As the nation’s infrastructure system ages, condition assessment of traditional civil engineering materials has become a critical issue for sustainability and economical infrastructure management.  However, existing nondestructive evaluation (NDE) methods for infrastructure applications do not have the degree of accuracy, reliability, and repeatability necessary for the quantitative assessment of civil materials. This seminar reports on recent applications of ultrasonic wave based techniques for the quantitative NDE of civil infrastructure.  Specific examples discussed will include: a combination of laser ultrasonic, signal processing and analytical modeling techniques to examine the propagation of transient Lamb waves in viscoelastic plates (with applications for repaired concrete); the quantitative characterization of the microstructure of cement-based materials using diffuse and coherent ultrasonic waves; and the development of a focused, air-coupled ultrasonic source in a frequency range relevant for civil infrastructure.  The underlying hypothesis of this research is that ultrasonic techniques can be used to make in situ measurements of critical parameters that characterize the current state of, and then to track the degradation of civil infrastructure.

For the past twelve years, the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices has been under development as a potential method to measure the travel behavior of individuals, in preference to the use of any of variety of self-report methods, such as travel diaries and face-to-face interviews. Within the past year or so, devices have progressed to the point that they are readily able to be used as personal tracking devices, and some years of development of software has taken place for processing the data collected by means of personal, portable GPS devices. In work that began at LSU has continued for the past 8 years at the University of Sydney, Professor Stopher and his associates have pioneered the use of GPS surveys to measure travel behavior. In this seminar, Stopher will describe and demonstrate the people to carry the devices with them. The devices collect travel data on a second-by-second basis. This produces large data files that must be processed to obtain information about individual trips from an origin to a destination. Using a number of rules that will be described in the seminar, the stream of data points are first divided up into specific origin-destination movements. Then, using various GPS layers and additional rules, the mode of travel of each of these movements is inferred, along with the trip purpose. The rules that are used in this process will be described. Results of the processing will be shown to indicate the nature of the final processed information. The University of Sydney in a team with a some of  US firms, is about to commence the first large-scale GPS household survey every undertaken, with 4,000 households to be surveyed in Ohio. The seminar will conclude with a brief discussion of this commencing project and some of the additional advances that are expected to result from it, especially in the addition of Artificial Intelligence applications to assist the current processing software.

Southern University

Bucknell University
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Vertical cutoff walls are employed for a wide variety of purposes including earth retention systems for temporary excavation support, for ground water control during construction and beneath dams and levees, and for control of contaminant migration in the subsurface.  To construct these walls, a number of construction methods have been used including deep soil mixing with augers, soil-bentonite slurry trenching and jet-grouting.  The trench remixing and deep wall (TRD) method is a new one-phase process for excavation and in situ mixing.  The TRD method was has been widely employed in Japan for more than 10 years but has only recently been used in the United States.  The TRD method mixes the entire depth of the vertical profile and results in a more homogeneous wall than other in situ mixing methods.  Using a large revolving chain and cutter bar, the TRD equipment simultaneously excavates and mixes in situ soils and added slurry resulting in a continuous soil mixed wall.  This presentation describes three case studies of the first TRD projects in the United States.  The first was to construct closed cells to allow full evaluation of the method for use as a salt water intrusion barrier.  The second case study describes a project to control contamination at a waste water treatment site.  The third case study describes the use of the TRD at the Herbert Hoover dike providing flood protection from Lake Okeechobee. The case studies present site characterization information, laboratory studies to investigate the appropriate mix design, field construction and post-construction testing.

Dr. Evans is Chair and Professor of the Department of Civil and Envronmental Engineering at Bucknell University where he remains active in slurry wall research and consulting.  His recent consulting assignments have included a soil-bentonite slurry trench cutoff wall for a sites in Wisconsin, Michigan and Quebec, Canada and the first ever project involving the Japanese TRD method at Alamitos Gap in southern California.  He is currently consulting on a cutoff wall in a contaminated environment in Utah.

Institute of Fundamental Technological Research
Polish Academy of Sciences

The main objective of the lecture is to show broad application of the thermodynamic theory of elasto-viscoplasicity for the description of important problems in modern manufacturing processes, and particularly for meso-, micro-, and nano-mechanical issues. This description is particularly needed for the investigation by using the numerical methods how to avoid unexpected plastic strain localization and localized fracture phenomena in new manufacturing technology. Particular problems have been considered as follows:

(i) Numerical analysis of macrocrack propagation along a bimaterial interface under dynamic
loadings processes;
(ii) Numerical investigation of dynamic shear bands in inelastic solids as a problem of
mesomechanics;
(iii) Numerical investigation of localized fracture phenomena in inelastic solids generated by
impact-loaded adiabatic processes.

