ARLINGTON, Va. — The final panel of this innovation celebration today may the most pressing—and the most futuristic. An esteemed group of structural engineers, from the brains behind the new Minneapolis bridge to a couple of up-and-coming geeks from Georgia, sat down (and linked up over satellite) to discuss earthquake-proof spans, underestimated construction costs and the future of building materials. Have your own question for our panelists? Leave it in the comments section below, and they'll come back to answer them! —Joe Pappalardo
Linda Figg /// Figg Engineering Group
• Use Next-Gen Materials: Higher strength and corrosion resistant materials can make 150-year bridges a reality. Use the new innovations alongside existing materials: that way we can build deeper redundancy into ailing infrastructure, while at the same time getting information from actual use. By showing real-world data on the way the new materials react, it can help get them into the marketplace faster.
• Remember the Price Tag: Labor is a large cost, even as fewer people are entering the construction field, so the fewer humans needed to build things, the better chance it has of being adopted. In today's projects, prefabricated elements are a better value since they are assembled faster and with fewer personnel.
Matthew Realff /// Georgia Tech
• Recycle Old Structures: Not only do we need better recovery systems for metal and concrete, but buildings should be designed so that carpets, molding and other materials can be reused. This recovery is needed to avoid material crisis we're facing internationally from nations building their infrastructure, even as we revamp ours, driving up demand and prices for resources.
• Analyze the Nano Footprint: Engineer structures with the end of their lifecycles in mind to better husband raw resources and plan for reconstruction projects. Also, as we incorporate new material, like nanotubes and nanofibers, we need to study new set of environmental impacts. Get that info now before we spread it too far within society. Learn from asbestos and know the facts before going in.
Yang Wang /// Georgia Tech
• Combine Sensors and Material: By building and installing sensors around the known properties of these materials, we will have better information on when the infrastructure needs maintenance and replacement—and gain efficiency. Without this data, it will be impossible to be smarter about rebuilding and repair choices.
• Budget Long-term For Tech: Provide cost-benefit analysis to show owners that it'll be worth it to implement new innovations. This analysis should cover the entire life cycle of the project. Without clear communications and rationales, it will be difficult to move ideas from labs into practice.
• Prep for the Quake: We should promote designs that allow buildings to adjust when buffeted by natural disasters. Positive structural controls generate counter forces of typhoons, as is increasingly done in Asia, and earthquakes, as seen at San Francisco's city hall.
W.M. Kim Roddis /// The George Washington University
• Geek the Build: There is a need for more powerful computational tools to create computer models. This way, better choices can be made when making decisions about repair. For example, shorter bridges frequently wear out at their joints. By reducing joints from the design objectives and model these improvements before construction starts. In the same way, information on contaminants and recycling can be modeled in design software.
• An Upgrade Can Be As Good As a Rebuild: We need to rebuild more strategically given limited resources. One way to do this is to retrofit solutions instead of rebuilding an ailing structure. If problem is cracking on girders, but bridge is not structurally obsolete, just add strength into the replacement girders with new materials or additional structural elements. It'll be cheaper, meaning the repairs can be applied to more bridges.
• Head to the Hill: Appeal to government customers and fabricators to partner to better plan for the future and change the bidding process to keep smart engineering in mind. Currently, buildings lag bridges on this front, since buildings have multiple owners who are harder to organize than officials managing public works projects.