2025 HSS SUMMIT
Session
HSS Design 201: Tools and Resources for Connection Design
Description:
As a designer or detailer of tubular steel structures, it is important for you to be aware of all the technical resources at your disposal to help you achieve your goal. Written guidance is available from specifications, standards, manuals and design guides – national and international. Supporting online software exists for special design issues (such as connections). This session will thus review current aids and tools dedicated to HSS, under predominantly static loading. The presentation concludes with the emerging concept of “no-design” connections; i.e., pre-engineered and pre-qualified HSS connections.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the limits and scope of AISC publications.
- Assess the utility of STI publications and tools.
- Determine the applicability of international resources.
- Evaluate contemporary online connection design aids.
PDH credits: 1.0
Speaker:
Dr. Jeffrey A. Packer, Ph.D., D.Sc., P.Eng., Bahen/Tanenbaum Professor of Civil Engineering, University of Toronto
About Jeff:
Professor Jeff Packer graduated from the University of Adelaide, Australia, then received his Master’s degree from the University of Manchester and Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in the U.K. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering at the University of Toronto (UofT). Since his appointment at UofT in 1980 he has undertaken research, development and consulting work primarily on tubular steel structures. He has published extensively on this topic, including 15 books and design guides.
He currently serves on technical committees for the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC), American Welding Society (AWS), ComitéInternational pour le Développement et l’Étude de la Construction Tubulaire (CIDECT), International Institute of Welding (IIW) and the Steel Tube Institute (STI).
He is a licensed Professional Engineer in Ontario and the U.K., and has been elected a Fellow of 7 engineering institutes/societies, internationally. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several journals, and as a Director of IIW and Cast Connex Corporation. He held the UofTBahen/Tanenbaum Professor Endowed Chair from 2009 to 2021.