UKCRIC National Centre for Infrastructure Materials - Extreme Loading Facilities

火灾、撞击和爆炸等极端载荷是民用基础设施的常见威胁。关键基础设施暴露，如主要公共建筑、隧道、医院、炼油厂、石化厂、交通枢纽、发电和输电系统等，这种极端的负载条件可能导致这些民用基础设施系统的灾难性故障，从而导致重大的人员和经济损失以及潜在的社会和政治破坏。随着基础设施连通性的提高和极端事件发生可能性的增加，这些风险不断增加。极端荷载条件下材料性能的可靠数据是确保设计和建造具有弹性的关键基础设施系统所必需的。我们建议建立以下测试设施，以生成无法使用世界其他任何地方的现有设施获得的基础设施材料性能数据：现有的唯一能够进行高温测试的多轴向加载设备只能在低于300 ℃的温度下操作，远低于基础设施材料在火灾条件下所经历的温度。高温、高应变率和高压测试设备（H3TF）和诊断系统，用于在火灾、冲击和爆炸载荷下测试真实基础设施材料的性能。使用这些新设施进行的主要研究主题是：-在高温下多轴向载荷下全尺寸材料的机械性能（应力-应变关系，破坏面）。- 在高应变率和高温以及各种应力状态（例如单轴拉伸、单轴压缩、平面应力、围压）下，全尺寸材料的机械性能。基础设施材料力学性能的多尺度、多维度、多危害表征。这些新设施将为验证数值模型提供不可或缺的数据。拟议的设施将成为国家基础设施材料中心（NCIM）的一部分，旨在改善基础设施材料的全寿命性能，开发创新材料，以减少材料使用，货币和能源（碳）成本和维护。NCIM将整合分布在英国多个机构的先进实验室设备，用于生产、处理、曝光、成像、分析和测试各种基础设施资产中使用的材料。NCIM将提供覆盖基础设施材料整个生命周期的尖端设施，从制造和加工，通过寿命性能，到寿命结束（包括在不同极端负载条件下的灾难性故障）。这些新的材料在高温和高应变率、高温和高压条件下的多轴向载荷下的行为现象和数据，对于多尺度、多危险、多维材料模拟将是非常宝贵的。新设施将产生更真实的极端载荷条件下的数据。新数据将提高在极端负荷条件下设计和建造关键基础设施的质量。增强对极端载荷条件下材料性能的理解可能会导致新的和先进的材料的开发，可能是在硅片上，具有安全和弹性的关键民用基础设施的改进行为。

Extreme loading such as fire, impacts, and explosions are common threats to civil infrastructure. Exposure of critical infrastructure, such as major public buildings, tunnels, hospitals, oil refineries, petrochemical plants, transport hubs, power generation and transmission systems, etc., to such extreme loading conditions can lead to disastrous failures of these civil infrastructure systems resulting in major human and economic losses and potentially social and political disruption. With increasing infrastructure connectivity and rising likelihoods of extreme events, these risks increase continuously. Reliable data of material performance under extreme loading conditions are necessary to ensure design and construction of resilient critical infrastructure systems. We propose to establish the following testing facilities to generate infrastructure material performance data that cannot be obtained using existing facilities anywhere else in the world: - High temperature multi-axial loading facility (HTMDF): the only existing multi-axial loading facility that is capable of elevated temperature testing can only operate at temperatures lower than 300C, much less than temperatures experienced by infrastructure materials under fire conditions.- High temperature, high strain-rate and high pressure testing facility (H3TF) and diagnostic system for material performance under combined fire, impact and explosion loads for realistic infrastructure materials. The main research themes to be undertaken using these new facilities are:- Mechanical properties (stress-strain relationships, failure surfaces) of full-scale materials under multi-axial loading at high temperatures. - Mechanical properties of full-scale materials under combined high strain-rate and high temperature, and a wide range of stress states (e.g. uniaxial tension, uniaxial compression, plane stress, confined pressure).- Multi-scale, multi-dimensional, multi-hazard characterization of mechanical properties of infrastructure materials. The new facilities will provide indispensable data for validation of numerical models.The proposed facilities will be part of the National Centre of Infrastructure Materials (NCIM), aimed at improving whole-life infrastructure material performance and developing innovative materials to reduce material use, monetary and energy (carbon) costs and maintenance. NCIM will incorporate advanced laboratory equipment spread across a number of UK institutions for producing, processing, exposing, imaging, analysing and testing materials used across the whole range of infrastructure assets. NCIM will offer access to cutting edge facilities spanning the entire lifetime of infrastructure materials, from manufacture and processing, through in-life performance, to the end of life (including catastrophic failure under different extreme loading conditions). The new material behaviour phenomena and data under multi-axial loading at high temperatures and under combined high strain-rate, high temperature and high pressure conditions will be invaluable to multi-scale, multi-hazard, multi-dimensional material modelling.The new facilities will generate data under more realistic extreme loading conditions. The new data will enhance the quality of the design and construction of critical infrastructure under extreme loading conditions. The enhanced understanding of material performance under extreme loading conditions could lead to the development of new and advanced materials, possibly in silico, with improved behaviour for secure and resilient critical civil infrastructures.