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

这项建议的主要目标是促进武汉武汉理工大学的吴少鹏博士、中国博士和该项目的PI、美国新不伦瑞克市罗格斯大学的王浩博士在基础设施材料和路面工程领域的创新发展方面的合作。重点是通过试验研究和计算模拟相结合的方法，开发具有优异力学性能和自感知潜力的多功能沥青材料。这一合作将为促进对使用纳米技术的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。这不仅有可能改善基础设施材料的力学性能(刚性、断裂韧性)和耐久性，而且还会改变其机电性能(即压阻)和导热系数。这为量身定做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上，但从拟议的合作中获得的知识也应用于其他建筑材料。中国的外国合作伙伴拥有一个广泛的实验设施，供美国学生作为交换生工作。私人投资公司将把这一项目的成果纳入土木工程课程和一个新的研究生课程。拟议的合作将招收女本科生参加未来的研究活动，与罗格斯大学工程与技术女孩学院(TARGET)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.