50g-Tonne 4m Diameter Civil Engineering Centrifuge: Centre for Energy & Infrastructure Ground Research

地面工程通过提供基础设施对社会至关重要，并支持与能源供应有关的关键挑战，应对气候变化对我们基础设施的影响，并通过在建筑中使用新型材料来制造未来。土木工程基础设施的范围和多变的地面条件经常排除全面的现场试验，由于性能的不确定性，将高价值的基础设施资产置于风险之中。土壤的应力相关强度和刚度行为阻止小型实验室规模的模型试验，以有效地捕捉全尺寸的行为，除非应力水平被人为地提高。由工程离心机产生的重力加速度增强了应力，因此使在高重力下测试的小尺度模型的观测能够代表全尺寸条件。这种方法的明显优点是，它（i）提供了一个更具成本效益的方法相比，全尺寸测试验证行为，（ii）使新的设计能够安全地评估，（iii）使我们能够从以前的失败，以提供改进的工程设计，和（iv）提供预测我们的基础设施的未来性能的能力，以极端气候变化事件，谢菲尔德大学土木与结构工程系将建立一个旗舰研究中心，“能源与基础设施研究中心”，专门致力于发展地面工程与国家能源战略重点领域之间的联系，与环境变化共存，制造未来，为现有资产提供现代化基础设施和信息管理策略，以延长其生命周期。该设施的核心将是一台50克吨4米直径的梁式离心机，能够以150克的速度旋转500公斤的质量，配备最新的技术进步，仪器仪表和机器人执行器控制，以解锁重要的科学知识，从而提高对复杂建筑问题的理解。该中心将嵌入英国首屈一指的工程学院之一的核心，并将利用多学科研究的组合来探索新的创新科学发现。我们将与其他机构的学者合作，将离心机作为共享资源，建立专业知识中心，提供跨学科研究，为政府和行业利益相关者提供基本理解和应用指导，以优化基础设施管理和发展投资。

Ground Engineering is of critical importance to society through the provision of infrastructure and underpins key challenges relating to energy provision, dealing with the impact of climate change on our infrastructure and manufacturing the future through the use of novel material in construction. The extent of Civil Engineering infrastructure and variable ground conditions frequently preclude full-scale field trials placing high value infrastructure assets at risk due to uncertainty in performance. The stress dependent strength and stiffness behaviour of soil prevent small bench scale model tests to effectively capture full-scale behaviour unless stress levels are artificially enhanced. Gravitational acceleration produced by an engineering centrifuge enhances stresses and therefore enables observations of small scale models tested at elevated gravity to represent full-scale conditions. Distinct advantages of this method are that it (i) offers a more cost effective approach compared to full scale testing for validating behaviour, (ii) enables new designs to be safely evaluated, (iii) enables us to learn from previous failures to provide improved engineering design, and (iv) offers the ability to predict future performance of our infrastructure to extreme climate change events, thus enabling prevention strategies to be adopted.The University of Sheffield, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering will establish a flagship research centre, 'The Centre for Energy and Infrastructure Research' targeted specifically at developing connectivity between Ground Engineering and key areas of strategic national importance in Energy, Living with Environmental Change and Manufacturing the Future, to deliver modern infrastructure and inform management strategies for existing assets to prolong their life cycle. Central to this facility will be a 50g-tonne 4m diameter beam centrifuge, capable of rotating a mass of 500kg at 150g, equipped with the latest technological advancements, instrumentation and robotic actuator control, to unlock vital scientific knowledge that will enable enhanced understanding of complex construction problems. The centre will be embedded at the heart of one of the UK's premier engineering faculties and will capitalise on a portfolio of multi-disciplinary research to explore new innovative scientific discovery. We will work with academics in other institutions by operating the centrifuge as a shared resource which will establish a hub of expertise to deliver interdisciplinary research providing fundamental understanding and applied guidance to government and industry stakeholders to optimise investment in infrastructure management and development.