As described in this GIFTS presentation, we develop our students' ability to navigate professional ethics in our Introductory Engineering course. In seven sessions, we examine ethical decision making both at the big E – societal impact of the profession – level and the little e – individual professional responsibility – level. Instead of the typical ethics gone wrong at the corporate level, often captured in classic case studies (i.e., Challenger Disaster, VW emissions scandal), we encourage to both consider the grand implications of their responsibility as engineers alongside issues of personal integrity as an engineering student. Too often students react to the case studies with critical judgment but a feel detached from such a situation. We intentionally developed activities that challenge students' thoughts and beliefs, so they connect their actions as students to their lives as working professionals. We first examine ethics on a global scale by considering engineers' roles in promoting global health and wellbeing through sustainability. Students learn about green design and manufacturing strategies through assigned readings, a video on cradle-to-cradle design, and gameplay. Students play In the Loop, which teaches players about the finite resources necessary for devices such as LCD screens, MRI machines, and wind turbines. Throughout the game, players develop strategies to manage limited resources using circular economies. A reflective exercise complements this gameplay where students consider how the Great Achievements of the 20th Century contributed to the Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. From this big picture perspective, we pivot to everyday decisions. Using selected choose-your-own-adventure-style cases from the www.onlineethics.org collection, students consider how to properly navigate realistic entry-level engineering slippery slope cases. Through lively debate, the students parse where along the gray space between ok and unethical each decision in the sequence falls. On a more personal level, students consider engineering ethics through a creative fiction assignment. Throughout the activity, students explore ethical dilemmas that a student or entry-level engineer might encounter. They use the National Professional Society of Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics as a lens to navigate the ethical decision-making process. Finally, the students consider how the NSPE code of ethics plays out in their lives as engineering students. The students rewrite the nine professional obligations with three to four specific rules of practice for engineering students for each of the obligations. We then compile the individual submissions into the official code of ethics for the department for the next academic year. Every student in the department feels a connection to this code as it evolves gradually year by year. We have observed students actively referring to posters with the code when considering how to handle a particular situation.

Inspired by an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2015 titled “Final Exams or Epic Finales” (https://www.chronicle.com/article/Final-Exams-or-Epic-Finales/231871), three instructors of middle-level multidisciplinary engineering courses at a small, private, regional liberal arts college replaced their traditional final exams with self-described “epic finales” or “final celebrations of learning.” We seek to share our experiences from several years of implementation as many in the engineering education community consider alternative final exam approaches given the shift to online finals at many institutions due to COVID-19. We have implemented epic finales in Strength of Materials, Thermodynamics, Introduction to Environmental Engineering, and Civil Engineering Materials. Our experiences include in-person and virtual implementation. In the paper, we will share our exercises, details of the semi-structured time block used, our grading approaches and rubrics, student and instructor reactions, challenges and opportunities identified, and guidance on the circumstances under which we recommend using this approach. Of note, student feedback indicating that students felt ‘like a real engineer’ and thought they would remember this exercise far better and for far longer than wiping their mind of the cramming before a typical exam. While the level of technical analysis during the exercise did not rise to the level of a typical final exam, in all courses, students had been tested on most of the content during partial exams. Instead, students had to display a higher level of ‘real world’ skills including problem-solving on an open-ended question, researching a new topic, synthesizing course content, modeling and making tractable a complex problem, self-regulated organization and group management, coordination and communication between groups of students, prioritization of which information they needed to solve the problem, and considerable time constraint. Our intention with this paper is provide instructors with our lessons learned over several years of implementation and the guidance to implement a practical, creative, and fun alternative 'epic finale’, under COVID circumstances and beyond.

The objective of this paper is to propose relationships for the reduction in mechanical properties of cold-formed steels at elevated temperature. Predicting the degradation of strength and modulus of cold-formed steels with temperature is critical to enable fire design of cold-formed steel members. Here, the properties of elastic modulus, 0.2% proof stress, 2% stress, and ultimate stress are studied for grades up to and including 550 MPa. Data are collected from the literature as well as from recent tests conducted by the authors at Johns Hopkins University. Steady-state and transient test results in the range of 20 degrees C-1,000 degrees C are analyzed. Retention factors are then proposed for the mechanical properties adopting a standardized format developed through committee work with the American Iron and Steel Institute. (C) 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.

