Topic: History and prospects of structural damage due to snow loads

Prof.  Toru Takahashi was born in 1963 in Akita Prefecture, Japan. Akita is in the heavy snow area in Japan and 1963 was the most severe heavy snow year in the past 70 years. He graduated from Tohoku University, Department of Architecture, in 1985. He completed doctoral course at Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University in 1990 and obtained his Ph.D. He became a Research Associate at Chiba University in 1990, an Assistant Professor in 1994, an Associate Professor in 1996, and a Professor in 2006. He served as Vice Dean of Faculty of Engineering in 2014, Director of Center for Frontier Science in 2017, and now he is currently the Director of the Department for collaboration between high schools and Chiba University. He also served as a committee chair of Steering Committee on Loads on Buildings, AIJ from 2016 to 2020, Chairman of AIJ Kanto Branch in 2020 to 2022, and Chairman of Japan Society of Snow Engineering from 2018 to 2022. His main research fields are snow loads on buildings, safety and reliability on buildings against snow loads, wind action, and the ground motion.

Abstract: From the era of Greek civilization until the 17th century, temples and churches were the most representative large buildings in both the East and the West. In the 18th century, operas and concerts became available to citizens and were performed indoors, and theatres and concert halls began to be built with truss structures. It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century, when steel was first used, that indoor sports fields for watching sports began to be built. In the latter half of the 20th century, advances in structural analysis technology led to the creation of lightweight and large spatial structures. Because the era in which the ratio of dead loads to snow loads was high continued for a long time, it may be said that the problem of roof snow loads only became apparent in the recent past in human history. Some examples of structural damage due to snow load on roofs will be shown on pictures and some considerations will be made regarding the causes of the collapse.