{"433261":{"#nid":"433261","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Using Nature\u2019s Roadmap for Geotechnical Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhat can nature teach us about the way we engineer soil to strengthen the foundations of our buildings and infrastructure? What can we learn from ants and other burrowing insects to improve the efficiency of our underground tunneling efforts and make those tunnels safer?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAn $18.5 million investment from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will help researchers at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Georgia Tech \u2014 along with colleagues at Arizona State, New Mexico State, and the University of California, Davis \u2014 tap into the lessons nature teaches us and, potentially, revolutionize geotechnical engineering in the process.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s exciting about this project,\u201d said David Frost, who will lead Georgia Tech\u2019s efforts as part of the new Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics (CBBG). \u201cIt\u2019s not about little tweaks that just make systems that we currently have a little better. There really is the opportunity to come up with transformational approaches and ideas for what we do.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn billions of years of evolution, nature has come up with some very elegant solutions to the problems we want to solve,\u201d said Edward Kavazanjian, a professor at Arizona State University and director of the Center. \u201cBy employing or mimicking these natural processes, we should be able to devise some of our own elegant solutions.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIdeas could come from trees or ants or microbes that help stabilize soil, Frost said. And the discoveries researchers make could mean significant improvements in how we clean up environmental contamination, harden structures against natural and man-made disasters, make infrastructure construction more efficient, or improve the effectiveness of natural resource recovery operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe opportunity to come back and dramatically change how we design, for example, foundations of buildings exists if we look at how nature builds foundations for some of its structures,\u201d Frost said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cLet\u2019s go back and learn how nature has done it and see what new ideas emerge that could perhaps lead to a whole new generation of foundation systems, not just from the structural point of view, but also in terms of being sustainable,\u201d Frost said. \u201cWe\u2019re looking for ways to manage the heat of structures better. We\u2019re looking for ways to build ecology-friendly structures and systems. Who knows what we\u2019re going to find?\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Center is one of the nation\u2019s largest single investments in geotechnical engineering. The initial funding extends for five years with the possibility of an additional five years of support from NSF.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFrost said the goal at that point would be for CBBG \u2014 what\u2019s called an Engineering Research Center, or ERC, in NSF parlance \u2014 to be self-sustaining, and for something even greater to have happened after the NSF support period ends.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe\u2019re not just developing technologies to push out there,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re really trying to build an entire new field. In five years, if you talk about working in \u2018bio-geotechnics,\u2019 people won\u2019t look at you say, \u2018So what is that?\u2019\u201d They\u2019ll know, he said, that is the branch of geotechnical engineering focused on what nature inspires or guides us to do.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s role in the Center will focus predominantly focus on the microstructure of the subsurface and building complex numerical models of what\u2019s happening underground, areas where CEE researchers have significant expertise.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Tech influence in CBBG\u2019s work stretches even further, however. The coordinator of UC Davis\u2019 efforts earned his Ph.D. at Tech with Frost as his adviser. And one of the Center\u2019s leaders at Arizona State did her doctoral work in environmental engineering at Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe potential for game-changing results out of CBBG\u2019s work has already attracted more than a dozen companies as \u201cindustrial affiliates\u201d to lend support to the research. Scientists from another 15 universities from the around the world also have expressed an interest in collaborating with the Center on research and educational programs.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cERCs are recognized as being one of the marks of research excellence,\u201d Frost said. \u201cIt is a real feather in the cap of the institution. I think it\u2019s particularly exciting that civil engineering at Georgia Tech is at the heart of this very exciting new center.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELearn more about the new Center in the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/fullcircle.asu.edu\/research\/asu-taking-reins-of-new-national-geotechnical-engineering-research-center\/\u0022\u003Enews release from Arizona State University\u003C\/a\u003E and on the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/biogeotechnics.org\/\u0022\u003Eproject\u2019s website\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAn $18.5 million investment from the National Science Foundation will help researchers at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech \u2014 along with colleagues at Arizona State, New Mexico State, and the University of California, Davis \u2014 tap into the lessons nature teaches us and, potentially, revolutionize geotechnical engineering in the process.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"NSF to establish multi-university center to explore nature and engineering."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2015-08-11 12:45:06","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:22","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-08-11T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"433221":{"id":"433221","type":"image","title":"David Frost","body":null,"created":"1449256148","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:09:08","changed":"1475895171","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:51"},"433231":{"id":"433231","type":"image","title":"Tree and Roots","body":null,"created":"1449256148","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:09:08","changed":"1475895171","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:51"}},"media_ids":["433221","433231"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/132246323","title":"See a video about the Center"},{"url":"http:\/\/cee.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Civil and Environmental Engineering"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"137521","name":"David Frost"},{"id":"516","name":"engineering"},{"id":"479","name":"Green Buzz"},{"id":"362","name":"National Science Foundation"},{"id":"3803","name":"nature"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39531","name":"Energy and Sustainable Infrastructure"},{"id":"39471","name":"Materials"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71911","name":"Earth and Environment"},{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:joshua.stewart@ce.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJoshua Stewart\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ESchool of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-3171\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["joshua.stewart@ce.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}