The objective of this paper is to provide experimental results related to the elevated temperature performance of connections between cold-formed steel members and sheathing. Cold-formed steel building structures rely on sheathing for their mechanical benefits including bracing against member twist, global flexural and flexuraltorsional buckling, and cross-section distortional buckling, as well as to supply lateral strength and energy dissipation in shear walls and diaphragms. Sheathing is also relied upon for non-structural benefits, including: fire, acoustic, and thermal performance. Predicting the degradation of the connection performance between coldformed steel members and sheathing at elevated temperature is critical for any attempt to predict the structural performance of cold-formed steel buildings under fire demands. Steady-state connection tests were conducted under in-plane shear and pull-through at temperatures up to 400 C for cold-formed steel members attached to gypsum board and oriented strand board. By combining the conducted tests with others in the literature retention factors for initial stiffness and ultimate strength of the connections are proposed.

This paper assesses the stability and strength of sheathed cold-formed steel studs at elevated temperatures. Short and intermediate-length studs braced with gypsum, fire-rated gypsum, and oriented strand board were subjected to compressive axial load and temperatures ranging from 20 degrees C to 600 degrees C. A total of 40 tests were conducted in the steady-state regime, where the studs were first heated, then a compressive axial load was applied until failure occurred. Results show that the load-carrying capacity of the structural members decreases with increasing temperature, as the mechanical properties of the cold-formed steel reduce, and the bracing provided by the sheathing degrades. Local and distortional cross-section buckling failures are observed in the cold-formed steel member. The stabilizing effect and increase of load-carrying capacity attributed to the sheathing at ambient temperature is eventually lost at elevated temperature and the behavior of the sheathed studs becomes similar to the behavior of unsheathed members. Direct Strength Method design equations provided in the U.S. AISI S100 design specification are used with experimentally determined elevated temperature properties to predict the load-carrying capacity of the studs, then compared to experimental results to explore the feasibility of current design methods for performance-based fire design applications.

In modern construction, aluminum is often used as a structural material due to its relatively high strength-to-weight ratio, resistance to corrosion, and architecturally pleasing finish. For instance, aluminum has been an important component for the development of skyscrapers atriums and exterior facades, as aluminum structures can weigh up to sixty percent less than similar steel structures with comparable strength. However, the thermo-mechanical behavior of aluminum makes design against building fires challenging, mainly because aluminum has a low melting point, and experimental data and analysis-based models for fire design are limited. Generally, steady-state and transient tests are used to determine material properties at high temperatures. In a steady-state test, a tensile specimen is heated up to a target temperature, and then subjected to axial load under constant temperature. Alternatively, a transient tensile test is completed by applying static axial load to the specimen, and then gradually heating the material to realistically simulate fire conditions. Results from steady-state tests are easier to obtain and, therefore, more commonly used in computational models. This project investigates the accuracy of numerical results obtained through “transient” models that adopt steady-state mechanical properties to study the effects of fire on aluminum structures. Thin-walled columns were analyzed using nonlinear finite element models with mechanical properties from steady-state and transient tests. Results from Abaqus collapse analyses are used to compare the load-carrying capacities and critical temperatures of slender and non-slender hollow members. Parametric studies were completed to characterize the impact of member slenderness and geometric imperfections on the stability of hollow aluminum columns at elevated temperatures.

