Associate Professor Charles Clifton FIPENZ was presented with the FREYSSINET AWARD – BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION at the IPENZ Fellows’ and Achievers’ Dinner held in March at the Duxton Hotel in Wellington.
Charles Clifton is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland. From 1983 to 2007 he was at the Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA), first as Senior Structural Engineer and later as Deputy Director. Charles was responsible for HERA’s structural steel research and education programme and for developing new standards and codes of engineering practice for structural steel design and for fire engineering. He has made an outstanding contribution in this field which has been recognised internationally.
He published a paper shortly after the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings in 2001, which postulated the sequence of failure. This has been accepted and recognised as a significant contribution to the understanding of the behaviour of structural steel buildings in severe fires. He lectured to numerous groups on the subject, and this has contributed to New Zealand’s standing as a leading country in structural fire engineering. Charles has authored a large number of papers, technical reports, and seminar notes describing the results and practical applications of his research at HERA, and has developed applicable software for use in design offices. He has lectured widely and served on committees including New Zealand Standards committee on the Loadings Code NZS4203:1986 and 1992, and for the joint Australian/New Zealand Loadings Standard, and chaired the committee for the imit state Steel Structures Standard including authoring the section on fire.
The Slab Panel Method for the analysis of steel framed buildings subjected to severe fire attack is the culmination of Charles’s work at HERA. He has served as principal contributor on fire resistance ratings for structural stability in the Department of Building and Housing’s Acceptable Solution C/ASI.