RICERCA ITALIANA     

Compositi Strutturali per Applicazioni Innovative - Structural Composites for Innovative Construction (SCIC)

Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II"

Principal Investigator

Edoardo COSENZA Università degli Studi di NAPOLI "Federico II"

Research Objectives

The proponent team proposes to establish a Center of Excellence for research on "Structural Composites for Innovative Constructions" SCIC. The center will be based on the cooperation among several research groups operating at the University of Naples "Federico II". The most involved departments will be the Department of Materials and Production Engineering (DIMP), the Department of Electronics Engineering (DIE) and the Department of Structural Analysis and Design (DAPS) that have distinguished expertise in materials, monitoring/assessment and civil structures design, respectively.The proposal was generated with the objective of providing strong and significant responses to the following needs underlined by the analysis of the Italian social, economic and academic situation:- Infrastructure durability: degradation problems show a dramatic need for technologies able to increase structural durability. In recent years, most reinforced and prestressed concrete structures reported damage due to the corrosion of steel showing the disadvantage of limited durability over time when it is exposed to aggressive and harsh environments.- Natural and man-made hazards: the potential for seismic events or unexpected human actions poses a challenge for the reduction of hazards in construction. Preparedness for such situations represents an urgent social need. The complexity of societal functions and its dependency on interaction of built infrastructure functions determines a demand for safe structures, especially in seismic regions. Every year a considerable amount of investments in construction is devoted to the repair, strengthening or upgrade of existing structures, or to the construction of new, durable structures. This represents a great economic challenge for the Italian construction industry. - Lack of competitiveness: the actual condition of the Italian industry shows a competitiveness gap with other countries in the global market due to the low level of technology in materials and technologies applied in construction. The absence of an integrated quality control procedure for the complete construction cycle and issues related to safety and availability of workforce also play an important role in this situation.- Academic innovation: Italian universities and the research community are suffering a sort of brain drain. There is a difficulty in keeping the most promising graduates within the academic world. The Italian system shows a total absence of made-in-Italy advanced educational programs resulting in an inability to attract students from foreign countries. The development and diffusion of new composites and installation/fabrication/assessment technologies in construction, in conjunction with complementary educational programs, would offer the following opportunities:- Provide a new class of construction materials for infrastructure;- Elevate the quality of industry and its products producing a safer environment;- Utilize competencies of Italian researchers and industry;- Give Italian industry competitive advantages already enjoyed in other sectors (i.e., fashion design);- Reposition Italian universities, allowing them to explore in a global environment.The establishment of the SCIC would allow Italian university and industry to develop new paradigms in order to remain competitive and increase their market share in the global economy, maintaining safe working and living environments, and keeping cultural heritage and principles. Such objectives would be reached in the long term by:- Creating a permanent self-research structure in time;- Stimulating economic growth for Italy by improving quality and performance of its built infrastructure; - Establishing a partnership among other Italian universities that have complementary core competencies and have appropriate geographical locations;- Connecting this university consortium to foreign institutions (centers and universities) for validation and/or exchange;- Fully integrating university activities with industry needs. This will be achieved by establishing a collaborative structure where industry participates financially and with in-kinds, and derives economical benefits (i.e., pre-competitive developments, intellectual properties, research parks);- Fully integrating key public administrations as facility owners and recipients of the developed technology;- Establishing a new model of management structure for the Center, where directors and associate directors are responsible for implementing guidelines developed by an industry advisory board. This will allow for accountability and continuous assessment;- Developing a new class of instructional activities that target national and international audiences. This will allow making full use of modern interactive internet-based protocols. English will serve as communication tool to access foreign markets and increase competitiveness of Italian universities and their graduates;- Developing short courses for practitioners, promoting certificated programs for national and international non-traditional students and instituting academic degrees (i.e., Master and PhD) for national and international students;- Promoting the formation of highly qualified professionals that could give the start-up to new spin-off enterprises with high value added.The activities of the Center will be based on a research program for the first three years organized along four research lines:R.L.1 Optimization of Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites for long term service in civil applications;R.L.2 Optimization of manufacturing processes and development of Structural Health Monitoring systems for construction;R.L.3 Composite materials in the design, analysis and characterization of civil structures;R.L.4 Design, analysis and characterization of existing structures strengthened with composites.The development of these four research lines should result in the achievement of the following short-term objectives:- Diffusing information about the opportunities offered by composites and underlining their advantages over conventional systems;- Satisfying the research needs by providing experimental evidence and theoretical models, developing design criteria for structural engineers and guiding producers toward the improvement of existing product and the development of innovative solutions;- Developing and designing new low-cost manufacturing processing