Design Optimization of Sustainable and Resilient Concrete Mixtures

在世界范围内，混凝土是最普遍的建筑材料，也是地球上仅次于水的第二大消耗材料。由于其使用的增加对全球环境的影响，结构工程师现在面临着关于混凝土混合物的设计和规格的关键决策，这些混合物符合环境，经济，结构和耐久性性能标准。传统的混凝土配合比设计方法采用时间密集型的试错法，最终得到可接受的（但非最优的）混凝土配合比设计。该工程材料系统设计（DEMS）奖将支持基础研究，以创建，验证和测试混凝土混合物设计的新范式，这些混合物对于特定的基础设施应用来说是最经济，最有弹性和环境可持续的。优化的混凝土混合物将同时减少对环境的影响，并通过促进负责任、经济的自然资源利用来确保民用基础设施的长期耐久性。该项目将涉及行业专业人士在新的设计方法的开发，测试和验证，这将加快其在实践中的实施。此外，辅助教育和推广工作将有助于培养下一代工程师，他们将致力于确保民用基础设施的可持续性和弹性。这项工作将使用多目标优化测试平台，定义，制定和链接将混凝土混合物比例与新拌和硬化状态属性相关联的数学模型。这些特性，沿着使用中暴露数据，将用于表征和量化使用中性能，因为它与可持续性有关（例如，环境影响）和长期灾害复原力（例如，耐腐蚀性、耐冻融性）。将开发多维可视化，以量化和阐明满足特定设计目标的候选设计解决方案的性能，成本和环境可持续性之间的设计决策权衡。混凝土材料生产商、材料科学家和专业结构工程师将参加一系列与设计相关的研讨会，这些研讨会将有助于为新的设计方法提供信息、测试和严格验证。除了考虑决策者的偏好外，还将大力改进优化方法，量化不确定性，并进行全局敏感性分析，以确定和操纵最具影响力的参数，用于设计可持续和弹性混凝土混合物。

Worldwide, concrete is the most prevalent construction material and the second-most consumed material on Earth after water. Given the global environmental implications of its increased use, structural engineers are now faced with critical decisions regarding the design and specification of concrete mixtures that meet environmental, economic, structural, and durability performance criteria. Conventional concrete mixture design methodologies employ time-intensive, trial-and-error approaches, which ultimately yield acceptable (but non-optimal) designs of concrete mixtures. This Design of Engineering Material Systems (DEMS) award will support fundamental research to create, validate, and test a new paradigm for the design of concrete mixtures that are most economical, resilient, and environmentally sustainable for specific infrastructure applications. Optimized concrete mixtures will simultaneously reduce environmental impacts and ensure long-term durability of civil infrastructure by promoting responsible, economical natural resource utilization. This project will involve industry professionals in the development, testing, and validation of the new design methodology, which will accelerate its implementation in practice. In addition, the complementary education and outreach efforts will help cultivate the next generation of engineers who will be committed to ensuring both the sustainability and resilience of civil infrastructure.Using a many-objective optimization testbed, this work will define, formulate, and link mathematical models that relate concrete mixture proportions to fresh- and hardened-state properties. These properties, along with in-service exposure data, will be used to characterize and quantify in-service performance as it relates to sustainability (e.g., environmental impact) and chronic-hazard resilience (e.g., corrosion resistance, freeze-thaw resistance) in multiple spatial and temporal domains. Multi-dimensional visualizations will be developed to quantify and elucidate design-decision tradeoffs between performance, cost, and environmental sustainability for candidate design solutions that meet specific design goals. Concrete material producers, materials scientists, and professional structural engineers will participate in a series of design-related workshops that will help inform, test, and rigorously validate the novel design methodology. In addition to considering decision-maker preferences, a significant effort will be placed on improving the optimization approach, quantifying uncertainty, and conducting global sensitivity analyses to identify and manipulate the most influential parameters for the design of sustainable and resilient concrete mixtures.