Biography Yahya C. Kurama received his B.S. in civil engineering (1990) from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, and his M.S. (1993) and Ph.D. (1997) in civil engineering from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Dr. Kurama is a registered engineer in Indiana. He is a recipient of the University of Notre Dame Rev. Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C. Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2008, Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI) Young Educator Achievement Award in 2005, co-recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) T.Y. Lin Award in 2003, and co-recipient of the PCI Martin P. Korn Award in 2002. He was a faculty fellow of the Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning at the University of Notre Dame in 2010-2011. He received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award in 1998. Dr. Kurama is a member of American Concrete Institute (ACI) Committees on Performance-Based Seismic Design of Concrete Buildings, Precast Concrete Structures, and Concrete with Recycled Materials; ASCE Composite Construction Committee; and PCI Seismic and Student Education Committees. He also serves as an associate editor for the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering.

Research Interests Dr. Kurama's research interests include the behavior and design of concrete building structures under extreme loading. A significant focus of his research is on the development of new and innovative types of precast concrete frame and wall structures for seismic regions. These structures utilize unbonded post-tensioning to connect precast structural components in the field, to result in a building system that can not only survive a large earthquake but also sustain relatively small damage. The various types of activities conducted under this research program include large-scale testing of structural components and subassemblies, as well as seismic design and nonlinear analytical investigations.

In the area of earthquake engineering, Dr. Kurama is also interested in the displacement and acceleration demands exerted on building structures from earthquake loading. The ground motion itself is the most important variable governing the outcome and amount of uncertainty from the nonlinear response of structures. Current research at the University of Notre Dame is conducting a large number of small-scale shake-table experiments of re-configurable nonlinear structural models using an exhaustive set of ground motion records. This research will shed light into seismic demand quantification as well as the selection and modification of ground motion records to obtain accurate and efficient estimates of the median demands.

Another research thrust area that Dr. Kurama has been working on is the structural behavior and design of reinforced concrete buildings under fire loading. Current structural design in the U.S. does not consider fire as a design condition, as it does the effects of dead loads, live loads, wind loads, and earthquake loads. As such, the available design methods and analysis tools cannot be used to evaluate the structural performance of a building under a prescribed fire scenario. In accordance with the research need in this area, full-scale experiments of concrete building assemblies are conducted under gravity and fire loading. Ultimately, these test results will be used to develop design and analysis guidelines for these structures.

A more recent focus area for Dr. Kurama's research involves the use of recycled concrete aggregates in structural concrete applications. The amount of crushed stone, sand, and gravel produced in the U.S. accounts for more than half of all mining. These operations consume vast amounts of energy and negatively impact the ecology of forested areas and riverbeds. By using recycled coarse aggregates derived from demolished infrastructure to supplement virgin aggregates in new construction, it would be possible to substantially improve the resource productivity of the concrete industry. The current research project is conducting a comprehensive series of experiments to investigate the effects of using significant amounts of recycled aggregates from various sources as coarse aggregate replacement in reinforced concrete structures.

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