PIs: Le-Wu Lu, Yunfeng Zhang Lehigh University
Smart structures technology might revolutionize the design, construction and life-cycle performance management of civil and mechanical systems and has been receiving growing interests among researchers, practicing engineers, and decision makers. However, most of today's engineering students are unaware of the remarkable properties of smart sensors and many applications of smart structures technology. The introduction of smart structures technologies during a student's career is promising to the continued development of innovative structural systems for the world's future. Sensing technology is a key component of smart structures technologies. Pioneering work in incorporating smart structures technologies into civil engineering curriculum has been done in Lehigh and the experience shows that sensing technologies could be better taught to students with hands-on experiments. This project aims to build a teaching lab with an emphasis on smart sensing technologies in order to better achieve the education goal and enhance outreach activities to a diverse group. The establishment of this facility will provide invaluable opportunities for both research and education efforts in the area of smart structures technologies. In addition, the concept of ubiquitous training method featured by this facility will make maximum use of the investigators' current and future research and educational efforts in smart structures technologies to enrich the educational experience of K-12 students and science educators, college students as well as practicing engineers across the nation.
This is an equipment grant.
