Simulation Insights for Safer Structures

A mission engineer at Thornton Tomasetti’s utilized science division in New York, Kizildemir makes use of simulations to review how buildings fail below excessive occasions equivalent to impacts and explosions. The simulation outcomes might help designers develop mitigation methods.

“Simulations assist us perceive what might occur earlier than it happens in actual life,” she says, “to have the ability to higher plan for it.”

She loves that her work mixes creativity with fixing real-world issues, she says: “You’re creating one thing to assist folks. My favourite query to reply is, ‘Are you able to make this higher or simpler?’”

For her work, the nonprofit Professional Women in Construction named her considered one of its 20 Under 40: Women in Construction for 2025.

Kizildemir is captivated with mentoring young engineers and being an IEEE volunteer. She says she has made it her mission to “pack as a lot affect into my years as attainable.”

A vivid pupil in Türkiye

She was born in Istanbul to a father who’s an expert drummer and a mom who labored in journal promoting and gross sales. Kizildemir and her older brother pursued engineering careers regardless of neither guardian being concerned within the area. Whereas she turned an knowledgeable in civil and mechanical engineering, her brother is an industrial engineer.

As a toddler, she was filled with curiosity, she says, concerned about determining how issues had been constructed and the way they labored. She cherished constructing objects out of Legos, she says, and considered one of her earliest recollections is utilizing them to make miniature homes for ants.

After acing an entrance examination, she gained a spot in a STEM-focused highschool, the place she studied mathematics and physics.

“Engineering is without doubt one of the few careers the place you may make an enduring affect on the world, and I plan on mine being significant.”

Throughout her remaining 12 months at the highschool, she took the nationwide YKS (Larger Schooling Foundations Examination). The take a look at determines which universities and packages—equivalent to drugs, engineering, or regulation—college students can pursue.

She obtained a full scholarship to attend Işik University in Şile. Figuring she would examine engineering overseas at some point, she selected an English-taught program. She says she discovered that civil engineering greatest aligned with making the most important affect on her neighborhood and the world.

A number of of her professors had been alumni of Lehigh University, in Bethlehem, Pa., and spoke extremely of the varsity. After incomes her bachelor’s diploma in civil engineering in 2016, she determined to attend Lehigh, the place she earned a full scholarship to its grasp’s program in civil engineering.

Shifting overseas and dealing the rails

Her grasp’s thesis centered on investigating root causes of crack propagation, which threatens railroad security.

Repeated wheel-rail loading causes microcracks, resulting in metallic fatigue, and residual stress outcomes from specialised heating and cooling therapies through the manufacturing of metal rails. Cracks can develop beneath the rail’s floor. As a result of they’re invisible to the bare eye, such fractures are difficult to detect, Kizildemir says.

The mission was performed in collaboration with the U.S. Federal Railroad Administration—a part of the Department of Transportation—which is trying to regulate technical standards and make use of mitigation methods.

Kizildemir and 5 colleagues designed and carried out testing protocols and physics-based simulations to detect cracks earlier and forestall their unfold. Their analysis has given the Railroad Administration insights into structural defects which might be getting used to revise rail-building pointers and inspection protocols. The administration printed the first phase of the analysis in 2024.

After graduating in 2018, Kizildemir started a summer time internship as a civil engineer at Thornton Tomasetti. She carried out computational modeling utilizing Abaqus software program for rails subjected to repeated plastic deformation—materials that completely modifications form when below extreme stress—and offered her suggestions for enchancment to the corporate’s administration.

Throughout her internship, she labored with professors in numerous fields, together with supplies conduct and mechanical engineering. The expertise, she says, impressed her to pursue a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Lehigh, persevering with her analysis with the Railroad Administration. She earned her diploma in 2023.

She cherished the work and the crew at Thornton Tomasetti a lot, she says, that she utilized to work on the firm, the place she is now a mission engineer.

From simulations to real-world functions

Her work focuses on growing finite component fashions for vital infrastructure and excessive occasions.

Finite modeling breaks advanced programs or subjects into small components linked collectively to numerically simulate real-world conditions. She creates computational fashions of constructions enduring sensible catastrophic occasions, equivalent to a automobile crashing right into a constructing.

She makes use of simulations to grasp how buildings react to assaults such because the one on 9/11, which, she says, is commonly used for instance of why such analysis is important.

When beginning a mission, she and her crew assessment constructing requirements and attempt to establish new points not but lined by them. The crew then adapts current codes and requirements, often developed for well-understood hazards equivalent to earthquakes, wind, and floods, to outline simulation parameters.

When a brand new construction is being constructed, for instance, it’s not designed to resist a truck crashing into it. However Kizildemir and her crew wish to understand how the constructing would react ought to that occur. They simulate the environments and conditions, they usually make suggestions primarily based on the outcomes to scale back or remove dangers of structural failure.

Mitigation strategies embody particular methods to be carried out throughout mission design and development.

Simulations could be created for any infrastructure, Kizildemir says.

“I really like issues that power me to assume in another way,” she says. “I wish to continue to grow.”

She says she plans to reside by Thornton Tomasetti’s inner motto: “When others say no, we are saying ‘Right here’s how.’”

Becoming a member of IEEE and getting extra concerned

When Kizildemir first heard of IEEE, she assumed it was just for electrical engineers. However after studying how various and inclusive the group is, she joined in 2024. She has since been elevated to a senior member and has change into a volunteer. She joined the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society.

She chaired the convention tracks and IEEE-sponsored periods on the 2024 Joint Rail Conference, held in Columbia, S.C. She actively contributes to IEEE’s Collabratec platform and has participated in panel assessment conferences for senior member elevation functions.

She’s additionally a member of ASME and has been volunteering for it since 2023.

“Group is what helped get me to the place I’m as we speak, and I wish to pay it ahead and make the sector higher,” she says. “Serving to others improves ourselves.”

Wanting forward and giving again

Kizildemir mentors junior engineers at Thornton Thomasetti and is trying to increase her attain by IEEE’s mentorship programs.

“Engineering doesn’t have a gender requirement,” she says she tells ladies. “In the event you’re curious and like understanding how issues work and get excited to resolve troublesome issues, engineering is for you.

“Civil engineers don’t simply construct bridges,” she provides. “There are numerous area of interest areas to be explored. Engineering is without doubt one of the few careers the place you may make an enduring affect on the world, and I plan on mine being significant.”

Kizildemir says she desires each engineer to have the ability to enhance their neighborhood. Her foremost piece of recommendation for current engineering graduates is that “curiosity, self-discipline, and the willingness to grasp issues deeply, to see how issues could be performed higher,” are the keys to success.