Representative:

Professor Mervyn Kowalsky
Department of Civil Engineering
North Carolina State University
College of Engineering
Box 7908
Raleigh, NC 27695
tel.: 919-515-7261
fax: 919-515-7908
e-mail: kowalsky@eos.ncsu.edu

Members:

Murthy N. Guddati, Abhinav Gupta, Tasnim Hassan, Mervyn J. Kowalsky, Vernon C. Matzen, James M. Nau, Mohammad Noori, and Sami H. Rizkalla

Website(s):

www.ncsu.edu

www.engr.ncsu.edu

Exterior view of the Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL)

North Carolina State University, founded in 1887 as a Land Grant University, is the premier science and engineering institution in the state. The university is located in the Capital City of Raleigh, and is housed on 2110 acres within the city. The university has an annual budget of approximately $820 million and an endowment valued at more than $312 million. NC State’s expenditures for research and sponsored programs exceed $440 million.

Earthquake Engineering Research
Earthquake engineering research at NC State is conducted largely within the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering as well as within the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Earthquake engineering research areas include:

(1) Development of displacement-based seismic design methods;
(2) Seismic response of self-correcting systems;
(3) Effects of load history on performance limit states of concrete and masonry systems;
(4) Use of advanced composites and innovative systems for seismic repair and seismic resistant new structures;
(5) Computational methods for wave propagation modeling;
(6) Dynamic analysis of soil-fluid-structure interaction problems;
(7) Experimental and analytical seismic behavior of unanchored objects;
(8) Remote observation and control of shake table experiments;
(9) Solutions to inverse problems for health monitoring and damage detection;
(10) Development of damping elements based on smart materials;
(11) Development of real-time control algorithms for smart material damping elements;
(12) Seismic design of vertically irregular building frames;
(13) Computational approaches for decision support and evaluation of alternatives using high-performance distributed network of computer workstations;
(14) Probabilistic approaches for reliability-based design and decision making in seismic performance evaluation of structural systems;
(15) Seismic performance evaluation of nonstructural systems such as piping, electrical equipment, control panels, unanchored or partially anchored equipment;
(16) Structural and material experimentation under cyclic loading for understanding low-cycle fatigue failure mechanisms of steel and welded structures;
(17) Development of constitutive models for improved finite element simulations of low-cycle fatigue response of structures;
(18) Advanced fiver-optic instrumentation for seismic testing;
(19) Effects of cold temperatures on the seismic behavior of structural systems;
(20) Analysis and design of bolted moment connections in steel moment resisting frames;
(21) Analysis and design of pre-engineered light gauge shear wall systems;
(22) Strength and serviceability design of steel ‘movement allowing’ connection clips used in light gauge steel construction;
(23) Structural health monitoring and damage detection;
(24) Statistical structural health management using Bayesian approaches, neural networks and wavelet analysis.

Research Facilities

Interior view of the Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL)

Built in 1996, the Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL) is the result of a $10 million joint investment by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the State of North Carolina. This unique 20,000 ft2 research complex has modern student and faculty offices and state-of-the-art laboratories and equipment to satisfy the research and testing needs of a wide variety of infrastructure materials and systems in areas such as geotechnical, geoenvironmental, asphalt, concrete, steel and fiber-reinforced composites. The CFL is distinguished for its capacity to test large structural systems and the ability to research the structural behavior of structural systems and materials under a wide variety of environmental conditions.

The CFL is the research arm for the NCSU Center for Infrastructure Protection and Renewal (IPR) and provides specialized industrial extension work through its close association with the NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Repair of Buildings and Bridges with Composites (RB2C) and the Industrial Extension Service at NC State University.

As one of the few International Code Council (ICC)-accredited laboratories in the nation, the CFL is uniquely positioned to provide testing and research services to industries developing or testing products for building code compliance. CFL products and services continue to expand and grow through innovative alliances with NC State’s internal and external clients that enable a current budget of about $2 million in research and service expenditures.

The CFL is equipped with (1) Reaction wall and strong floor, (2) High capacity shake table, (3) A complete actuator range from 10 Kips to 440 Kips, (4) Several loading frames, (5) An environmental chamber capable of physical and environmental loads, (6) 2-20 Ton overhead cranes, (7) Multiple testing machines capable of loads up to 2000 kips, (8) Microscopy and image analysis laboratory, (9) Test chamber for large scale Soil/Structure Interaction problems, and (10) Non-Destructive evaluation and testing facilities.

Within the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department, the Adaptive Structures Lab contains the following equipment: Seismic shaker, real-time data acquisition and control systems to assess lab-scale model performance of smart-materials-enhanced systems.

Educational Programs
The graduate program in Structural Engineering and Mechanics in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering covers structural analysis, behavior and design, including applications of mechanics to structural materials, members, and systems. Courses are offered in advanced concrete, steel, and masonry behavior, structural mechanics, earthquake engineering, offshore structures, probabilistic methods, plasticity, finite deformation theory, continuum mechanics, and wave propagation in solids. The program also offers students an opportunity for interdisciplinary study in computational mechanics and high performance computing. Through coordinated course work and research, students focus on a wide range of problems in structural engineering and mechanics. Students are able to develop individualized programs to meet their own needs and professional aspirations. Within the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department, courses in Active Materials Actuators and Sensors and Mechanics of Composite Structures are offered.

Under an NSF sponsored grant, the faculty in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering are exploring development of internet-enabled civil engineering laboratory experiments in undergraduate structures and geotechnical courses. Presently, a forced-vibration shake table experiment has been converted for remote access, observation, and control. The NCSU faculty is also collaborating with faculty and undergraduate students at NC A&T University for testing, evaluating, and possible incorporation of this remotely controlled experiment into their curriculum.