Dr. Spence’s main research thrusts are focused on the theoretical and computational development of models and frameworks for the implementation and adoption in practice of performance-based wind engineering, optimization of structural systems subject to uncertainty and experimental/stochastic wind loads, and metamodeling of nonlinear and dynamic structural systems under uncertainty. Specific areas in which Dr. Spence’s research group have made contributions are: performance-based wind engineering, system-level analysis and optimization of uncertain dynamic systems, probabilistic modeling and uncertainty propagation, metamodeling of static and dynamic systems, machine learning in stochastic analysis of structures, resilience and adaptation of communities subject to severe wind events, topology optimization of uncertain stochastic systems, and computational fluid dynamics for wind and rain simulation.
Computational fluid dynamics simulation of wind driven rain in hurricanes