Centrifuge as a Didactic Tool in Geotechnical Engineering

该项目的对象是正在学习岩土工程入门课程的本科生，其中研究了斜坡、挡土结构和地基的稳定性。利用数字图像采集技术对教学离心机中的土工模型进行变形监测和分析。几个教学单元帮助学生使用图像处理软件从实验中获得数据。一本手册详细说明了如何建立和使用教学离心机以及如何进行实验，可供学生和教师使用。目前正在组织一个讲习班，向其他大学的教育工作者介绍所制定的教育方法，并提供材料供他们在课程中采用，由于项目成果被用于本科教育，学生有机会参与研究活动，在进行实验、数据收集和分析方面获得实践经验。该项目整合并教授技术在解决工程问题中的有效使用。该项目对未来土木工程师的教育产生了更广泛的影响，因为它将高科技成分带入了通常被认为是低科技的工程学科。通过向本科生展示岩土工程仍然提供了一个重大的智力挑战，我们希望激励一些有才华的候选人选择它作为他们的职业道路。

The project is targeted at undergraduate students taking introductory courses in geotechnical engineering where stability of slopes, retaining structures and foundations are studied. Digital image acquisition is used to monitor and analyze deformations of earth models in the instructional centrifuge. Several didactic units help the students to use the image processing software to obtain data from the experiments. A manual with detailed instructions on how to build and use the instructional centrifuge and how to perform the experiments is available to both students and faculty. A workshop is being organized in which the developed educational methodology will be presented to educators from other universities and the material offered for adoption in their courses.As the project results are adopted in undergraduate education the students have the opportunity to get involved in research like activities with hands-on experience in performing experiments, data collection and analysis. The project integrates and teaches the effective use of technology in solving engineering problems.The project has a broader impact on the education of future civil engineers as it brings a high tech component into an engineering discipline that is generally considered to be low tech. By demonstrating to undergraduate students that Geotechnical Engineering still provides a significant intellectual challenge we hope to motivate some of the talented candidates to choose it as their career path.