From Composite Elements to Hybrid Structures

Dr. Goman Ho
ARUP Fellow

Friday, October 3, 2025 at 3 p.m.

GB303 – Galbraith Building
35 St. George Street
University of Toronto

ABSTRACT
Composite members capitalize on the strengths of each material, offering enhanced stiffness, strength, and ductility. Hybrid structures extend this synergy to a system-wide level, enabling optimized responses to architectural, seismic, and construction demands. The engineering art lies in selecting and combining materials to meet specific performance goals while considering constructability and cost.

The use of composite and hybrid systems in structural engineering represents a strategic fusion of materials to achieve superior performance, efficiency, and design flexibility. This lecture traces the evolution from composite elements—such as composite slabs, beams, and columns—to hybrid structures that integrate systems like concrete cores with steel perimeter frames or fully composite frames. Central to this progression is the concept of composite action, where materials such as steel and concrete interact to resist loads more effectively than when used independently.

This lecture highlights the benefits of composite and hybrid systems, including reduced material usage, improved structural behavior, and accelerated construction timelines. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding load transfer mechanisms and connection detailing to fully exploit these systems. Practical examples will be adopted to demonstrate the engineering applications

ABOUT
Dr. Goman Ho is an Arup Fellow with expertise skills in Tall Buildings. The accumulate height for his tall buildings projects is more than 20km including 597m TJ117 in China. He joined Arup in 1992 and served the firm as the first global leader for Arup Tall Buildings Skills Network.

He is now serving as the regional leader of Structural Skills Network. He was involved as PD/PM/PE for projects with an accumulated height more than 9 km. Some of his award-winning projects are 300m tall Cheung Kong Center in HK, 330m China World Trade Center, CCTV HQs in Beijing, 3km long Beijing Capital Airport Terminal, 461m tall Vincom Landmark 81 Tower in Ho Chi Minh City, the 528m tall China Zun in Beijing.

At least 10 of his projects received International Structural Awards and two personal awards including the Outstanding Research Alumni Award by the Graduate School of Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He had published more 30 technical papers and 4 books. One of his book – Outrigger Design for High-Rise Buildings (CTBUH) received 600 cited and one of his webinar had around 30,000 audiences.