Research
My research bridges structural fire engineering, computational mechanics, and risk analysis to build safer and more resilient communities. I develop physics-based models and data-driven frameworks to understand how structures behave under fire and other extreme hazards, and how to design them economically and sustainably over their full service life.
Starting August 2026, I will join the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. I am actively recruiting motivated Ph.D. students — see below.
Research Areas
Performance-Based Fire Engineering
Fire is a severe but often underestimated hazard for the built environment. I develop advanced finite element models that couple heat transfer and structural mechanics to simulate the full thermal-mechanical response of structural systems exposed to fire. This work informs performance-based design procedures that move beyond prescriptive code requirements toward rational, risk-informed approaches.
Key topics:
- Thermal-mechanical FEM of steel, composite, and timber structures
- Fire fragility curves and probabilistic performance assessment
- Economic optimization of passive and active fire protection
Material Behavior Under Extreme Conditions
Accurate constitutive models are the foundation of reliable structural simulations. My work characterizes and models the behavior of structural materials — including high-strength steels, cold-formed steel, and timber — at elevated temperatures and under combined thermal-mechanical loading, providing validated input data for simulation tools used by researchers and practitioners.
Key topics:
- Mechanical properties of structural steel at elevated temperatures
- Ductile fracture of advanced high-strength steels
- Cold-formed steel properties for fire resistance design
Structural Resilience Under Multiple Hazards
Structures must perform across their entire service life under a range of demands — fire, earthquake, wind, and their combinations. I study the resilience of structural systems under multiple hazards with a focus on composite floor systems, steel connections, and innovative damping devices that can reduce damage and enable rapid recovery after extreme events.
Key topics:
- Composite floor systems under fire and gravity loading
- Seismic performance of beam-to-column connections
- Metallic dampers and vibration control for tall structures
Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) Fire Risk Analysis
The growing threat of wildfires to communities at the wildland–urban interface demands comprehensive, data-driven risk frameworks. My current postdoctoral research at the University of Nevada, Reno develops community-scale WUI fire risk models that integrate ignition probability, fire spread dynamics, and structural vulnerability to support resilient land use planning and emergency response.
Key topics:
- Data-driven fire risk and occurrence analysis
- Fire spread modeling at the community scale
- Structure-level vulnerability in WUI environments
Lifetime Economic and Environmental Assessment
Structural fire protection decisions have significant long-term economic and environmental consequences. I develop lifecycle cost and carbon assessment frameworks — including a publicly available web tool — that help engineers and policymakers quantify the full impact of fire design choices and identify cost-optimal strategies across a building’s service life.
Key topics:
- Lifecycle cost analysis of structural fire design
- Environmental impact (embodied carbon) of fire protection systems
- Decision-support tools for performance-based fire design
Current & Recent Projects
WUI Fire Risk Analysis and Spread Modeling (2025–2026, University of Nevada, Reno)
Developing data-driven models for WUI fire occurrence and spread to support community-level risk quantification. This work is funded through the University of Nevada, Reno and contributes to regional fire resilience planning in the western United States.
Lifetime Cost Assessment of Structural Fire Design (Johns Hopkins University)
Developed a comprehensive economic framework and accompanying web tool quantifying the lifetime costs of different fire protection strategies for steel-framed buildings, enabling direct comparison of prescriptive and performance-based approaches.
Fire Performance of Composite Floor Systems (Johns Hopkins University)
Combined experimental data and machine learning to develop predictive models for the fire resistance of composite slab-beam floor systems, incorporating geometric and material variability for use in fragility-based design.
Tools & Software
Lifetime Cost Assessment Web-Tool — An interactive tool for computing and comparing the lifecycle costs of structural fire protection systems under different hazard scenarios. Developed as part of my dissertation research at Johns Hopkins University.
Prospective Students
I am seeking motivated Ph.D. students to join my group at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln starting Fall 2026 (applications due December 2025). Research directions include:
- Structural fire engineering and performance-based fire design
- Multi-hazard risk assessment and resilience
- Computational structural mechanics and simulation
- WUI fire risk and community resilience
If you are interested, please send me an email at chenzhima26@gmail.com with your CV, transcripts, and a brief statement of your research interests.