As described in this GIFTS presentation, we developed a first-year multidisciplinary design project, which compels students to think in terms of circular economies. This project focused on introducing students to the design process and project management. The assignment also connects to course modules on ethics, introductory programming, and data analysis. We structured the project for teams of 4-5 first-year students, requiring 40-50 hours per student throughout the semester. This two-credit multidisciplinary engineering course broadly covers engineering skill development, and many teams begin the project with a minimal background in the technologies required to implement the design. The project requires technical work in mechanics, electronics, and programming in a context of system design and sustainability. Most students find at least one area of the project that connects with their academic goals. Students must navigate an assessment objective with competing factors. A low stakes (3% of final grade) competition includes several conflicting factors: minimizing project cost, speed, accuracy (straight-line travel), load-carrying capacity, and percentage of reusable parts. Students record and reflect on the struggle of balancing cost and reusability against performance goals. Should the car be light and fast, or focus on carrying a larger mass and reliably following a straight line? Should they invest in expensive RC car wheels or use old CDs? The open-ended design process means teams progress at various rates governed only by a few checkpoints. Teams that test and redesign a couple of weeks before competition tend to fair better. Yet, some last minute teams have delivered well built, high-performing vehicles, and others have over tested: wearing out components not constructed for repeated use or suffering a damaging crash. The course also covers a broad discussion of engineering ethics. From the top down, we consider the societal impact of our profession and ethic responsibility to the greater good. We address ideas of circular economies and sustainability. The students are required to keep their vehicle battery charged with use of a photovoltaic module. The competition goal prominently features the reusability component. The higher the percent of reusable cost (ratio of total cost to cost of reusable parts), the better their performance score. Faculty assess reusability: which components, after the students disassemble their projects following competition day, will be marketable to future project teams. Closing the loop on the circular economy in our course, we open each semester with an auction where teams bid on these reusable materials. Teams budget parts purchased at auction in the same manner as purchased new components.

Steel design codes continue to be expanded to permit the use of more advanced methods of non‐linear analysis. Designers looking to employ such methods need to validate their analysis software and, just as importantly, verify their ability to utilize it properly. The literature contains many benchmark problems and results to help achieve this, but nearly all are limited to two‐dimensional behaviour. This paper is intended to contribute a new set of benchmark problems in order to help satisfy the need for a database of examples in which accurate modelling of three‐dimensional or spatial behaviour is essential.

This paper investigates complex instability phenomena of cold-formed steel members subjected to fire, using a modal identification approach based on the constrained finite strip method. During fire, elevated temperatures produce degradation of mechanical properties and thermal deformations on steel members, altering their expected performance at ambient conditions. The non-uniform temperature distribution through the cross-section of thin-walled members changes over time of fire exposure, potentially impacting the interaction of buckling modes. For instance, members normally controlled by symmetric local buckling at ambient temperature may develop a significant participation of non-symmetric distortional buckling, and a more pronounced interaction of modes at elevated temperatures. A set of thin-walled cold-formed steel members is investigated under thermal gradient. Modal identification based on the deformation field obtained through shell finite element nonlinear analysis is used to quantitatively assess the evolution of modal participations in thin-walled members as the temperature changes. The results provide the ability to track how the modes vary under evaluated temperature, and identify how the failure modes are coupled. In addition, the results can potential reveal the impact of thermal gradients on the load-carrying capacity of structural members under fire.

Design codes for steel structures continue to provide additional opportunities for the use of more advanced methods of nonlinear analysis. As the complexity of the analysis increases, it becomes more important for the designer to validate the capabilities of their analysis software and, just as importantly, their ability to properly utilize it. Many benchmark problems can be found in the literature; however, few include three-dimensional behavior and fewer include I-shaped sections, which are torsionally flexible and where warping restraint can be significant. This paper introduces a new set of benchmark problems that contribute to a much needed database of examples in which the accurate modeling of three-dimensional or spatial behavior is essential. A secondary goal of the paper is to illustrate new steel design provisions and the type of comparisons that were part of their development.