and in situ fabrication techniques for composites;- Cooperating with other research centers to identify accelerated standard test procedures and promoting the validation of accelerated protocols with real environment exposure under different conditions;- Promoting the diffusion of technical-scientific information;- Developing guidelines for standard test methods to determine physico-chemical characteristics.The use of innovative composites for construction applications is relatively new and could be a great opportunity for this challenge, providing several advantages over the conventional techniques for structural systems. First, the adoption of composites allows for designing a material targeted at specific requirements; this represents a great innovation compared to the use of traditional solutions. The design of the material includes also the level of durability required by each application; the resistance to corrosion and, in general, to aggressive and harsh environments that composites materials are able to offer provides a great potential for their adoption in structures controlled by durability issues. Another parameter that can be optimized is the manufacturing technique upon which different shapes and/or systems can be obtained; when solutions entirely based on composites are selected, the great advantage of the high strength to weight ratio can be utilized.At present, the major market segment for structural applications of composites is represented by existing buildings and bridges; the strengthening of under-reinforced or deteriorated structures, the seismic upgrade of buildings designed without seismic provisions, and the strengthening of structures which original use needs to be modified are often realized by selecting advanced composites materials. In the construction of new reinforced concrete and prestressed structures, the attention on composite materials is very high due to the degradation problems of many civil buildings. The adoption of non corrosive internal reinforcements, such as composites consisting of load carrying fibers (carbon, aramid, glass) embedded in polymer resin (epoxy, polyester or vinyl ester), could eliminate corrosion problems. All these characteristics require a multidisciplinary approach by which different backgrounds and knowledge can be integrated in order to achieve optimized solutions and define methodologies for the characterization, analysis and design of composites and structures reinforced with composites. All this needs to be done considering also that such types of materials are subjected to continuous innovation. The partnership between different research groups will allow the proponent team ensuring a strong interdisciplinary approach as required by the particular and innovative research field of the Center. The scientific competencies provided by the different partners in theoretical, experimental and technological aspects belonging to the structural area will contribute to an integrated approach toward the development of innovative composites that could be used both for construction and repair of new and existing structures, respectively. The research activities will be supported by a regional network operated with ITCM at National Research Council and the University of Sannio and by a national network operated with the University of Roma "La Sapienza" and the University of Bologna. The link with the network will assure the competitiveness of the Center in the funding competition at the regional and national level.The technology transfer is assured by a permanent partnership with industries, suppliers, contractors and end-users in order to maximize the exploitation of the results and to encourage the spin-off of high-tech industrial activities. At the start of the Center, the industrial partnership will be represented by the following research agreements of the proponent team with:- constituent material suppliers (Ciba, Hexcel, Dow Chemicals) - equipment manufacturers (Creative Pultrusion);- contractors :Società Autostrade, Anas , Ferrovie dello Stato;- suppliers : Mapei; Sika Italcementi;- designers: Ordini professionali- end users: Sovrintendenza, Emergency Management Agency, Regional Government, MunicipalitiesThe international cooperation will be activated in agreement with international research centers and networks that have collaborative activities and researchers exchanges with the proponent team; this organization is in the spirit of the specific program on "Integrating and Strengthening the European Research Area" supported by the next Framework Program 2002-2006 of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities. The international research centers and network interacting with the Center will be:- Magnel Laboratory for Concrete Research of the University of Ghent, Belgium;- ConFibreCrete Network coordinated by The University of Sheffield, UK; - Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Patras, Greece;- Center for Infrastructure Engineering Studies of the University of Missouri-Rolla, USA;- Advanced Structures and Composites Laboratory of the University of Maine, USA;- Engineering Science and Mechanics Department of Virginia Tech University, USA;- College of Engineering of the University of Madison, USA;- Intelligent Sensing for Innovative Structures (ISIS) of the University of Manitoba, Canada;- Mid-America Earthquake Center of the University of Illinois, USA;- Department of Civil Engineering of the National University of Singapore, Singapore;- Department of Civil and Structural Engineering of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China;- Hybrid Structure Engineering Laboratory of the Hokkaido University, Japan;- Ecole de Mines of St.Etienne, France;- Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, U.S.A;- New York Polytechnic University (USA);- Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain;- University of Mar del Plata, Argentina; - University of Washington-Seattle, USA;The Center will also develop activities and initiatives in the area of standardization in accordance to the activities of the main International Organizations for the development of guidelines and standards for composite materials and structures (American Concrete Institute (ACI), American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM), Federation International du Beton (fib), International Standard Organization (ISO), Italian Society of Standardization (UNI)). This will be possible due to the membership and active participation of some proponents to the following International Committee: fib Committee Group 9.3, ACI Technical Committee 440, ASTM, UNI Committee Composites in Constructions, ISO Committee TC 71/SC 6. <<<