MRI: Acquisition of a Structural Testing System for Interdisciplinary Research and Teaching

This Major Research Instrumentation award supports the procurement of a large-scale structural testing system that is necessary to test full-scale specimens and verify the performance as well as the efficiency of various rehabilitation techniques for civil infrastructure. The evaluation and rehabilitation of America's aging infrastructure is a serious issue that is costing the country billions of dollars per year. For this reason, research investigating economical rehabilitation techniques that can be applied easily, employed in a timely manner and that offer superior durability is of the utmost importance. Experimental testing is required to verify and validate the quality of these rehabilitation techniques and materials before they are implemented. The overall research vision for this project is the development of innovative, cost-effective and sustainable solutions for the renewal and rehabilitation of civil infrastructure in America and around the world. Results of this research will benefit above and below grade structures including buildings, bridges and pavements and will help in maintaining public safety and confidence in the nation?s infrastructure. In addition, it will also serve to enhance the education of engineering students by providing significant advancement in learning through the integration of teaching and research at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Durability is a key issue when it comes to investigating and evaluating the success or failure of the structural design of a new or rehabilitated structure. The use of advanced and sustainable materials is being proposed as alternative solutions to ensure the durability of these structures. The performance of these new and restorative materials will be evaluated by the research team through structural testing of a wide-variety of large-scale specimens under different loading combinations in conjunction with microstructural analysis of the materials. This will allow the research team to evaluate the aforementioned materials under real service conditions and aid in understanding their failure mechanisms. Additional topics that will be researched include: development of 'smart' rehabilitated concrete and steel structures, performance of innovative and sustainable materials for use in new construction and structural rehabilitation, development of sustainable pavements infrastructure, investigation of time-dependent properties of soils and performance of engineered wood products.