PECASE: Micro-Scale Based Reliability Analysis of Mechanical and Flow-Related Behavior of Heterogeneous Materials for Macro-Scale Infrastructure and Geotechnical Applications

[875516] Lori L. Graham University of Virginia CAREER：宏观基础设施和岩土工程应用中基于微观尺度的非均质材料力学和流动相关行为的可靠性分析摘要随着我国基础设施的老化，对基于土和混凝土等岩土材料的现有系统的安全性提出了担忧。对这类系统进行适当的可靠性分析，将有助于在工程设计和维修活动中实现安全和成本的合理平衡。可靠性分析的一个重要部分是评估土壤和混凝土中固有的随机性的影响。这个职业发展计划描述了综合研究和教育活动，旨在改善这些材料的行为描述，从而促进土木工程应用中基于可靠性的设计和分析。研究计划包括五个阶段，提供从实验获得的微观结构到诸如混凝土和土壤局部应力和土壤局部地下水流速等关键响应的可靠性分析的逻辑和有效的进展。“移动窗口GMC”和随机场论的应用在这些材料的微观尺度和宏观尺度研究之间建立了急需的联系。这项研究有可能在岩土工程和混凝土工程领域得到扩展，并应用于其他工程领域（例如，微电子、材料过程建模）。概率分析和基于可靠性的设计所提供的优势将通过一项教育计划进一步得到推广，该计划将在开发应用于一系列土木工程课程的概率模块的基础上，改进将概率和统计纳入工程课程。此外，将研究中开发的可视化技术纳入教育活动将加强复杂课程材料的呈现。总的来说，教育计划强调学生的发展（包括全日制和继续教育），他们对自己解决复杂问题的能力有信心，强调跨学科的准备。

9875516 Lori L. Graham University of Virginia CAREER: Micro-Scale Based Reliability Analysis of Mechanical and Flow-Related Behavior of Heterogeneous Materials for Macro-Scale Infrastructure and Geotechnical Applications Abstract With the aging of our nation's infrastructure comes safety concerns about existing systems based on geomaterials such as soil and concrete. The full development of proper reliability analyses of such systems will contribute to a rationally prescribed balance of safety and cost in engineering design and maintenance activities. An important part of this reliability analysis is to assess the effects of the randomness that is inherent in soil and concrete. This career development plan describes integrated research and educational activities aimed at improving the behavioral descriptions for these materials, thereby promoting reliability-based design and analysis for civil engineering applications. The research plan consists of five phases that provide a logical and efficient progression from experimentally obtained microstructures to reliability analysis of such critical responses as local stresses in concrete and soils and local groundwater velocity in soils. Use of "moving-window GMC" and stochastic field theory establishes a much-needed link between micro-scale and macro-scale research on these materials. This research has potential to be extended within the fields of geotechnical and concrete engineering, as well as to be applied in other engineering fields (e.g., microelectronics, materials process modeling). The advantages provided by probabilistic analysis and reliability-based design will be further promoted through an education plan to improve the incorporation of probability and statistics into the engineering curriculum, based on the development of probability modules to be applied to a range of civil engineering courses. Further, incorporation into educational activities of the visualization techniques developed in research will enhance presentation of complex course materials. In general, the education plan addresses the development of students (both full-time and in continuing education) who are confident in their abilities to solve complex problems by placing an emphasis on cross-disciplinary preparation.