SimCenter team members, domain experts, and advisory board members actively participated in the 15th Americas Conference on Wind Engineering (15ACWE), May 19-22, 2025, at St. Louis, Missouri. The ACWE is an IAWE (International Association of Wind Engineering) Regional Conference for the Americas Region. The conference is a preeminent international gathering for the wind engineering community, convened by American Association of Wind Engineering (AAWE). The program agenda was expanded to promote advanced research and practice to confront the grand challenges of wind hazards. The conference scientific committee included Ahsan Kareem, Tracy Kijewski-Correa, and Seymour Spence, SimCenter domain experts, and Jean-Paul Pinelli, SimCenter Advisory Board member.
Workshop - On May 19, SimCenter hosted the workshop “Deploying SimCenter Tools to Enhance Wind Engineering Research and Practice,” which was attended by 25 participants. Abiy Melaku, Barbaros Cetiner, and Adam Zsarnóczay of SimCenter’s development team conducted the workshop that provided wind engineers with an overview of SimCenter tools (i.e. WE-UQ, PBE, R2D, and BRAILS++) to enhance research in wind engineering and regional hurricane risk.
Keynotes and Award
Opening keynote “Exploring the Role of Turbulence, Noise, Damping and Correlation in Stabilizing Dynamic Systems: A Harmonic Oscillator Perspective.” Ahsan Kareem.
Peter Irwin Lecture: “Dr. Barry Vickery: The Legacy of a Pioneer in Wind Engineering.” Peter Vickery.
Tracy Kijewski-Correa received AAWE’s Michael Gaus Distinguished Service Award which is bestowed every four years, and which recognizes her involvement in AAWE activities, research, consulting, and outreach.
Presentations and technical sessions where SimCenter personnel contributed and SimCenter tools were used include:
Workshop: High Performance Computing Resources and Workflows on DesignSafe. Chairs and Panelists: Fred Haan, Jean-Paul Pinelli, Ahsan Kareem
“Running High-fidelity Wind Load Simulations using WE-UQ on DesignSafe.” Abiy Melaku presented how to leverage DesignSafe's HPC resources and SimCenter's WE-UQ tool to perform high-fidelity wind load simulations on structures. SimCenter’s overall workflow was introduced, followed by highlights of use cases across various wind engineering applications. An example demonstrating a high-rise building wind load simulation was presented; this is currently in development for an educational module utilizing WE-UQ.
Mini-Symposium: Advancements in Performance-Based Wind Engineering. Chairs: Arthriya Subgranon and Seymour M.J. Spence
120 “WiRA: A Software Solution for Enabling Performance-Based Wind Engineering.” Bowei Li; Enrica Bernardini; Seymour M.J. Spence
163 “Simulation of Non-Gaussian Multivariate Wind Processes Through Data-Informed Stochastic Models: Error Quantification and Data Requirements.” Thays Duarte; Srinivasan Arunachalam; Arthriya Subgranon; Seymour Spence
Mini-Symposium: AI in Wind Engineering
184 “LSTM-Based Metamodeling with Transfer Learning for Efficient Wind Response Evaluation in Performance-Based Design.” Bowei Li; Seymour M.J. Spence
Mini-Symposium: Computational Wind Engineering
25 “DES and LES Simulation of Wind Loads on a Ground-Mounted Solar Array.” Xinlong Du; Tracy Becker; Abiy Melaku; Zachary Taylor
Mini-Symposium: Simulation of Wind Effects on Coastal Communities
186 “A Real-Time Framework for Hurricane-Induced Damage Risk Forecasting in Building Envelope Systems.” Bowei Li; Seymour M.J. Spence
Mini-Symposium: Advancements in Performance-Based Wind Engineering
164 “Data Requirements for Calibrating Stochastic Wind Models Targeting Extreme Response Prediction.” Thays Duarte; Srinivasan Arunachalam; Arthriya Subgranon; Seymour Spence
166 “Performance-Based Wind Assessment of Building Envelope Systems Under Extreme Collapse-Level Winds.” Jieling Jiang; Seymour Spence
167 “Investigation of Non-Stationary Hurricane Wind Effects on Nonlinear Structural Performance and Collapse Risk.” Srinivasan Arunachalam; Seymour Spence
Mini-Symposium: Wind Energy and Wind-wave-structure Interactions
190 “Simulation of Wind-Wave Interaction and Its Impact on Wind Loading on Coastal Buildings.” Jianyu Wang; Hanul Hwang; Catherine Gorlé
Severe Windstorms
203 “Modeling Tropical Cyclone Boundary Layer (TCBL) with Height-Dependent Vertical Diffusivity.” Liang Hu; Ahsan Kareem
Mini-Symposium: Simulation of Wind Effects on Coastal Communities
185 “Two-Phase Large Eddy Simulation of Wind Loading on the Undersides of Elevated Structures in the Presence of Waves.” Max Beeman; Hanul Hwang; Catherine Gorlé
Mini-Symposium: Structural Monitoring & Disaster Warning
14 “Distributed Strain Sensing of Solar PV Single-Axis Tracking System Under Dynamic Wind Loads.” You-Jia (Allen) Li; Hanshu Zhang; Ayush Chutani; Paul Dice; Ana Dyreson; Gerald Robinson; Matthew DeJong
Innovative Developments. Chairs: Tracy Kijewski-Correa and Fred Haan
171 “An AI-Supported Framework for Automated Creation of Building & Infrastructure Asset Inventories.” Barbaros Cetiner; Sang-ri Yi; Frank McKenna; Tracy Kijewski-Correa
Mini-Symposium: Debris Effects on Structures--Simulations and Vulnerability Assessments
107 “Tree-Induced Damage Vulnerability Model for Low-Rise Buildings.” Mohammad Bakhshandeh; Jean-Paul Pinelli; Amal Elawady, Haitham A. Ibrahim, and Fahim Ahmed
125 “Assessing Shielding Effects of Trees: A Comparative Study.” Fouad Elazaka; Omar Metwally; Haitham Ibrahim; Amal Elawady; Jean-Paul Pinelli
Mini-Symposium: Catastrophe Modeling of Wind Hazards
55 “Wind Vulnerability of Industrial Facilities Equipment.” Nahuel Bonfante; Jean-Paul Pinelli
61 “A Unifying Framework for Hurricane Wind Risk Simulation: Mobilizing the Literature into Shared Research Infrastructure.” Rachel Hamburger; Adam Zsarnóczay; Nii Otu Tackie-Otoo; Tracy Kijewski-Correa; Rachel Davidson; Seymour Spence
119 “An Examination of the Reliability of ASCE 7 Main Wind Force Resisting System Wind Loads.” Therese McAllister; Peter Vickery; Eun Cha; Ruohua Guo; Melissa Burton; Lauren Mudd
Mini-Symposium: Multi-Disciplinary Community Resilience and Reconnaissance Studies under Wind-Induced Events
60 “Uptake of Mitigation Measures in Post-Hurricane Recovery: A Case Study of Hurricane Laura in Louisiana.” Rachel Hamburger; Tracy Kijewski-Correa; Debra Javeline
Panel Discussion: Advances in Shared Research Infrastructure for Windstorm Hazards. Chair: Tracy Kijewski-Correa.