The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute (CFSEI) are joining the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the University of North Texas as co-sponsors in the fourth International Student Competition on Cold-Formed Steel Design. The competition is open to all full-time students at either the undergraduate or graduate levels who are interested in cold-formed steel design, creative in problem solving, and eager to learn new technologies. The competition is under way and will conclude on September 30, 2014. This is the only student competition of its kind in the cold-formed steel industry.

The competition is unique in that step-by-step instructions and free software are provided so that any student, regardless of the major area of study, can complete and submit a cold-formed steel design. Cold-formed steel refers to products made by rolling or pressing thin gauges of sheet steel into products. 

“Although steel has been used as a building material for many years, structures framed with cold-formed steel require knowledge about the latest innovations in manufacturing, Building Information Modeling, and logistics technologies,” said Maribeth Rizzuto, LEED AP-BD&C, managing director of the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute. “With this competition, students are challenged to reach beyond their traditional studies, learn about the design capabilities of cold-formed steel, and apply this information to a specific problem that they might encounter in the workplace. The design solutions that we’ve received during the past three competitions have been very creative, and we’re looking forward to seeing the 2014 competition submissions.”

The 2014 International Student Competition on Cold-Formed Steel Design is co-hosted by the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute and the University of North Texas. Students are required to work on the problem individually, with no team solutions accepted. They can use an open-source software, CUFSM, to perform the elastic buckling analysis. (CUFSM is software that employs the finite strip method to provide solutions for the cross-section stability of thin-walled cold-formed steel members.) Participants can view the problem and contest rules at http://www.cfsei.org.

Students will submit a completed information form, design essay and CUFSM result file by September 30, 2014. A panel of judges will review all entries and announce the winners in December 2014, with awards mailed in January 2015.

The panel of judges is nationally recognized in the area of cold-formed steel design and includes:

• Yared Shifferaw Bayleyegn, Ph.D., assistant professor, Drexel University
• Rick Haws, P.E., NBS Group Services, A Nucor Company, United States
• Roger A. LaBoube, Ph.D., P.E., Distinguished Teaching Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology, United States
• Yuanqi Li, Ph.D., professor, Tongji University, China
• Cheng Yu, Ph.D., associate professor, University of North Texas, United States

Monetary awards will be provided to the top three winners, and each of the top 10 winners will receive a one-year student membership in the Cold-Formed Steel Engineers Institute. The winning designs will be recognized and exhibited at selected professional conferences. For more information on the competition, please contact:

• Maribeth Rizzuto, LEED AP-BD&C, MSRizzuto@aol.com,  tel: 412.921.1060
• Cheng Yu, Ph.D., Cheng.Yu@unt.edu, tel: 940.565.2022

AISI’s codes and standards work is conducted under the Construction Market Council of the Steel Market Development Institute (SMDI), a business unit of AISI, which oversees the industry’s investment in advancing the competitive use of steel by meeting the demands of the marketplace. For more information on SMDI’s Construction Market program, visit www.smdisteel.org.