Performance-based fire design for cold-formed steel systems is in its infancy. This paper brings together existing research on cold-formed steel materials, members, and assemblages at elevated temperatures; and complementary analysis and design methods necessary for the development of analysis-based design for cold-formed steel systems under fire. Cold-formed steel systems have become popular in building construction as both load-bearing and non-load-bearing elements, primarily due to their high strength-to-weight ratio and ease of construction. Consequently, design specifications, and structural analysis tools have rapidly evolved to facilitate engineering design of these complex thin-walled members. However, in fires the performance of cold-formed steel systems are assured by prescriptive detailing and standardized testing. Today, engineering knowledge is rapidly advancing, providing the opportunity to contemplate analysis-based design as an enabling tool for general performance-based fire engineering of cold-formed steel systems. The review provided here includes experimental results on mechanical and thermal properties of cold-formed steel and temperature dependent constitutive relations, subsystem testing and computational simulations, and analysis models and exploratory methods for fire design, i.e., the building blocks towards performance-based fire design for cold-formed steel systems.

AbstractThis paper reports the computational results of an investigation of oil storage tanks with the shape of an open cylindrical shell under thermal loads induced by fire. Interest in this problem has arisen as a consequence of a catastrophic fire that affected an oil storage facility in Puerto Rico in 2009 that caused the failure of 21 large tanks. To identify patterns of deformations that could be expected under various fire conditions, computer modeling has been carried out for one tank geometry. It is assumed that fire occurs outside the tank and induces an increasing temperature field affecting part of the external surface in the circumferential direction. The nonlinear shell response is modeled using finite elements under thermal loads and self-weight. The nonlinear behavior is computed to identify thermal buckling of the shell as a limit point. The response is initially computed for empty tanks, and the influence of various factors is investigated, including the liquid stored, a temperature grad...

The stability of thin-walled members is decidedly complex. The recently developed constrained Finite Strip Method (cFSM) provides a means to simplify thin-walled member stability solutions through its ability to identify and decompose mechanically meaningful stability behavior, notably the formal separation of local, distortional, and global deformation modes. The objective of this paper is to provide a review of the most recent developments in cFSM. This review includes: fundamental advances in the development of cFSM; applications of cFSM in design and optimization; identifying buckling modes and collapse mechanisms in shell finite element models; and, additional stability research initiated by the cFSM methodology. A brief summary of the cFSM method, in its entirety, is provided to explain the method and highlight areas where research remains active in the fundamental development. The application of cFSM to cold-formed steel member design and optimization is highlighted as the method has the potential to automate generalized strength prediction of thin-walled cold-formed steel members. Extensions of cFSM to shell finite element models is also highlighted, as this provides one path to bring the useful identification features of cFSM to general purpose finite element models. A number of alternative methods, including initial works on a constrained finite element method, initiated by cFSM methods, are also detailed as they provide insights on potential future work in this area. Research continues on fundamentals such as methods for generalizing cFSM to arbitrary cross-sections, improved design and optimization methods, and new ideas in the context of shell finite element method applications.

This paper presents computational modeling and results of steel storage tanks under heat induced by an adjacent fire. In this research, modeling is restricted to the structural behavior of the tank, with emphasis on thermal buckling of the shell. Two tanks that buckled under a huge fire in Bayamón, Puerto Rico in 2009, are investigated in detail: a small tank with a self-supported conical roof, and a large tank in which the conical roof is supported by a set of rafters and columns. For a tank that is empty, the results show that a relatively low temperature is enough to produce static buckling of the shell. In pre-buckling states, the cylindrical shell has thermal expansion; at the critical state the displacements reverse and inwards displacements are observed at advanced post-buckling states. Parametric studies are performed to understand the influence of the shell thickness, the level of fluid stored in the tank, the area affected by fire in the circumferential direction, and the temperature gradient through the thickness. The buckling modes are compared with real deflection of tanks that were affected by fire.