The physical and experimental motivation for each problem have been presented. The identification procedure for the material functions and constants involved in the constitutive equations is developed basing on the experimental observations.

Qualitative comparison of numerical results with experimental observation data has been presented. The numerical results obtained have proven the usefulness of the thermo-elasto-viscoplastic theory in the investigation of dynamic shear band propagations and localized fracture.

Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

In this talk I will first give an overview of the current research in my laboratory, the Dynamic Systems and Vibrations Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at UMBC. Our research combines analytical development, numerical simulation, experimental validation, and industrial application. Some theoretical problems studied include analysis of time-varying and infinite-dimensional systems, nonlinear analysis of high-dimensional models of distributed systems, stochastic analysis of the random impact series method in modal testing, inverse modeling for damage detection, and modeling of fillets and bolted joint connections. Experiments are designed and conducted to validate the theoretical predictions. The research can be applied to the design of elevators, belt and tape drives, and power transmission lines. It also has application to nondestructive testing and modal testing.  I will then focus on: 1) a new dynamic stability theory for translating media with variable length and/or speed; 2) a robust iterative algorithm for structural damage detection using a minimum number of vibration measurements, along with new physics-based methods to model structures with bolted joints; and 3) a novel stochastic model for the random impact test method in modal testing. Experimental results on a novel scaled elevator, damage detection, and bolted-joint modeling will be demonstrated.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Arizona State University

N/A

Dept. of Geotecnics and Geosciences
School of Civil Engineering
Technical University of Catalonia (UPC)

The talk covers constitutive modeling of a wide range of engineering materials such as plain concrete, fiber reinforced concrete, polymer composite skin/polymer foam core sandwich plates, triaxially braided two dimensional polymer composites, bimaterial interfaces and biological soft tissue. An essential ingredient of the constitutive modeling of materials that involve fracture, the size effect on the strength of the materials, along with its implications is also discussed. The approaches employed involve phenomenological constitutive models prescribed at mesoscale to compute the macroscopic response as well as determination of mesoscale constitutive behavior based on explicit description of the mesostructure. Macroscopic size effect analyses using analytical and computational methods using cohesive cracks with zero thickness interface elements are also discussed. Application of selected models to the real life large scale engineering problems will be demonstrated. Most of the work presented is still under development, with publications made at regular intervals.

US Patent Office

This presentation provides information about patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets with real life examples of how each type of IP can and is being used.  In the discussion both the good and the bad of each type IP is discussed.  Most emphasis is placed on the patent system, with discussion about the types of patents, application types and the responsibilities of the patentee.  Trademark uses and types are discussed, along with a discussion of trademarks becoming generic and how to enforce a trademark.  Copyright distinctions are discussed as well as the need for federal protection.  Finally a discussion of trade secrets points out how they are used today and what they can be used for.  A discussion about the responsibilities of individuals have a trade secret is developed, as well as, what one out to do when a trade secret is offered to them.

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Southern California

Bamboo is widely available in the world as a natural and renewable material, however, the potential is not fully utilized in modern construction. The author, as the director of the Institute of Modern Bamboo, Timber and Composite Structures (IBTCS), is conducting a comprehensive research program, with the goal to develop modern bamboo structures for buildings and bridges. This paper reports the design, construction, testing of the world’s first truck-safe modern bamboo road bridge and the first modern residential house. The author and his team developed laminated bamboo girders and verified their satisfactory mechanical performance through full-scale testing. It was demonstrated that the laminated bamboo girders have satisfactory stiffness and load carrying capacity. Based on the test results and analysis, a 10 m long single lane roadway bridge was designed and constructed. The field tests were carried out using an over loaded two-axel truck with a total weight of 8.6 ton which exceeded the given design truckload of 8.0 ton. The bridge performed satisfactorily with the mid-span deflection corresponding to the critical service loading condition much smaller than the code required limit. In another attempt in the building application, a demonstration house of about 260 square meters was constructed. The laminated bamboo can be constructed with the similar procedure for timber structures, and consequently, the effort can make the bamboo much acceptable by design engineers for wide range of construction practice, and competitive compared with other high-energy consumption, conventional materials such as concrete and steel. The development and application of modern bamboo structures in construction will lead to the promotion of the fast-grow and fast-mature bamboo plantation, contributing to the preservation of tree forests and environment in a global scale.