Malevolent Design

   Malevolent begs benevolent design; vice versa vehicles.


   ENR, April 22, 1996, p. 9.


   Course is offered on vehicle bomb effects

   The anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing is being
   recognized in several ways. One is an upcoming course at a
   new design center set up to consider extreme loads of all
   types. "Malevolent vehicle blast effects and mitigation
   actions applicable to civilian structures, systems and
   components" will be the first course held by the Center for
   Design of Special Facilities at Case Western Reserve
   University, Cleveland, Ohio.

   Established in the engineering school last September, the
   center will address the lack of national design standards
   for special structures other than hospitals, emergency
   response facilities and nuclear powerplants. The center
   focuses on gathering and disseminating information about
   the loads on critical facilities whose failure would impose
   significant impacts on the public and environment, such as
   for liquefied natural gas installations, petrochemical
   plants and biological research laboratories.

   Manufacturing associations and industrial owners as well as
   the National Science Foundation are expected to provide the
   center with financial support -- as are workshop attendees.
   As many as 35 participants will pay as much as $1,450
   apiece to attend the first offering of the five-day course
   on vehicle bombings this week and receive new computer-
   aided design programs to assist in rapid evaluation of such
   threats.

   Other kinds of "loadings" to be considered are earthquakes,
   tornadoes, floods and volcanic eruptions -- making it the
   first center in the world to try to develop design
   guidelines for all types of extreme loads, natural and
   otherwise. "We're going to build very much on the work of
   others," points out the center's director, 62-yearold John
   D. Stevenson, who also is chairman of the American Society
   of Civil Engineers' Nuclear Standards Committee.

   For the past 30 years, Stevenson has worked primarily in
   nuclear design and its special standard. "It's never been
   applied to other 'special' industries and that makes me
   wonder: Why do we concentrate on one potentially hazardous
   industry and not on others?" he says. Stevenson wants the
   center to support development of voluntary consensus
   standards, such as ones written by the American National
   Standards Institute.

   [End]