As described in this GIFTS presentation, we utilize the Gallup StrengthsFinder inventory to foster diversity and inclusivity in our first-year Introduction to Engineering group projects. StrengthsFinder helps students better understand themselves and others, improving team communication and performance. We also use this technique to address stereotype threat. Students discover the diversity of ways each individual engineer contributes to the profession through their unique set of strengths. The Gallup StrengthsFinder inventory reveals people's top five strengths. These strengths describe the individual's natural talents or dispositions: domains or environments that energize. Strengths do not describe skills such as problem solving, writing, fabricating, or computing. The thirty-four strengths fall into four domains: Influencing, Executing, Relationship Building, and Strategic Thinking. For example, someone with the consistency strength (Executing domain) seeks balance and works to ensure fairness. We encourage students to develop their engineering skills from their unique set of strengths. While they must develop competency across all the skills required for engineering work, with strengths they should "play to their strengths." At the beginning of the course, students complete the Gallup StrengthsFinder inventory and learn about their unique talents. Later, they complete discover how they can leverage their strengths to improve their learning and communication. We use CATME's Teambuilder software to form teams with students that span the different domains. They also complete assignments designed to effectively highlight the advantages of a diversity of strengths within their team and devise strategies for effective communication. Specifically, they receive training on how to understand, communicate with, and work with teammates who have varied strength profiles. Through team contracts and reflections, students recognize how their unique attributes position them for important and valuable contributions to facilitating their team's inclusive environment. Previous research indicates that engineering students are overrepresented in the Strategic Thinking and Executing domains. Through the affirming of StrengthsFinder, rather than feeling out of place, a student possessing strengths in the Relationship Building or Influencing categories begin to view their uniqueness as an asset. We will provide tips and references on how to implement this approach in the classroom. Additionally, we will provide student feedback revealing how they embrace their strengths and feel more confident in how they develop as an engineer.

Concept-based instruction is an approach to deploy "concept questions" which are qualitative and designed to elicit patterns of thought that complement or reinforce those required for procedural questions. Typically, concept questions are multiple choice with one "correct" answer among several "attractive distractors". However, some concept questions may, by design, have "multiple defensible responses", so as to engender debate and deeper discussion about multiple solution pathways, underlying assumptions, or other contextual details. Also, the use of concept questions is arguably most effective when written explanations of answers are also collected, so as to better understand students' reasoning, including the possibility that an "incorrect" answer reveals some measure of conceptual understanding (sometimes referred to as a "phenomenological primitive"). Finally, use of concept questions is part of an evolutionary process of faculty development, in which the deployment, review of explanations, and feedback, is an ongoing process oriented toward effective teaching and learning outcomes. A Community of Practice (CoP) of mechanics instructors from several diverse institutions (ranging in size, demographics, and identity), has been formed to use the Concept Warehouse (CW) as a platform to create, deploy, and assess the results of concept questions in Statics and Dynamics. The CW is an online tool that contains several thousand concept questions, called "ConcepTests", that range over several topics in engineering, including approximately 800 in mechanics. The CW allows the instructor to deploy the ConcepTests in a variety of modalities, including online or offline, in-class or out of class, and with response time allocated to be "immediate" (say 2-5 minutes during class) or "extended" (say several hours or days as a preparatory or exploratory exercise). The CoP has two teams, one for Statics, and one for Dynamics. During the 2022-23 academic year, each member of each team will assign the same four "common questions" from the CW, at the point and in the modality appropriate to their course. The following data will be collected from students: the answer to the question, corresponding written explanations (i.e., to explain or justify the chosen answer), and feedback (e.g., confidence and impressions as to the usefulness of the question). Some students and faculty will be selected for follow-up interviews. This work is the sequel to a work-in-progress (WIP) article published and presented at the 2022 Annual Conference & Exposition, that was conducted by four faculty teaching Statics. The four common statics questions in this study are the same as used in the WIP. The WIP reported two general findings: (i) across all institutions, and independently of correctness of their answers, female students consistently reported lower confidence in their answers; (ii) among students selecting correct responses, only about one third to one half expressed reasoning that was considered "correct". Nevertheless, many "incorrect" answers contained portions of reasoning that suggested that some core ideas were being expressed, allowing for the possibility of further discussion to build understanding. This study will add further data, including information from student and faculty interviews that was not available for the WIP, to validate or cross-examine these results. In particular, the notion that scores of a concept question are an imperfect measure of students' conceptual understanding will be further explored. The paper will also discuss if there is evidence to suggest similarities or differences results across the institutional contexts.

