Earthquake Engineer Named Chair of Civil Engineering

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Andrei M. Reinhorn, Ph.D., professor of civil engineering at the University at Buffalo and internationally recognized expert in earthquake engineering, has been named chair of the Department of Civil Engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The department houses the seismic simulation facility, the New York State Center for Hazardous Waste Management and the Great Lakes Program.

Reinhorn came to UB in 1979 as a visiting assistant professor from Technion Israel-Institute of Technology and became a full-time faculty member at UB in 1981.

As a teacher and researcher, he focuses on seismic evaluation of structures and on the development of building codes, active and passive protective systems for structures, and new computerized design programs that predict how much damage a building will sustain in a temblor.

Reinhorn was among the UB faculty members who developed the university's seismic simulation facility, which helped to bring the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (NCEER) to UB.

Reinhorn's work is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, NCEER and other agencies.

He is the developer of IDARC -- Inelastic Damage Analysis of Reinforced Concrete Structures -- a computer program that models reinforced concrete buildings that experience nonelastic deformations before collapse. Engineers use IDARC to design laboratory experiments and shaking-table tests, and to conduct seismic evaluation of buildings and bridges.

He also is the co-author, along with UB professor of civil engineering Michalakis Constantinou, Ph.D., of the 3D-BASIS computer program series that is used by engineers in California and Japan to design modern seismic isolations to protect structures from destruction.

With Tsu-Teh Soong, UB professor of civil engineering, Reinhorn developed a "smart" bracing system to control vibrations in skyscrapers. Tested in an experimental building constructed in seismically active Tokyo, the active bracing system performed successfully during several moderate earthquakes.

Reinhorn was a member of the NCEER reconnaissance team sent in to examine and evaluate damage following California's 1994 Northridge earthquake.

He recently received awards from the Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council for outstanding contributions to the advancement of state-of-the-art structural analysis techniques and for the Outstanding 1995 Journal Paper entitled "Seismic Performance Analysis of a Multistory Steel Moment Frame Building Damaged During the 1994 Northridge Earthquake."

A fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Reinhorn is the author of more than 250 journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and technical reports, and is the co-author of two patents. He received the New York State Professional Engineers' Educator of the Year award and the American Society of Civil Engineering Award for outstanding service.

He also serves as a reviewer for the National Science Foundation and several engineering journals, and has chaired and organized numerous conferences and workshops.

Reinhorn is past president of the Buffalo section of the American Society of Civil Engineers, which is involved in promoting engineering in Western New York schools.

He lives in Williamsville.