Bechtel Engineer Farhang Ostadan To Be Honored for Advancing the Protection of Nuclear Power Plants Against Earthquakes

Farhang Ostadan, manager of Bechtel’s Earthquake Engineering Center, has been announced as the 2019 recipient of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. Energy Award.

The prestigious award recognizes outstanding achievements in the energy industry and is named after former Bechtel president and chairman Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) says Ostadan was chosen as this year’s awardee because of his “significant contributions to practice, research, and codification activities for advancing soil-structure-interaction analysis and seismic analysis in the energy industry, in particular, the nuclear power industry.”

This is the second consecutive year in which a Bechtel engineer has received the award. In 2018, Sanjeev “Sanj” Malushte, Ph.D., PE, SE, F. ASCE, became the company’s first recipient in the award’s 27-year history.

Ostadan has more than 30 years of experience in geotechnical earthquake engineering and foundation design. He is the co-author of the breakthrough computer code known as SASSI, or System for Analysis of Soil-Structure Interaction, developed in 1981 and long the industry standard for analyzing seismic ground activity surrounding structures, particularly nuclear power plants.

At Bechtel, he manages the Seismic Analysis group at the Bechtel Earthquake Engineering Center in San Francisco. His team supports the business with seismic modeling, analysis and design, vibration and mitigation and regulatory interface.

Ostadan received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the University of Tehran in Iran in 1978. He continued his studies at the University of Michigan, where he received his master’s degree in civil engineering in 1978, followed by his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1983.

Ostadan is an active member of the ASCE 4 Committee for Nuclear Structures and the ASCE Committee for Seismic Design of Piers and Wharves.

The award presentation will take place in October at the ASCE Annual Convention in Miami.

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