This award supports a "US-Pakistan Workshop on Advanced Cement-Based Composites", to be held in Karachi, Pakistan in December 2007. The organizers are Dr. Barzin Mobasher, Arizona State University and Dr. Sarosh Lodhi, NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Pakistan. The workshop will held be just prior to the International Conference on Advanced Cement-Based Materials and Applications to Civil Infrastructures, to be held December 12-14 in Lahore, Pakistan, www.acbm.aci.org.
Intellectual Merit: Concrete is one of the widely used construction material in the U.S. and its use is expected to increase substantially in Pakistan and in all of Asia. Thus the goal of the workshop, to identify key research hurdles to improving state-of-the-art advanced cement-based composites to enable broad-scale global application and sustainability in both industrialized and developing countries, is very timely. Advancement in this field will contribute in savings of non-renewable materials and also will help in reducing carbon-dioxide emission. The multi-scale modeling aspect, which integrates material properties and structural performance and is tied to more efficient and economical design, will also advance the state of the art. The U.S. and Pakistani participants will bring strong and varied expertise that is likely to result in synergistic benefits for all.
Broader Impacts: The workshop will act as a catalyst to increase the collaboration between the researchers in both countries. The U.S. team also has an opportunity to interact with a large number of Pakistan researchers who will be attending the conference which will be held right after the workshop. There are plans to include young and under-represented minority researchers among the participants. A major potential benefit of research in this area would be better housing structures in the seriously earthquake-prone regions of Pakistan and neighboring countries. This project is being supported by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation.
