to Spanish legendary structural engineer: Javier Manterola

On May 12, 2024, Javier Manterola passed away. From his home, CFCSL, we would first like to express our deepest gratitude for the countless expressions of condolences received. Javier Manterola created with Carlos Fernández Casado and Leonardo Fernández Troyano, almost 60 years ago, this Project Office of which he has been President and CEO and from which he has been able to develop all his professional activity. Read further here ...

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Conference Sustainable and Innovative Reinforced Concrete Structures: Fiber Reinforced Polymer Reinforcements (FRP)

On March 1 2024, the dissemination day “Sustainable and Innovative Reinforced Concrete Structures: Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Reinforcements” was held, dedicated to FRP reinforcements as an alternative to steel ones in concrete.

The event was organized jointly by many institutions: the Spanish Group of IABSE, the Central Laboratory of Structures and Materials (CEDEX) and the USA multinational comnpany Owens Corning.

International institutions collaborated, such as ACI (American Concrete Institute) from the United States; national manufacturers, RTHp, and international manufacturers, Owens Corning; national universities, such as University of Girona and Technical University of Catalonia, and from abroadn, such as the University of Miami. Representatives of companies with an international dimension such as Acciona, Neos Maritime Consulting and Holcim España participated, and public administrations, such as the Technical General Secretariat of the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility, or representatives of the Port Authority of Barcelona and State Ports. The event was a complete success (more than 200 participants in person), arousing a lot of interest among attendees and establishing business contacts.

2023

Discussion: Understanding the life of bridges. A Hispano-Swiss reflection in dialogue.

The Spanish Group of IABSE and the School of Civil Engineering of the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) organised a round table discussion on the topic: Understanding the life of bridges. A Hispano-Swiss reflection in dialogue, on 15 December 2023 at a hybrid event.

Moderated by Laurent Rus, founder of Singular Structures; the panelists were Gonzalo Arias Hofman, Partner of INES Ingenieros, Spain, and Kristian Schellenberg, Founding Partner of Equi Bridges, Switzerland, will present current trends in the inspection and maintenance of bridge-type infrastructures, the use of new technologies, how to converge towards a common dialogue between all those involved in the operational phase of an infrastructure, and their vision of the next stages for greater efficiency in procedures and decision making, for the good of our infrastructures as a support for the economic growth of a country. It will be a fantastic opportunity to learn about the approaches taken in this case, both in Switzerland and in Spain. More information in the following link: https://issuu.com/geiabse/docs/mr-gmpuentes

(Credit: Javier Fernando Díaz Cely).

Upcoming event

IABSE Spanish Group collaborated in the event entitled "CMMoST 2023, 7th International Conference on Mechanical Models in Structural Engineering", which will be held in Malaga, Spain, from November 29 ro December 1, 2023.

Seminar on The Big Build II

The Spanish Group of IABSE, the Escuela de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos - UPM, the Escuela de Arquitectura - UAH, and the Professional Association of Civil Engineers in Madrid are organizing the Seminar – Workshop, Lecture and Round Table: The Big Build II. Sustainability and Resilience, to be held in Madrid on 23-25 October, 2023.

As population growth continues, and demands on our cities increase, new ideas are constantly needed to address urban planning, architecture, and engineering through creative use of materials, construction techniques, and building operations.

Inspirations from natural growth and human behavior are key to developing ideas that adapt to changing climate and depletion of resources. Awareness is key to solving complex issues and the collaboration between academic study, research, and practice is critical.

More information in the following link: Click Here.

Collaboration between Turkish and Spanish National Groups

Starting from a desire to support National Groups when their countries are hit but a significant natural hazard event, such as the Turkey-Syria Earthquake on Feb 6^th 2023, one example of collaboration/work resulting from that first desire has been the professional academic collaboration between the Turkish and Spanish IABSE's National Group chairs, Alp Caner and M. Dolores G. Pulido, on the basis that both are professors at the METU (Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey) and UPM (Technical University of Madrid, Spain), respectively.  

Work has already started this summer, with a 2 months visit (July-August 2023) from a UPM Master student to METU, which Master's thesis is being coordinated by both University's Professors. A face to face meeting between Alp and M. Dolores took place in Ankara during the second fortnight of September, which has widen the spectrum of opportunities for collaboration between both Universities. 

All this was made possible through the international character of IABSE and its mission to sharing knowledge.

 

2021

1-3 December: The Spanish Group of IABSE organizes, in collaboration with Universidad de Valladolid, Universidad de Granada, and Universidad de Sevilla, the sixth edition of CMMOST, International Conference on Mechanical Models in Structural Engineering. It will take place on 1-3 December 2021 at the School of Industrial Engineering, University of Valladolid, Spain. We wish the coronavirus crisis has been overcome so we will be able to held the conference on-site. If unfortunately this is not possible, we will propose to postpone it to 2022, better than doing it online. For more information on dates, prices, indexing or templates for abstracts/articles, please consult the website https://www.cmmost21.uva.es/

22-23 July: The Spanish Group of IABSE organizes, in collaboration with the Escuela Politécnica de Ingeniería de Gijón, the second edition of DINES, 2º Congreso de Dinámica Estructural. It will take place on 22-23 July 2021 at the Escuela Politécnica de Ingeniería de Gijón, Gijón, Spain. More information at: https://www.dinest.org

2020

July 8-9, The Spanish Group is collaborating with the Escuela Politécnica de Ingeniería de Gijón in the 2ª Conferencia de Dinámica Estructural, to be held on July 8-9, 2020, in Gijón, Spain. More info (Spanish): https://www.dinest.org