Earthquake engineering, Numerical modeling,
Performance-based design, and Experimental steel research.

Dr. Elkady will join the list of lecturers for the upcoming OpenSees course organized by the Euroasian OpenSees Association. The hybrid course will take place in May 2026 at the University of Minho, Portugal. Dr Elkady will cover topics related to steel modeling.

Dr. Zizhou Ding successfuly defended his PhD thesis titled "Data-driven Assessment and Modelling of Extended Endplate Connections". The defense committe included Prof. Sheida Afshan (internal) and Prof. Fabio Freddi (external, UCL). Five journal articles from Dr Ding work can be found online.

Dr. Elkady joined the board of the Euroasian OpenSees Association (EOS). EOS works on organizing educational and technical activities to support research developments and collaborations within the OpenSees framework.

A new paper published in Engineering Structures. This paper decribes a Random Forest classification model to determine the governing deformaing mode(s) in steel endplate connections and to chatacterize their hysteretic behaviour.

A new paper published in Engineering Structures. This paper decribes newly developed accurate empirical backbone models for the full-range backbone moment-rotation response of partial-strength steel endplate connections.

Zizhou Ding attended the 2025 edition of the International Colloquium on Stability and Ductility of Steel Structures (SDSS) held in Barcelona, Spain. He presented a paper dealing with the generalized full-range characterization of steel bolts response in tension.

Dr Ahmed Elkady attended the 9^th International Conference on Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Computation (SEMC) held in the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa. One paper was presented and published in the conference proceedings dealing with the deformation mode classification and hysteretic response characterization in endplate steel connections.

The second version of the earthquake loss assessment software EaRL has been released. The new version now includes advanced downtime computations based on the latest guidelines. The new downtown module is developed as part of Eric Dagnaud's MSc dissertation.

Dr Elkady was appointed as an associate editor for the American Society of Civil Engineers's (ASCE) Journal of Structural Engineering. As an editorial board member, Dr Elkady will help shape the journal's scholarly direction and improve the peer-review process.

A new data paper published in Earthquake Spectra. This paper decribes and disseminates the output of a shaketable testing campaign aimed towards validating the concept of using a sacrificial fuses to control the sesimic acceleration demands on non-structural components.

Dr Ahmed Elkady & Aran Naserpour represented the University of Southampton at the 10^th International Conference on Computational Methods in Structural Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (COMPDYN) held in Rhodes, Greece. Two papers were presented and published in the conference proceedings.

A new paper published in the Journal of Constructional Steel Research. In this paper, a model is developed to predict the force-elongation response of steel bolts under tension while considering uncertainty and highlighting its impact on joint rotational ductility. The model can be used in FE and component-based models.

A new paper published in the Journal of Constructional Steel Research. The paper provides important insights on the implications of considering or ignorning (as per current ASCE/AISC standards) the P-M interaction check in steel columns subject to overstrength seismic actions.