This award is to support a "US-Egypt Workshop on the Use of Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP) for Sustainable Structures" to be held in Hurghada, Egypt on May 26, 2008. The U.S. organizer is Dr. Sami Rizkalla, Department of Civil Engineering, North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, NC. The Egyptian organizer is Dr. and Dr. Abdel-Hady Hosny, Ain Shams University in Cairo, Egypt. The workshop is planned for one day immediately following "The Fifth Middle East Symposium on Structural Composites for Infrastructure Applications 2008 (MESC-5)". It brings together researchers in this area from U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan and Egypt.
Intellectual Merit: The workshop is to facilitate exchange of information, disseminate research findings, and to identify areas for viable research collaboration, between the U.S. and researchers from Egyptian Universities, on the use of FRP material as construction material for new structures, as well as for strengthening or repairing existing civil infrastructure. There will be an opportunity for experts to interact and to identify topics for collaborative projects on the use of FRP for innovative sustainable structures, life cycle costs, and structural health monitoring. Several of the participants hold important positions on professional committees that have a broad based knowledge of many of the current issues associated with FRP technologies. Participants will make written contributions on the topics covered in the workshop. The workshop proceedings will be published by the US PI team and the counterpart from Ain Shams University, in coordination with the MESC-5 Steering Committee. They will be posted to the workshop web site , the Ain Shams University web site and the NSF I/UCRC on "Repair of Buildings and Bridges with Composites" (RB2C) web site www.ce.ncsu.edu/centers/rb2c. They will also be distributed internationally through the International Institute for FRP in Construction (IIFC) web site www.iifc-hq.org.
Broader Impact: Deterioration of civil infrastructure and structures in particular, has been documented and recognized as a serious problem worldwide. In the last decade innovative structural materials, including Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRP), have set ambitious goals in the vast civil infrastructure markets. The proposed workshop will lay the groundwork for the future research collaboration between the U.S., Egypt and other Middle East countries. Direct dissemination of the workshop findings to key US codification agencies will enhance the value of the workshop. The U.S. participants include faculty that represent underrepresented groups, two graduate students, junior faculty and senior faculty from different geographical regions of the country.
