CIVIL ENGINEERING

"Design, Construction, Rehabilitation, and Resilience of the Built Environment"


Chair: Pr Abdeldjelil BELARBI (USA)


Major advances have taken place in recent years in the design, construction, and rehabilitation of the built environment; understanding of the environmental and natural hazards; and approaches for reducing disaster risk and for enhancing the resilience of the built environment.

The civil engineering program will mainly cover broad areas of structural design and behavior. Most of the concepts and techniques to be presented are applicable to infrastructure elements such as bridge and buildings, with great emphasis to be devoted to the infrastructure renewal with evaluation and retrofitting (or rehabilitation) of existing buildings, including historical buildings. The program will cover also the earthquake design requirements of new buildings are addressed by the building code, but that of existing buildings (a major component in the fabric of many cities in Algeria) represents a real concern, particularly due to the lack of detailed information regarding concealed original assemblies and material properties, their current condition, and the difficulty associated with selecting performance objectives for the retrofitted buildings. In addition, topics will include NDT techniques and advanced vision-based inspection and monitoring of bridges and buildings.

This broad program will cover basic concepts, advanced techniques, and recent scientific and technological advances in the field, including:


  • Modeling and analysis methods for structures and continua

  • Seismic design principles for new buildings

  • Emerging concepts in modern building codes

  • Non-destructive evaluation and rehabilitation of existing concrete and masonry buildings and structures

  • Advanced topics in concrete (materials, confined concrete modeling, seismic design)

  • Seismic evaluation and retrofit of existing buildings

  • Geotechnical earthquake engineering

  • Non-destructive testing and ambient vibration testing

  • Innovative technologies for structural strengthening and retrofitting of existing structures

  • Modeling of catastrophic risk

  • Resilience of interdependent infrastructure systems and communities.

  • Interactive workshops on case studies and software demonstrations

  • Structural health monitoring of existing buildings

  • Advances in vision-based inspection and monitoring of civil infrastructure

  • “Blitz” presentations by doctoral students highlighting their research, followed by a question-and-answer period.


The goal of this AAF Summer University program is to provide advanced training to doctoral students who will be educating the future civil engineers, and to enhance their ability to conduct relevant, up-to-date research in new technologies and use of advanced construction materials as well as earthquake engineering and disaster risk management. Participants will be exposed to the latest technologies and learn theoretical and practical knowledge on diverse relevant aspects of the design, construction, retrofit, and resilience of the built environment. The lecturers will guide and assist participants working in academia, research centers, and engineering design and construction companies to develop their .skills and will explore the possibility of building a network of researchers and practicing engineers in various fields in Algeria and abroad to consider future collaborative projects and initiatives.