Dr. Abolmaali is a Professor in structural and applied mechanics at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the Founding Director of UT- Arlington Center for Structural Engineering Research and the Professor-in-Charge of the Structural Simulation Laboratory at UTA.
Professor Abolmaali has intensive research experience and ongoing research projects in computational structural engineering and full scale structural testing of civil, aerospace, and underground structural systems including research in fluid structure interaction problems. As a Principal Investigator, Dr. Abolmaali has secured over $28M in research and development funds from states, federal and private agencies. These funding agencies include but not limited to the National Science Foundation, departments of transportation, Federal Highway Administration, and others to conduct basic and applied research in structural engineering and mechanics.
Professor Abolmaali’s ongoing research projects focus on developing coupled nonlinear finite element algorithms and full-scale experimental testing to simulate the nonlinear behavior of structural systems subjected to static and dynamic loadings up to collapse. Dr. Abolmaali’s research spectrum includes but not limited to: development of hybrid frame systems to resist and dissipate earthquake energy; development of dynamic base isolators for vibration dissipation of large diameter tall tapered un-braced poles; prediction of crack width, locations, initiation, and propagation in steel reinforced and fiber reinforced underground and super structures subjected to complex loading; prediction of plastic hinge formation and cracks propagation in ductile metal civil and aerospace structures by including cyclic plasticity algorithms; response prediction of thermoplastic underground and super structures with time dependent material properties; simulation of bio-mechanics fluid-membrane systems by using mixed finite element formulation; development of numerical algorithms for nonlinear solution of dynamic equation of motion.
Dr. Abolmaali has conducted several high profile failure investigation research projects for the National Transportation Safety Board examples of which are the Boston Tunnel collapse (Big Dig Tunnel), Minneapolis Bridge collapse, and Big Spring’s Nebraska Bridge collapse.
Dr. Abolmaali is the author and co-author of over 70 refereed technical journal papers and conference proceedings in structural engineering and finite element method. Dr. Abolmaali has given over 110 technical presentations nationally and internationally.
Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete Pipe Project
