REU Site: Advanced materials and processes for a resilient society

建筑环境是物质基础设施和化学/能源过程的组合，它管理资源的投入和废物产品的输出，以确保国家的健康、繁荣、安全和福利。现代建筑环境容易受到气候变化、环境污染的遗留问题、不可避免的恶化以及能源和材料资源日益稀缺的影响。尽管美国每年花在建筑环境上的资金超过1000亿美元，但这些漏洞比美国历史上任何时候都更普遍，潜在重要性也更大--美国土木工程师学会等组织将美国的基础设施评为D+级，国土安全部认为“老化的基础设施”对国家构成的威胁与恐怖主义或流行病一样大。为了解决这些脆弱性，必须调查新的、更耐用的材料；必须发现在减少能源需求的情况下生产这些材料的工艺；必须实施新的战略，使废物可以从处置场转移或转化为有价值的产品；必须培训具有实施、调整和开发这些材料和工艺的技术知识和专业技能的具有不同背景的一代工程师和科学家。作为伍斯特理工学院土木工程、环境工程和化学工程系之间的跨学科合作，该REU网站将专注于开发此类材料和工艺。该网站将专门专注于招收多样化的、服务不足的合格学生群体，而对该网站的第三方评估将导致持续改进和研究成果的广泛传播。维护迅速恶化的建筑环境是现代最重大的挑战之一：美国国家工程院认为这是工程学14个“重大挑战”之一。在REU现场开展的研究将侧重于对材料和工艺的跨学科调查。感兴趣的材料包括非传统基础设施系统、用于结构应用的生物启发材料和先进的复合系统；感兴趣的过程包括生物质转化、从废流中回收稀土元素和多标量添加剂制造。现代教学方法，如分布式指导，来自工程教育研究的前沿，将被用来最大限度地影响本科生研究人员。通过这项研究取得的基础性科学进步将有助于确保当前和未来的社会需求将得到可持续的支持，无论是在美国国内还是在世界各地。

The built environment is the combination of physical infrastructure and chemical/energy processes that manages inputs of resources and outputs of waste products in order to ensure the health, prosperity, security, and welfare of the nation. The modern built environment is vulnerable to a changing climate, to a legacy of environmental contamination, to inevitable deterioration, and to the growing scarcity of energy and material resources. Although over $100 billion is spent on the built environment in America each year, these vulnerabilities are more widespread, and of greater potential importance, than at any other point in the nation's history - groups such as the American Society of Civil Engineers rate US infrastructure to be on the D+ level, and the Department of Homeland Security considers "ageing infrastructure" to pose as much of a threat to the nation as terrorism or pandemic. In order to address these vulnerabilities, new, more durable materials must be investigated; processes must be discovered that will produce these materials at a reduced energy demand; new strategies by which waste materials can be diverted from disposal sites or transformed into valuable products must be implemented; and a generation of engineers and scientists of diverse backgrounds with the technical knowledge and professional skills to implement, adapt, and develop these materials and processes must be trained. As an interdisciplinary collaboration between the departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, this REU site will focus on developing such materials and processes. The site will focus specifically on recruiting a diverse, underserved population of well-qualified students, while third-party assessment of the site will lead to continuous improvement and the wide-spread dissemination of research results.Maintaining the rapidly deteriorating built environment is one of the most significant challenges of the modern age: The National Academy of Engineering considers it to be one of the 14 "Grand Challenges" in engineering. Research carried out at this REU site will focus on the interdisciplinary investigation of both materials and processes. Materials of interest include unconventional infrastructure systems, bio-inspired materials for structural applications, and advanced composite systems; processes of interest include biomass conversion, the reclamation of rare earth elements from waste streams, and multiscalar additive manufacturing. Modern pedagogical methods such as distributed mentorship, drawn from the forefront of research in engineering education, will be employed to maximize impact on undergraduate researchers. The fundamental scientific advances made through this research will help to ensure that current and future societal needs will be sustainably supported, both within the US and across the world.