Commercialisation of Smart Foundation System

建筑业每年消耗约4亿吨材料，占经济中使用的所有原材料的四分之一。它每年产生的垃圾是所有英国家庭产生的垃圾总量的三倍。该行业每年产生9000万吨惰性废物，英国约10%的二氧化碳排放量与建筑材料的制造和运输以及施工过程有关。因此，重要的是建筑行业改变其设计和建造方式，以减少其对环境的影响，并使英国能够实现其减少二氧化碳的承诺。该提案的主题是利用EPSRC项目分布式光纤技术智能地基（EP/D040000/1）的成果，从建筑施工的岩土工程方面实现这一倡议的目标。该项目的研究成果如下：(i)优化基础（包括桩和筏）的布局和几何形状的基础设计工具，从而最大限度地减少建筑材料的使用，同时达到类似的建筑性能；（ii）考虑将现有基础重新用于新建筑物的基础设计工具；以及（iii）廉价的光纤应变测量系统，以确保基于优化设计的基础在短期和长期内都能达到预期的性能。这个后续项目旨在通过将基于研究平台开发的复杂算法转换为更方便用户使用的格式，使研究成果商业化，以便业界直接使用。它包括以下两项主要工作：(a)开发将原始光纤应变（OFS）数据转换为工程性能数据的中间件；（ii）将基础设计工具编码为c++。预期的结果是一个工程软件包，可以帮助设计和优化分析新的和重用的基础，确定基础仪器的需求和最佳位置，并将原始的OFS数据转换为短期和长期监测工作的工程数据。

The construction industry consumes around 400 million tonnes of materials every year, a quarter of all raw materials used in the economy. It also produces annually three times the amount of waste generated by all UK households combined. The industry produces 90 million tonnes of inert waste every year, and approximately 10% of UK carbon dioxide emissions are associated with the manufacture and transport of construction materials and the construction processes. It is therefore important that the construction industry changes the way it designs and builds to reduce its environmental impact and to enable the UK to meet its carbon dioxide reduction commitments. The main theme of this proposal is to achieve the goal of this initiative from the geotechnical aspects of building construction using the outcome of an EPSRC project Smart Foundations with Distributed Fibre Optics Technology (EP/D040000/1) . The project delivered the following research outcomes: (i) a foundation design tool that optimises the layout and geometries of foundations (both piles and raft), thereby minimising the use of construction materials while achieving similar building performance, (ii) a foundation design tool that considers reuse of existing foundations for new buildings, and (iii) an inexpensive optical fibre strain measurement system to ensure the foundation based on the optimised design is performing as predicted in both short- and long-terms. This follow-on project aims to commercialise the research outcomes by converting the complex algorithms developed on research-based platforms to more user-friendly formats so they can be used directly by the industry. It consists of the following two major efforts: (a) development of middleware that converts raw Optical Fibre Strain (OFS) data to engineering performance data and (ii) coding of the foundation design tool into C++. The expected outcome is an engineering software package that aids the design and optimisation analyses of new and reuse foundations, determines the need and optimum locations of foundation instrumentation, and converts raw OFS data into engineering data for short- and long-term monitoring endeavours.