Pitt Engineer Leads Successful International Conference on Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites
CEE Professor Kent Harries served as the co-chair for CICE 2023 in Brazil, bringing together civil engineers from around the world
Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composites are a wonder material that offer a wide range of benefits – from short production and installation times to corrosion resistance.
But, how can experts make it even better?
More than 200 representatives from 31 countries gathered in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for the 11th International Conference on Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE 2023) to share and discuss recent developments and future perspectives in the field.
The three-day conference this past July was both the first held in South America and the first face-to-face meeting of the FRP community in five years.
“The conference was, by all measures, a success,” said Kent Harries, conference co-chair, FASCE, FACI, FIIFC, P.Eng., professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering. “We received 332 Abstracts resulting in 196 published and presented papers – all face-to-face in Rio. The 196 papers included 526 unique authors representing 36 countries.”
Harries is well-versed in the uses of FRP as his research interests include the use of nontraditional materials in civil infrastructure, the seismic design and retrofit of building structures. While at the CICE 2023, he co-authored three well-received papers, two of which include a visiting PhD student from Brazil and her advisor from Federal Center Technological Education and Minas Gerais Proffe. The third resulted from a long-standing collaboration Harries has in New Zealand.
As co-chair alongside Professor Daniel Cardoso from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Harries was responsible for the CICE 2023 technical program and hosted the closing and opening sessions.