US-China planning visit: Development of High Performance and Multifunctional Infrastructure Material

本提案的主要目的是促进中国武汉市武汉理工大学的Shaopeng Wu博士与本项目的主要研究者、美国新玩法罗格斯大学的Hao Wang博士之间的合作，以实现基础设施材料和路面工程领域的创新发展。重点领域是通过实验研究和计算建模相结合，开发具有上级力学性能和自感知潜力的多功能沥青材料。这项合作将为利用纳米技术促进对高性能和多功能基础设施材料的基本理解和开发奠定基础。这将不仅具有改善基础设施材料的机械性能（刚度、断裂韧性）和耐久性的潜力，而且还改变其机电性能（即压阻性）和导热性。这为定制和生产新的智能材料提供了机会。虽然研究主要集中在沥青材料，但从拟议的合作中开发的知识也适用于其他建筑材料。在中国的外国合作伙伴有一个广泛的实验设施，供美国学生作为交换生工作。PI将把该项目的研究结果纳入土木工程课程和新的研究生课程。拟议的合作将招募女本科生参加未来的研究活动，与罗格斯大学的女孩工程和技术学院（目标）计划合作。

The primary objective of this proposal is to develop collaboration between Dr. Shaopeng Wu of Wuhan University of Technology in Wuhan, China and the PI of this project, Dr. Hao Wang of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, U.S. for innovative developments in the field of infrastructure material and pavement engineering. The focus area is the development of multifunctional asphalt materials with superior mechanical properties and as well as self-sensing potential through the integration of experimental investigation and computational modeling. This collaboration will provide a foundation to advance fundamental understanding and development of high performance and multifunctional infrastructure material using nanotechnology. This will not only have the potential of improving mechanical properties (stiffness, fracture toughness) and durability of infrastructure material, but also change its electro-mechanical properties (i.e. piezoresistivity), and thermal conductivity. This offers an opportunity to tailor and produce a new smart material. Although the research is mainly focused on asphalt materials, the knowledge developed from the proposed collaboration is also applied to other construction materials.The foreign partner in China has an extensive experimental facility for U.S. students to work as exchange students. The PI will incorporate findings from this project into civil engineering courses and a new graduate course. The proposed collaboration will recruit women undergraduate students into future research activities, in collaboration with The Academy at Rutgers for Girls in Engineering and Technology (TARGET) program.