On Jan. 3, Ron Klemencic, who turned 55 the next day, got an early birthday present. From his 32nd-floor office window in Seattle, the seismic structural engineer looked down to see crews at grade beginning shoring work for an 850-ft-tall “proof of concept” for his cutting-edge composite steel frame.
The high-rise, called Rainier Square Tower, represents the realization of a 15-plus-year ambition of the chairman and CEO of Magnusson Klemencic Associates (MKA). Klemencic expects the radical superstructure system, appropriate for office towers, to replace the common but slower-to-build “leading” concrete core surrounded by a trailing steel frame.
Ron Klemencic
Seattle
新利18备用ENR 10/9/17 p。8
Engineer organized public-domain research to test the seismic and wind performance of his modular composite steel core-wall system, intended to transform office-tower construction.
钢制塔的框架将具有堆叠的工厂焊接耦合钢板模块的核心，并将现场焊接在一起，并配有无钢筋混凝土。Rainier Square的总承包商Leaser Lewis预测，上层建筑将花费9个月的时间少于混凝土核心。
如果不是克莱门尼德领导的研发，创新的结构系统仍然是一个梦想。2006年，他在普渡大学的模块上组织了负载测试，以证明其地震表现。去年，他倡导了第二轮测试，这是受雷尼尔广场（Rainier Square）的同行评论中提出的问题的启发。
“罗恩（Ron）对新方法的研发产生了深远的影响，”同行审稿人之一，辛普森·古普特兹（Simpson Gumpertz＆Heger Inc.）的高级校长罗纳德·O·汉布尔格（Ronald O. Hamburger）说。
迄今为止，最新一系列测试的模块是由查尔斯·潘科基金会（Charles Pankow Foundation）和美国钢结构研究所（American Steel Construction）共同赞助的，其性能比预期的要好。“我们知道我们的Rainier Square Tower设计是保守的，但没有任何测试数据来备份任何不太保守的东西，” Klemencic说。
作为私人查尔斯·潘科基金会（Charles Pankow Foundation）的董事，克莱蒙（Klemencic）还将指导研发基于性能的风设计，水再利用，预制，结构消防工程，建筑信息建模，集成项目交付和重型木材。他说：“我的野心是让人们激励和启发，并成为推进该行业的一部分。”
MKA has long relied on R&D to prove innovative concepts for use by all engineers. “Ron Klemencic has the unique ability to understand industry challenges, champion the fundamental R&D needed to address these challenges and shepherd the R&D products” into codes and standards, says Amit H. Varma, director of the Bowen Laboratory at Purdue and the co-investigator for the ongoing research, which will result in performance-based design guidelines for the novel system.
