Venkatesh Kodur
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
An internationally renowned expert in the evaluation of fire resistance of structural systems through large-scale fire experiments
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Dr. Venkatesh Kodur is a University Distinguished Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan State University. He also serves as Director of the Centre on Structural Fire Engineering and Diagnostics at Michigan State University. His research interests include: Evaluation of fire resistance of structural systems through large scale fire experiments and numerical modeling and Characterization of materials under high temperature. His research contributions
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has lead to the development of fundamental understanding on the fire behavior of material and structural systems and also resulted in numerous design approaches and innovative and cost-effective solutions for enhancing fire-resistance of structural systems. He has published over 350 peer-reviewed papers in journals and conferences, and has given numerous invited key-note presentations. He is one of the highly cited authors in Civil Engineering and as per Google Scholar, he has more than 7900 citations with an "h” index of 51.
Prof. Kodur is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering. He is a professional engineer, Fellow of American Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of Structural Engineering Institute, Society of Civil Engineers, Fellow of American Concrete Institute, Associate Editor of Journal of Structural Engineering, Chairman of ACI Fire Protection Committee, Chairman of ASCE-29 (Fire) Standards Committee and a member of UK-EPSRC College of Reviewers. He has won many awards including MSU University Distinguished Professor, AISC Faculty Fellowship Award, MSU Distinguished Faculty Award, NRCC (Government of Canada) Outstanding Achievement Award and NATO Award for collaborative research. Dr. Kodur was part of the FEMA/ASCE Building Performance Assessment Team that studied the collapse of WTC buildings as a result of September 11 incidents.
Education
Queen's University: Ph.D., Structural Engineering | 1992
Queen's University: M.S., Structural Engineering | 1988
Bangalore University: B.S., Civil Engineering | 1985
Selected Press
Stateside Podcast: Is the Mackinac Bridge vulnerable to a freighter strike?
Michigan Public | 2024-04-17
Dr. Venkatesh Kodur, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan State University, spoke to how these protections are added to existing bridges.
“[Bumpers] can be implemented in the current bridges we have, but it requires a little bit of effort,” Kodur said. “For the existing bridges, it can be done, but it requires some planning, a little bit more cost than what it would have been when it was originally built.”
Mackinac Bridge Authority meets in Dimondale to discuss safety inspections
WILX 10 News | 2024-04-05
Mackinac Bridge safety is drawing more public interest than usual after the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26. Michigan State University engineer, Dr. Venkatesh Kodur said the collapse was rare for Baltimore, and it would be just as rare for a Michigan bridge. Dr. Venkatesh Kodur, MSU Engineer: “So typically, they are all well designed for, most of the time, but the events which happened in Baltimore, they are called extreme events, they don’t happen all the time.”
The I-95 Collapse Is a Tragic Reminder That U.S. Bridges Are Still Built Without Fire Safety in Mind
Popular Mechanics | 2023-06-16
A steel bridge exposed to the heat of a fire can fail in 20 minutes, says Venkatesh Kodur, a Michigan State University civil and environmental engineering professor, who would like all fire-susceptible bridges in the world to be made fireproof. Kodur is the founding director of the university’s Center on Structural Fire Engineering and Diagnostics; it’s the first testing facility of its kind in the country, where researchers model all kinds of structures, including buildings, airports, tunnels, and steel bridge girders, for fire-resistant design.