Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FRAMED (Fracture Across Scales and Materials, Processes and Disciplines)
Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2023-10-31
The general research objectives of the project were to establish fundamentals by which models at a lower scale of observation can feed into models at a higher scale of observation and to quantify how randomness affects material behaviour across the scales. The project also intended to develop a modelling framework informed by knowledge of multiple scales and system randomness, assess needs and develop model effectiveness across a range of potential applications and finally to experimentally validate the developed multiscale modelling tool.
Despite of COVID and the Russia-Ukraine war resulting to FRAMED suspension period and cancelled plans for secondments to the 3 partners in Russia and 2 in China, the FRAMED project attended career perspectives and prerogatives, emphasising variable career progression opportunities for the senior and junior members of staff, including seconding PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to the best that the aforementioned pandemic and war conditions allowed.
Over the project’s duration, grossly interrupted by COVID enforced movement (i.e. secondment) restrictions, the extensive and inherent cross-disciplinary collaboration initiated through FRAMED has led to a holistic modelling framework that not only addresses the low energy carbon footprint as mentioned above, but also a probabilistically modelled framework that can predict low carbon stature and footprint across a wide range of industrial consortia, focusing on the remits outlined by our partners.
In addition, economical and safe design depends on our understanding of construction failures, which is often a progressive process. Our research shows that failure can be regarded as a localized bifurcation problem (loss of stability). The traditional design approach based on limit state analysis tends to give either too conservative design by using the residual strength parameters or too risky design by using the peak strength parameters. The bifurcation analysis can provide rational design by striking a fair balance between economy and safety. Given the fact that geomaterials (rock, gravel, sand and clay) are the most widely used construction materials in the world, our research outcome shall have high potential to reduce the construction energy footprint and to contribute to the sustainable development.
Despite of COVID and the Russia-Ukraine war resulting to FRAMED suspension period and cancelled plans for secondments to the 3 partners in Russia and 2 in China, the FRAMED project attended career perspectives and prerogatives, emphasising variable career progression opportunities for the senior and junior members of staff, including seconding PhD students and postdoctoral fellows to the best that the aforementioned pandemic and war conditions allowed.
Over the project’s duration, grossly interrupted by COVID enforced movement (i.e. secondment) restrictions, the extensive and inherent cross-disciplinary collaboration initiated through FRAMED has led to a holistic modelling framework that not only addresses the low energy carbon footprint as mentioned above, but also a probabilistically modelled framework that can predict low carbon stature and footprint across a wide range of industrial consortia, focusing on the remits outlined by our partners.
In addition, economical and safe design depends on our understanding of construction failures, which is often a progressive process. Our research shows that failure can be regarded as a localized bifurcation problem (loss of stability). The traditional design approach based on limit state analysis tends to give either too conservative design by using the residual strength parameters or too risky design by using the peak strength parameters. The bifurcation analysis can provide rational design by striking a fair balance between economy and safety. Given the fact that geomaterials (rock, gravel, sand and clay) are the most widely used construction materials in the world, our research outcome shall have high potential to reduce the construction energy footprint and to contribute to the sustainable development.
The project has yielded between 50 and 60 publications, most of them being open-access. For better dissemination of the FRAMED results, all articles produced through the project were made available in repositories, with the majority of them in the ZENODO repository, and some in the Engineering Archive repository.
In addition, the staff of the different beneficiaries have attended more than 40 conferences/ workshops/ seminars, in which they presented FRAMED results. The transfer of knowledge has been very effective and beneficial for the staff members.
The primary type of events that were organized by the FRAMED beneficiaries (with reference to the FRAMED project funded by the EU) included workshops, seminars, conferences and symposia as the most efficient dissemination tool of research to the scientific community outside EU, as well as industrial partners. Some of these events were communicated to the scientific community and the general public through press-releases as well as social media, and are all included in the Outreach tab of the FRAMED web site (http://framed.web.auth.gr/outreach/(opens in new window)).
In addition, the staff of the different beneficiaries have attended more than 40 conferences/ workshops/ seminars, in which they presented FRAMED results. The transfer of knowledge has been very effective and beneficial for the staff members.
The primary type of events that were organized by the FRAMED beneficiaries (with reference to the FRAMED project funded by the EU) included workshops, seminars, conferences and symposia as the most efficient dissemination tool of research to the scientific community outside EU, as well as industrial partners. Some of these events were communicated to the scientific community and the general public through press-releases as well as social media, and are all included in the Outreach tab of the FRAMED web site (http://framed.web.auth.gr/outreach/(opens in new window)).
An ultimate goal of the scientific collaboration between FRAMED nodes was to formulate a general multi-scale framework to be used for the specific application of substituting the steel reinforcement of concrete with thermoplastic braided composites. This is a long-term goal, but the foundations were set within the FRAMED project, with key-publications (Chattopadhyay et al, Materials Science & Technology 34:13, 1606, 2018; Chattopadhyay & Aifantis, Phys Rev E 95, 052134, 2017).
This will be having a major social/environmental impact. The benefits will be more pronounced for concrete structures in humid environments (bridges, foundations, etc). In addition, CO2 emission is expected to decrease, while by using recycled or even end-of-life (EOL) materials for the thermoplastic matrix, the proposed research will offer a novel gateway to waste management through recycling and reusing materials to reinforce concrete.
This will be having a major social/environmental impact. The benefits will be more pronounced for concrete structures in humid environments (bridges, foundations, etc). In addition, CO2 emission is expected to decrease, while by using recycled or even end-of-life (EOL) materials for the thermoplastic matrix, the proposed research will offer a novel gateway to waste management through recycling and reusing materials to reinforce concrete.