EAPSI: Modeling Mechanical Damage Response in Protein-Bound Soils

外星建筑带来了许多有趣和新的挑战。与地球不同，在月球、火星和小行星上，除了土壤之外，资源非常有限，可以用来建造探索所需的避难所、道路和着陆台。作为一个可能的候选者，最近开发了一种新的材料，主要由由水和蛋白质溶液结合在一起的土壤组成，称为蛋白质结合土壤。这种材料的强度与未经加固的混凝土相似。然而，材料？S受损后的行为还有待于探讨。这些信息对于设计能够抵抗极端环境的耐用材料至关重要。在这个项目中，日本北海道大学的损伤建模专家和斯坦福大学的蛋白质结合土壤专家希望首次探索材料的损伤状态，并对其反应进行计算建模。到目前为止，力学性能的实验测试在蛋白质结合的土壤样本中显示出显著的差异性。这种可变性推动了计算微机械模型的创建，以更好地理解提供力量的基本机制。目前的重点是微观机械特性，重点是对周期性单元细胞进行建模，以捕捉粒子和连接它们的蛋白质桥之间的相互作用。展望未来，需要进行中尺度模拟，以了解材料对损伤的反应以及疲劳和环境攻击对其性能的影响。为了实现这一目标，PI和北海道大学的中尺度损伤专家、北海道大学的Tamon Ueda教授将探索如何将当前的中尺度损伤模型应用于蛋白质结合的土壤。这个项目将是对这种新材料进行中尺度模拟的第一次尝试，并承诺提供一个框架，以计算模拟类似土材料的损伤。东亚和太平洋夏季学院计划下的这个奖项支持一名美国研究生的夏季研究，由NSF和日本科学促进会共同资助。

Extraterrestrial construction presents many interesting and new challenges. Unlike Earth, on the moon, Mars and asteroids there are very limited resources, other than soil, out of which the shelters, roads and landing pads needed for exploration can be built. As a possible candidate, a new material composed primarily of soil held together by a solution of water and proteins called Protein-bound Soils was recently developed. This material has strength similar to unreinforced concrete. However, the material?s behavior after it has been damaged has yet to be explored. This information is critical to designing a durable material that can resist extreme environments. In this project, a collaboration between damage modeling experts at Hokkaido University in Japan and protein-bound soil experts at Stanford University hopes to explore for the first time the material's damage states and computationally model its response. To date, experimental tests of mechanical properties have shown significant variability among Protein-bound Soil samples. This variability drives the creation of computational micromechanical models to gain a better understanding of the underlying mechanics that provide strength. Currently the focus is on the micromechanical properties, with emphasis on modeling periodic unit cells that capture the interactions between the particles and the protein bridges that bind them. Moving forward, mesoscale modeling is needed to understand how the material responds to damage and how its performance is affected by fatigue and environmental attacks. To achieve this, the PI and Prof. Tamon Ueda of Hokkaido University, an expert in mesoscale damage in concrete, will explore how current mesoscale damage modeling can be applied to Protein-Bound Soils. This project would represent the first venture into mesoscale modeling of this new material and promises a framework to computationally model damage in similar earthen materials.This award under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.