Research Highlights

Field Examinations in New Orleans, LA after Hurricane Katrina

Damaged flood walls in New Orleans, LA after Hurricane Katrina. Professor Dalrymple was part of the first official team of engineers to examine the breaches around the city, looking for the failure mechanisms of the levees.

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ASCE Great Indian Ocean Tsunami Post Disaster Field Survey

Tsunami damage to a coastal resort in Thailand. Professor Dalrymple, with an ASCE team, examined tsunami damage shortly after the disaster to examine lifeline damage and to see what construction performed better.

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SPH with a Sub-Particle Scale (SPS) model

Breaking waves on a beach numerically modeled by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics. The mechanisms of wave breaking, the resulting surf zone turbulence, and sediment transport, are studied by Professor Dalrymple and his students in the Coastal/Ocean Program.

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Wind-Wave-Ocean Interaction

Interaction among winds, surface waves, and ocean currents is at the heart of ocean and coastal engineering.  Prof. Shen’s research group develops advanced numerical tools to simulate the physical processes directly.

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DNS and LES of Turbulent Flows over Wavy Boundaries

Interaction of turbulence with wavy surfaces is important to many applications including drag reduction using fish-like waving motions, sediment transport, and winds over ocean waves.  Prof. Shen’s group uses numerical simulations to study the detailed flow structure and the underlying mechanism.

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Gas Transfer at Air-Sea Interface

Exchange of greenhouse gases between the atmosphere and oceans is essential to global warming.  Prof. Shen’s group is tackling this challenging problem by simulating scalar transport and mixing in free-surface turbulent flows.

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Radiance in the Upper Ocean

Water waves and downwelling irradiance field showing the “swimming pool” light pattern in water.   Professor Shen’s group performs Navier-Stokes equation simulation for water motions and Monte Carlo simulation for photons to study forward and inverse modeling of radiative transfer in ocean. 

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Local Elastoplastic Homogenization of Random Composite Materials

Material models that assume an effective (average) set of material properties fail to capture the true behavior of composite materials that are random in structure. Professor Graham-Brady investigates the modeling of local stress fields in such materials.

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Modeling Strain-Rate Dependent Behavior of Brittle Materials

The strength of brittle materials is driven by the presence of flaws. High strain rates typically increase the strength and alter the effects of various flaw sizes. Professor Graham-Brady is collaborating with Professor Ramesh of Mechanical Engineering to model the strain-rate dependent behavior of ceramic materials.

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Distortional Buckling of Thin-Walled Beams

Distortional buckling of a pair of cold-formed steel beams is modeled and tested to better understand fundamental behavior, and improve the safety and reliability of building codes. Learn more about Professor Schafer's research:

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Topology Optimization of Structural Systems

What is the best design for a structural system? Topology optimization is a computational method for finding such solutions. Shown above are maximum stiffness designs for beams with various manufacturing constraints. Learn more about Professor Guest's research:

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Optimal Design of Multifunctional Materials

Materials used in civil engineering need to evolve to meet tomorrow's challenges. Professor Guest's research uses topology optimization to create material microstructures that satisfy modern multiphysics demands.

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Random Composites Characterization and Damage Estimation Using Bayesian Classifiers

Efficiently identifying damage in composite material is critical to successful and safe use of structures. Professor Igusa is using classifier methods borne out of computer vision algorithms to identify novel techniques for finding damage.

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Dynamic Testing of Structures Using Shaking Table

Newly constructed uniaxial shaking table allows testing of scaled buildings and bridges under dynamic loadings. Prof. Nakata’s research group is developing innovative structural systems and verifying their concept through shaking table test.

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Hybrid Simulation Combining Experimental and Analytical Substructures

Using hybrid models (combination of experimental and analytical substructures), critical structural components can be experimentally investigated at systems-level. Professor Nakata’s research group is using hybrid simulation technique for the seismic assessment of large and complex structural systems.

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