Monitoring, Understanding and Assessment of Complex Structural Behaviour

由于需要建造、修复和更换基础设施，加拿大的经济和环境正在承受越来越大的负担。对于结构工程界来说，有机会通过优化设计、施工和评估的方法来减少材料和其他资源的使用，从而帮助减轻这一负担。研究表明，改进设计可以将结构中的材料使用量减少30%，这将导致类似幅度的成本和二氧化碳排放减少。由于钢铁和水泥生产约占工业二氧化碳排放量的50%，建筑业占GDP的6%(738亿美元)，这些节省将是显著的。同样，如果可以缩短施工时间，这将导致能源消耗和成本的降低。最后，对现有结构进行更准确的评估还可以通过允许现有结构更长时间的使用来节省大量成本和二氧化碳。 然而，工程师可以使用的设计和分析技术往往受到限制，因为在缺乏关于结构行为的准确信息的情况下，需要保守。分布式光纤传感器(FOS)、无线传感器网络(WSN)和数字图像相关(DIC)等新的传感器技术可以提供关键信息来填补这一知识空白，并使优化设计、施工和评估成为可能。这项研究计划将有助于在如何使用新的传感器技术改进以下方面取得突破性进展：(I)双向板的设计，(Ii)大型建筑的建造，以及(Iii)桥梁主梁的评估。 该研究计划将利用独特的加拿大创新基金会资助的实验室设施和仪器技术，供申请者使用。拟议的研究将通过：(A)使用大型实验和分布式传感器系统来了解复杂的结构系统，(B)开发建模或评估这些系统的方法，以便优化材料使用、施工时间和使用寿命，以及(C)为HQP提供加拿大和国外非常需要的工程技能，从而推动结构工程领域的最先进水平。 研究的成果将包括指导如何优化双向板的设计，改进大型建筑的施工指导，以及更好地了解可变荷载路径对钢筋混凝土梁抗剪能力的影响，这将导致更准确的规范方法。加拿大将从这项研究中看到降低基础设施成本和环境影响方面的好处。将培训三名硕士研究生和三名博士生，他们拥有优化结构设计领域的专业技能和专业工程师所需的核心技能。

An ever increasing burden is being placed on Canada's economy and the environment by the need to build, repair and replace infrastructure. For the structural engineering community there is an opportunity to help alleviate this burden by reducing the use of materials and other resources through optimized approaches to design, construction, and assessment. Research has indicated that refined design could reduce the use of materials in structures by 30%, which would result in cost and CO2 emission reductions of a similar magnitude. These savings would be significant since steel and cement production accounts for approximately 50% of industrial CO2 emissions and the construction industry represents 6% of GDP ($73.8 billion). Similarly if construction timelines can be reduced, this would result in reduced energy use and lower costs. Finally, more accurate assessments of existing structures could also enable significant cost and CO2 savings by allowing existing structures to be kept in service longer. However, engineers are often limited in the design and analysis techniques they can use because of the need for conservatism in the absence of accurate information about structural behaviour. New sensor technologies such as distributed fibre optic sensors (FOS), wireless senor networks (WSN) and digital image correlation (DIC) could provide the critical information to fill this knowledge gap, and enable optimized design, construction, and assessment. This research program will contribute to groundbreaking advances in how new sensor technologies can be used to improve: (i) the design of two-way slabs, (ii) the construction of large buildings, and (iii) the assessment of bridge girders. The research program will take advantage of the unique Canada Foundation for Innovation funded lab facilities and instrumentation technologies available to the applicant. The proposed research will advance the state of the art in structural engineering by: (a) using large-scale experiments and distributed sensor systems to understand complex structural systems, (b) developing approaches to modeling or assessing these systems so that material use, construction time and service life can be optimized, and (c) providing HQP with engineering skills that are highly desired in Canada and abroad. The outcomes of the research will include guidance for how to optimize the design of two-way slabs, improved construction guidance for large buildings, and an improved understanding of the impact of variable load paths on the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams that will lead to more accurate code approaches. Canada will see benefits from this research in terms of reduced infrastructure costs and environmental impact. Three MASc and three PhD students with specialty skills in the area of optimized structural design and core skills required of Professional Engineers will be trained.