Other Important Project Elements |
5.1 |
Role of Collaborators |
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The planned experimental activities, program CAST, and the education resources will be evaluated during the project by a team of 14 collaborators that represent the building code, academic, industrial, and practicing communities. The academics are Michael Collins (University of Toronto), Catherine French (University of Minnesota), James Jirsa (The University of Texas at Austin), David Sanders (University of Nevada Reno), Bozidar Stojadinovic (University of California, Berkeley), and James Wight (University of Michigan). The industrial and practitioner representatives are Ralph Anderson (Illinois Department of Transportation), William Baker (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP), Christian Dahl (Headed Reinforcement Corporation), Paul Johal (Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute), David Gustafson (Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute), Basile Rabbat (Portland Cement Association), Roy Reiterman (Wire Reinforcement Institute), and Peter Tatnall (Synthetic Industries). Letters that express their interest in participating are included in the order just listed in the supplementary information section of this proposal (Note that the appearance of these letters was altered as an optical character recognition program was used in order to produce legible and modest sized pdf files). This team of collaborators will help to ensure the dissemination of the results and products of this work.
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5.2 |
Incorporation of Diversity in Program |
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The PI participates in his University’s Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP). The objective of this program is to introduce sophomore or junior undergraduate students who are from underrepresented groups and have high academic standing to university research. It is hoped and anticipated that this program will encourage some of these students to go on to graduate studies, which in turn will lead some to them to pursue academic positions. This summer, the PI is supervising a sophomore student from Puerto Rico. The PI intends to continue participating in the SROP program and plans to have at least one student each summer participate on this project. The PI has also incorporated diversity in the team of collaborators.
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5.3 |
Project Schedule |
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In Figure 15, the schedule for the three main project activities is summarized.
Figure 15 Gantt Chart of Project Schedule
(Click here to view a larger image)
As stated in this proposal, the traditional procedures and practices for the design of D-Regions are poor and there are many uncertainties associated with developing STM provisions. Consequently, it is not expected that all of the important issues will be resolved in the near future. Consequently, after the conclusion of this project, the PI would continue to pursue experimental and analytical research focused on better understanding/modeling the behavior of regions subjected to complex states of stress (i.e. D-Regions) and in developing improved design procedures and education resources for the STM. Developments would continue to be published on the PI’s strut-and-tie web site.
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5.4 |
Commitment and Qualifications of PI |
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The PI’s first experimental project using strut-and-tie models began in 1987 and involved the construction and testing of three large pile caps designed using the STM. These specimens were heavily instrumented to measure the distribution of load, concrete surface strains, internal concrete strains, and variation in reinforcing bar strain. Since that time, the PI has gained approximately 10,000 hours (250 man weeks) of hands-on laboratory experience working on thesis and consulting projects. The candidate’s Ph.D. work, under the direction of Michael Collins, involved developing an analytical model to predict the response of cracked reinforced concrete elements to a 3-dimensional state of stress. A few other research projects of the PI are listed in his biographical sketch.
Since arriving at the University of Illinois, the PI has used start-up funds and a University of Illinois grant to begin work on program CAST. The PI is fortunate to have a particularly talented and dedicated Ph.D. student (GPA = 4.0) working on the development of this design tool. A pre-alpha version of this program was demonstrated at the 1999 Spring ACI Conference in Chicago. The PI and this student are nearing completion of a paper “Advances and Challenges to Design by the Strut-and-Tie Model” for submission to the ACI Structural Journal and which they hope to present at the 2000 ACI Fall Conference in Toronto.
The PI activity participates in ACI committees that are involved in developing STM design examples or reviewing provisions. He is an associate member of joint ACI/ASCE Committee 445 (Shear and Torsion), a member of ACI sub-committee 445-1 (Full Member Design), and a member of a task group on high performance concrete in ACI 318E (Shear and Torsion).
The PI very much enjoys the opportunity to teach and to investigate strategies for delivering material in an effective and engaging manner. There is evidence of this in his last teaching evaluation, where he received a rating of 4.9 out of a possible 5.0 (top 10 % of instructors at his university). He is currently teaching the second course in Reinforced Concrete Design at the University of Illinois, where he has had the opportunity to teach the strut-and-tie design method to several classes of students. He is scheduled to continue to teach this class twice per year for the foreseeable future. This will enable him to personally evaluate the effectiveness of the CAST design tool and the STM educational resources during the length of the project.
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5.5 |
Dissemination Activities |
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The results of the experimental research will be published in technical journals, presented at conferences, and disseminated at committee meetings by the PI. Program CAST and the educational resources will be promoted at ACI, ASCE, ASEE, FIB, and PCI conferences and be available from the PI’s strut-and-tie web site. As mentioned, having established a team of collaborators is expected to enhance dissemination efforts.
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5.6 |
Summary of Project and Impact of Work |
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The emerging STM promises to provide a rational and versatile procedure for the design of D-Regions, but there are significant barriers to the advance of this method in the education and practicing communities. If this project is funded, much-needed experimental research will be conducted to help assess the dimensions, stiffness, and strength characteristics of struts, ties, and nodes. This will be facilitated by the acquisition and use of new non-contact instrumentation system. Program CAST would further be developed to become an effective and transparent design tool that overcomes the encumbering aspects of the design process. Educational resources will be developed to aid teachers, students, and practitioners in the use and instruction of this unfamiliar design methodology. The team of distinguished collaborators will help ensure that the experimental work, the CAST tool, and educational resources meet the needs of educators and practitioners.
The PI is qualified to lead this project due to his extensive experimental research background, his position in the professional community, and his commitment to the advance of this design methodology. In addition to advancing the use of strut-and-tie models in education and design, this project would help launch the career of the PI as it will establish him as a leading contributor to understanding the behavior of structural concrete subjected to a complex state of stress and as a developer of practical design tools and procedures.
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