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Research Brief: Validation of Molecular Dynamics-Based Structural Damage
(2019-03)
Windstorms currently generate $28 billion in average annual damage and this figure is projected to potentially rise to $38 billion by 2075. Traditional engineering approaches that analyze the resilience of structures fail ...
Research Brief: A Reaction-Diffusion Model to Determine Mesoscale Patterns in Cement Paste
(2018-08)
Strength and toughness, two important aspects of the durability of concrete structures, are dramatically influenced by the material’s nanotexture, but the question of how the building blocks of cement paste organize ...
Research Brief: Simulating the Formation of ASR Gels
(2019-04)
Alkali-silica-reaction (ASR) is a significant cause of premature concrete deterioration. Although it has received much research attention, an essential question still remains—how does a soft gel, as is formed by this ...
Research Brief: Generating Building-specific Fragility Curves
(2019-05)
Fragility curves represent a structure’s likelihood of damage under a range of load levels—like those from natural hazards. They, therefore, help to set building code safety factors, resiliency ratings, and even insurance ...
Research Brief: Modeling the Freeze-Thaw Damage Mechanism in Cement
(2019-01)
Freeze-thaw (FT) damage is a significant threat to roads and pavement, yet the underlying mechanism is still unclear. Conventional thinking attributes the damage to pressure generated by expansion of water upon freezing. ...
A Scientific Investigation into Concrete Pavement Durability
(MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, Oregon State University, University of New Brunswick, 2021-01)
Although concrete pavements offer many long-term performance benefits, there are still instances where premature degradation of pavements leads to unexpected and costly repairs. In addition to being a burden to transportation ...
Research Brief: Creating Customized Fragility Curves for Resilient Building
(2018-11)
Fragility curves, which are a statistical tool that represent the probability of exceeding a certain level of structural damage due to various forces applied to a building, are used to assess anticipated building performance. ...
Research Brief: A Resilience Assessment of Structures Using Molecular Dynamics
(2018-06)
Between 1993-ˇ2012, more than 75% of catastrophic losses in the United States were caused by windstorms
(1). The Congressional Budget Office estimated an average annual damage amounting to $28 billion (0.16 percent of GDP), ...
Research Brief: Prioritizing Resilient Retrofits
(2018-02)
2017 was one of the most devastating U.S. hurricane seasons ever recorded. State Departments of Public Safety across the country list tens of thousands of destroyed homes and hundreds of thousands more damaged. Although ...
Research Brief: Capillary Stress During Cement Drying Shrinkage
(2018-06)
Imagine a household sponge lying next to a kitchen sink. The sponge looks and feels different when it is wet versus when it is dry. When a sponge dries, it shrinks, curls and hardens due to suction forces (called “capillary ...