Thomas C. Kavanagh Memorial Structural Engineering Lecture

Each spring semester, the Thomas C. Kavanagh Memorial Structural Engineering Lecture invites a nationally or internationally prominent structural engineer to Penn State University Park to speak on a timely structural engineering topic. The lecture provides faculty, students, and practitioners with the opportunity to connect, converse, and collaborate, and honors Dr. Kavanagh’s commitment and dedication to the profession and his students.

About Dr. Thomas C. Kavanagh

Dr. Kavanagh, a structural engineer, served as a Penn State civil engineering professor from 1948-52. In 1952, he joined New York University as the chair of its Department of Civil Engineering. Dr. Kavanagh served as a consultant for various firms, eventually joining Louis Berger International as its vice president in 1975. In 1976, he founded Iffland Kavanagh Waterbury, where he remained a partner until his death in 1978. Dr. Kavanagh served as a founding member of the National Academy of Engineering and served as its first treasurer from 1964-74.

2026 Lecture

October 13
5:00 p.m.
28 ECoRE Building

Speaker

Andrew Whittaker, Ph.D., P.E., S.E., NAE
SUNY Distinguished Professor, Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering, University of Buffalo

Bio

Andrew Whittaker is a SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Civil, Structural, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Buffalo and holds a faculty joint appointment at Idaho National Laboratory. He is a registered civil and structural engineer in the state of California. Whittaker earned his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1977 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985 and 1988, respectively. Whittaker is a Distinguished Member of ASCE and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He has contributed to the development of ASCE standards and ATC/FEMA guidelines for more than 30 years. He made significant contributions to the first generation of tools for performance-based earthquake engineering, including FEMA 273, FEMA 274, FEMA 356, and ASCE 41, and led the structural engineering team that developed the second generation of these tools, FEMA P-58. Whittaker served as chair of the ASCE Nuclear Standards Committee from 2015 to 2026 and now co-chairs the ASCE 92 committee. He also led Issue Team 11 in the current NEHRP cycle addressing risk targets for seismic isolation systems for buildings, with outcomes intended to inform ASCE/SEI 7-28.

Lecture Title

Risk-informed, Performance-based Design of Seismic Isolation Systems for Nuclear Power Plants

Lecture Abstract

Risk-informed pathways are being developed to support the design and licensing of next-generation nuclear power plants. This presentation describes one such pathway for implementing seismic base isolation. The methodology has evolved from a rigorous risk-based framework involving isolation-system-specific seismic displacement demand curves, fragility functions, and numerical integration of seismic risk, to a simplified closed-form procedure requiring displacement calculations only at an annual frequency of exceedance corresponding to the target performance goal (TPG). The resulting median displacement capacity, D50, provides the basis for prototype testing of seismic isolators and dampers.

The presentation begins with an overview of the nuclear regulatory framework relevant to risk-informed seismic design, followed by the derivation of displacement demand curves, development of isolation-system fragility functions, calculation of D50, and the associated prototype testing requirements for seismic isolation and energy dissipation devices.