Nabil A. Rahman, Ph.D., P.E. is the Director of Engineering and R&D for The Steel Network, Inc. and a Principal at FDR Engineers in Durham, NC. He is the current chairman of ASCE-SEI Committee on Cold-Formed Steel Members. He serves as a member of the Committee on Specification and Committee on Framing of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), and a member of ASCE Committee on Disproportionate Collapse. He can be reached at nabil@steelnetwork.com.
Off-site construction is the future of the building industry. It aims to speed up on-site construction schedules, address skilled worker shortages, and achieve better pre-coordination. Given their lightweight nature, cold-formed steel (CFS) framing projects are uniquely situated to use prefabricated panels. The panels can be complete with all the framing, sheathing, and possibly finishes installed in the fabrication facility.
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The DoD Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) program developed documents to assist in determining the design basis threat and the desired level of protection of structures. Determining the level of protection to be achieved by a building against an explosive threat can be complicated and is based on analysis that considers variables such as the value of assets inside the building, likelihood of aggressor attack, aggressor tactics, and threat severity. …
