CAREER: Mechanical Modeling of Living Building Materials for Structural Applications

该奖项全部或部分根据2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。这个教师早期职业发展（CAREER）奖将建立一个框架来描述一个活的建筑材料的机械行为。这个框架将代表一个关键的一步，使生活材料的结构应用，因为它将确定结构设计所需的工程参数。这一新知识将应用于一个活生生的具体替代品的示范。在结构应用中引入活性建筑材料将解决当前混凝土建筑和基础设施建设的环境和耐久性挑战。该项目将通过建立项目来补充，以促进学生广泛参与结构应用的力学研究。这些教育和推广活动将旨在增加科学和工程管道的多样性，以帮助满足不断增长的劳动力需求，并支持基础设施材料的跨学科创新。该项目将为基于微生物沉淀的活体建筑材料提供新的多尺度蜂窝和颗粒材料多孔弹性配方。实现这一目标的研究活动包括：i）脱水凝胶壁材料的实验研究和建模; ii）复合材料性能的实验研究; iii）多孔凝胶壁材料的孔隙力学模型的制定; iv）颗粒和多孔凝胶壁材料的多尺度孔隙力学模型的制定;以及v）验证和演示。研究成果将是一个材料模型，可用于优化结构性能需求的生活建筑材料的组成，并预测材料在特定载荷情况下的强度。该项目将推进建筑材料力学的知识基础，并将有助于建立首席研究员在工程微观结构方面的长期职业生涯，从而能够发现新的结构材料。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will establish a framework to describe the mechanical behavior of a living building material. This framework will represent a critical step to bring living materials into structural applications since it will identify the engineering parameters needed for structural design. This new knowledge will be applied in the demonstration of a living concrete alternative. Introduction of living building materials in structural applications will address the environmental and durability challenges of current concrete building and infrastructure construction. The project will be complemented by establishing programs to promote broad student participation in mechanics research for structural applications. These educational and outreach activities will be designed to increase diversity in the science and engineering pipeline to help meet growing workforce demand and support cross-disciplinary innovation for infrastructure materials.This project will provide a new multiscale cellular and granular material poroelastic formulation for a microbial precipitation-based living building material. Research activities toward this goal include: i) experimental study and modeling of dehydrated gel-wall material; ii) experimental study of the composite material properties; iii) formulation of a poromechanics model for the cellular gel-wall material; iv) formulation of a multiscale poromechanics model of the grain and cellular gel-wall material; and v) validation and demonstration. The research outcome will be a material model that can be used to optimize the composition of living building material for structural performance needs and predict the strength of the material under specified loading scenarios. This project will advance the knowledge base in mechanics of building materials and will help to establish the Principal Investigator's long-term career in engineering microstructures to enable discovery of new structural materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.