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Contracts
Awards
Under solicitation
number SB1341-03-R-0028, an indefinite deliverable, indefinite quantity
(IDIQ) purchase order has been awarded to Gilsanz Murray Steficek LLP
(GMS) of New York City and its team composed of Dr. John Fisher of Lehigh
University, Pennsylvania, and Computer Aided Engineering Associates Inc.,
of Woodbury, Connecticut.
GMS is a structural
engineering firm that specializes in new construction and renovation projects
of office buildings, residential towers, industrial facilities, hospitals,
and historic structures. Office building design projects include 300 Madison
Avenue, and the Brooklyn Courthouse, high rise buildings. GMS partners
have worked on several steel high rise buildings in New York City of the
same vintage as WTC 7, prior to the formation of GMS in 1991. GMS also
conducts blast design and progressive collapse analysis of steel and concrete
buildings, which included nonlinear structural analysis and investigation
of possible collapse initiation. Dr. John Fisher is a steel connections
expert who specializes in the fatigue and fracture resistance of bolted
and welded steel connections. CAEA specializes in transient thermal analysis,
and has conducted training in nonlinear analysis for ANSYS software.
The GMS team will
conduct analyses of the WTC 7 building’s structural response to
fire conditions. NIST will be conducting all fire analysis of the building
in-house and supplying the time-temperature histories for the structural
analysis to the GMS team. A rigorous review process of the work and products
will be implemented. The review process includes independent reviews by
third-party experts retained by NIST, Dr. Shankar Nair and Prof. Kaspar
Willam, under solicitation number SB 1341-03-Q-0322, to augment in-house
NIST reviews. Specific tasks that the GMS team will perform include:
1. Develop and validate
a structural finite element model of WTC Building 7.
2. Conduct preliminary structural analyses, without fire effects, of sequences
of member failures and load redistribution to identify credible failure
sequences up to the point of collapse initiation.
3. Develop models of critical subsystems for identified failure sequences
and analyze their response to representative fire conditions.
4. Conduct parametric studies of subsystems to determine the effects of
influential parameters and their uncertainty on analysis results.
5. Develop approaches to simplify structural analyses for final global
modeling and analyses.
6. Modify the structural finite element model of the WTC 7 building to
incorporate simplifications and to support nonlinear structural analysis
for building regions affected by fire.
7. Analyze selected collapse initiation sequences for probable fire growth
and spread sequences provided by NIST.
8. Conduct parametric studies of the global analyses to determine the
effects of influential parameters and their uncertainty on analysis results.
All major technical decisions involving contractor work require NIST guidance,
review, and approval. In addition, findings, conclusions, and recommendations
are the responsibility of NIST, not the contractor.
The GMS team combines
engineers with experience in structural engineering of high rise steel
office buildings, failure of structural steel connections, and thermal-structural
analysis. Selected experience of key project personnel is summarized below:
All three founding
Partners, Mr. Ramon Gilsanz, Mr. Philip Murray, and Mr. Gary Steficek,
will be involved in this project. Mr. Gilsanz will act as the Principal
for the project team.
- Mr. Ramon Gilsanz
has over 20 years of experience as a structural engineer for a wide
range of projects, including design, renovation, and progressive collapse
analysis of high rise steel office buildings. He is a registered professional
engineer and a registered structural engineer. He has received awards
for design projects from the New York Association of Consulting Engineers
and the American Consulting Engineers Council. He is a past president
and a member of the Structural Engineers Association of New York and
a member of American Society of Civil Engineers. He has a Master of
Science degree in Civil Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
- Dr. John Fisher,
P.E., is a Professor Emeritus of Civil Engineering at Lehigh University.
He has over 35 years of experience in the design, behavior, and failure
of steel structural connections of riveted, bolted, and welded structures
and of composite steel-concrete members. He has conducted over 100 research
projects in these areas since 1961. He has published over 260 reports
and articles and is an author of several books on structural steel design
and fatigue and fracture of steel connections. He has received numerous
awards throughout his career in recognition of his contribution to structural
engineering. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
1986. In 1995 his work was recognized with the award of the ASCE John
A. Roebling Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Bridge Engineering. In
2000 he received the John Fritz Medal for extraordinary vision in researching
safety and performance of steel structures, and leadership in making
discerning judgments for the public good. He has a Doctor of Philosophy
degree in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University.
- Mr. Peter Barrett,
P.E., is the Vice President of CAEA and a registered engineer. He has
over 20 years of experience in thermal-structural applications using
the finite element method. He has performed numerous geometric and material
nonlinear static and dynamic analyses to evaluate the strength and stability
of aerospace, nuclear, dam, and offshore structures. He has taught over
100 ANSYS training classes over the last 10 years about finite element
theory, nonlinear analysis, and applied methods. He has a Master of
Science degree in Structural Engineering Mechanics from the University
of California Berkeley.
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