This paper explores the implementation of project management elements (PME) in a three-semester capstone course sequence. Following an entrepreneurial model, multidisciplinary teams of four or five students work on an engineering project of their choice, which involves design, fabrication, and testing. Teams are required to submit weekly PME designed based on an agile workflow. These submissions include weekly individual reports and team meeting minutes, documents similar to those that students can expect to use as working professionals or to manage their projects as part of an entrepreneurial start-up company. Consulting engineering firms frequently require their employees to track work hours to appropriately bill clients and hold their workers accountable for their time. This structure inspired weekly individual reports for students working on senior capstone teams. The PME foment an entrepreneurial mindset by facilitating students' ability, every single week, to recognize and identify opportunities, focus on the impact of their work, and create value for their project team. The individual reports include the number of hours spent on the project, tasks completed over the past week, work products, and tasks assigned for the upcoming week. Team meeting minutes include the time, date, and location of the group's meeting, a meeting agenda, old business, new business, and a summary of discussion and decisions. The team meeting minutes also include peer-to-peer assessment of each member's weekly performance in several categories. Consequently, team members use the PME structure to hold each other accountable. Continued low performance on PME can substantially reduce capstone grades for individual students. PME provide students with a framework to work as professionals and, therefore, manage their teams effectively with minimal intervention from advisors. These skills are essential to supporting an entrepreneurial mindset. Students use PME to document problems such as lack of participation or limited contributions by a team member, allowing for earlier intervention, if necessary. Over the past several years, the evolving use of PME has resulted in improved productivity and less team conflict, as evidenced by peer evaluation metrics (from CATME). Also, instructors report reduced time assessing individual contributions. Enabling students to complete their capstone projects while developing their project and team management skills provides a critical foundation for their professional lives. Alumni report how the senior capstone experience best prepared them for their working lives, even more so than their technical courses.

Four institutions collaborated to deploy a set of four common concept questions from the Concept Warehouse.In responding to the concept questions, student not only directly answered the question but were also asked to provide written explanations of their reasoning, ratings of their confidence with their answer, and ratings of their perceptions on the question effectiveness to help them learn.The research questions addressed by this preliminary study were: How do faculty at different institutions employ concept-based instruction?and How do students in different contexts respond to concept questions?The study identified three modes of deployment, two modes used concept questions before or during introduction of a new topic and one mode used them sometime after concept introduction.In all cases, the grading basis was "low stakes".Concerning response to concept questions, preliminary results show that students identifying as female express lower confidence in their answers compared with students identifying as male whether or not they outperformed male student.This finding was consistent across all institutional settings.Students also had difficulty providing essential and correct explanations for phenomena, even when they provide the correct response, regardless of institutional setting or gender identity.Finally, there also appears to be no correlation between performance, confidence, and question effectiveness.

Engineering Statics is a fundamental engineering science course taken by many, if not most, engineering students. A basic skill of Statics is the addition of vectors (also referred to as vector resultants). Typically, textbook and exam questions on this topic are algebraic in nature, with less attention given to graphical interpretation and representation. The authors of this study are interested in investigating the relationship between students' algebraic and graphical reasoning skills. The following research questions have been posed and are being studied: R1. Does mastery of vector algebra imply mastery of graphical interpretations of vector addition? R2. Do students adopt the habit of redrawing generic figures to scale when given particular parameter values? To answer these questions, the authors draw on their common approach to testing students on this and related topics. In particular, test questions on vector addition require students to perform both the algebraic calculations as well as a corresponding sketch, to good scale and proportion. The results demonstrate that in general, a moderate number of students who do not attain the correct calculated values, nevertheless show some ability to achieve a reasonably accurate corresponding diagram. This suggests that use of graphical reasoning is a valid means to develop knowledge and skills with vectors.