Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Events for August
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Advanced Uses of Information Technology ( IT ) in Construction Management and Engineering: ....
Wed, Aug 08, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker:Dr. Burcin Becerik,
Project Manager, Camp Dresser & McKee;
Faculty, Southern California Institute of ArchitectureAdvanced Uses of Information Technology (IT) in Construction Management and Engineering:
A Multi Disciplinary Research AgendaAbstractThe lecture focuses on past, present and future research topics including online collaboration, project management and building information management and the conflation of design, procurement, construction simulation and delivery through advance use of IT.
The global construction potential is estimated to be 4.5 trillion dollars and the opportunity for growth of the construction management and engineering profession -both nationally & globally- is vast. The demand is growing for more complex, faster pace and efficient construction projects. Nevertheless, our industry is highly fragmented and still wasteful. IT and quality processes can advance productivity gains, transfer of higher quality engineering & construction information, collaboration, and coordination of numerous parties. The presentation explores how design and construction information can be captured early in the process and be carried and used throughout from concept to implementation and facility management. The presentation brings the notion of *Project Lifecycle Management* and addresses how scheduling, estimating and environmental analysis tools can be linked to the building information models and how these models become single sources for construction documentation and management. Possibilities of construction simulation and planning, evaluation of design alternatives, construction documentation, monitoring, controlling and management of large-scale and complex construction projects are explained and illustrated from 2D to nD. The challenge is about achieving an integrated practice through improved information visualization and management from concept to implementation.
Potential research questions that the presentation addresses include: What are the implications of an IT concentration on construction management and highly specialized engineering and management services? How can knowledge be captured, shared and re-used in the construction industry and what are the benefits in terms of design, analysis, documentation, procurement, delivery and facility management efficiencies? How can we achieve one integrated information repository (decision dashboard) for control and management? Is there any need for re-engineering our construction processes to meet the changing construction environment, team structures, delivery methods and increased complexity? How can we create benchmarks and key performance indicators for performance measurement and evaluation? How should current standard agreements for engineering and construction services be modified to further define the role of IT in construction? What is the impact of advanced information technology and methodology on risk mitigation and management and what are the legal implications.
Finally, the presentation is a back drop for a discussion of the importance and immediate relevance of advanced uses of IT in engineering and construction and their applicability to the existing problems of supply chain inefficiencies and green construction practices and market demand for ever more productivity gains and project efficiencies.Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Multidiciplinary Research and Educational Activities: Mathematics, HPC, Structural .....
Wed, Aug 15, 2007 @ 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Speaker: Dr. Duc Nguyen, Director, Institute for Multidiciplinary Parallel-Vector
Computation Institute and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Old Dominion UniversityMultidisciplinary Research and Educational Activities:
Mathematics, HPC, Structural, Acoustics, CFD, and Biology ApplicationsAbstract:Part 1: The NASA Grants in the past 20+ years (80 % RESEARCH + 20 % EDUCATION)Fundamental and numerical intensive equations arising from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Structural Analysis, Design Sensitivity Analysis (DSA), Optimal Design, Control-Structure Interaction (CSI), Aerospace/Automobile Design, Mathematics, Operation Research, Ocean Modeling, Ground Water Flow,Electro-magnetics, Aero-acoustic, Heat Transfer etc... are identified.Effective numerical algorithms to solve such (large-scale) numerical intensive equations have recently been developed. The developed algorithms take full advantages of parallel and/or vector capabilities provided by high-performance computers, such as the SUN-10000 (64 processors), SGI-2000 (16 processors),the IBM-SP2 ... Effective parallel computation by using cluster of inexpensive Desktop/Laptop Personal Computers (under Windows, or Linux environments)are also presented.Based upon the developed parallel-vector algorithms (for solving systems of linear/nonlinear, symmetric/unsymmetric, positive or negative definite, eigenvalue equations, linear/nonlinear constrained/unconstrained optimization, design sensitivity analysis, 2nd order P.D.E.), several major (numerical intensive) subroutines have been coded and tested in a vector and/or parallel computer environments [1993 NASA Langley Research Center TECH BRIEF Award].Large-scale NASA engineering problems, such as stress analysis of the Solid Rocket Booster (SRB), High Speed Civil Transport (HSCT) aircraft, NASA LaRC CSI model etc... have been solved to evaluate the numerical performance of the developed algorithms. The SRB problem, for example, requires fast solution for 58,000 simultaneous equations. Using the developed subroutine PVSOLVE[1989 Giga-Flops Award, Cray Research Inc.],solution for the SRB problem was obtained in less than 5 seconds (wall-clock time, Cray-YMP computer).The most recent development of highly efficient "Mixed Direct Iterative Domain Decomposition Parallel-Sparse Solvers" to solve a 25 million degree-of-freedoms (or equations) Finite Element Acoustic model, with "complex numbers", by using hundreds of parallel processors
will be presented.Part 2: The NSF Grant (80 % EDUCATION + 20 % RESEARCH)Finally, discussion will be focused on the needs and benefits by using the Interactive, User-Friendly, Visualized Stiffness Matrix Method (SMM) Module, including students' self-assessment learning module in conjunction with the required (Junior Level) Structures I and the elective (Senior Level)Structures II courses (developed under FLASH computer environment) available on ODU (Old Dominion University) web site.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - 203
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes
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Stochastic Data Assimilation with Application to Multi-Phase Flow and....
Fri, Aug 31, 2007 @ 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Sonny Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Conferences, Lectures, & Seminars
Stochastic Data Assimilation with Application to Multi-Phase
Flow and Health Monitoring ProblemsPh.D. Defense by:
George Saad, CE Ph.D. CandidateDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California 90089
gsaad@usc.eduModel-based predictions are critically dependent on assumptions and hypotheses that are not based on first principles and that cannot necessarily be justified based on known prevalent physics. Constitutive models, for instance, fall under this category. While these predictive tools are typically calibrated using observational data, little is usually done with the scatter in the thus-calibrated model parameters. In this study, this scatter is used to characterize the parameters as stochastic processes and a procedure is developed to carry out model validation for ascertaining the confidence in the predictions from the model. Most parameters in model-based predictive tools are heterogeneous in nature and have a large range of variability. Thus the study aims at improving these predictive tools by using the Polynomial Chaos methodology to capture this heterogeneity and provide a more realistic description of the system's behavior. Consequently, a data assimilation technique based on forecasting the error statistics using the Polynomial Chaos methodology is developed. The proposed method allows the propagation of a stochastic representation of the unknown variables using Polynomial Chaos instead of propagating an ensemble of model states forward in time as is suggested within the framework of the Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF). This overcomes some of the drawbacks of the EnKF. Using the proposed method, the update preserves all the statistics of the posterior unlike the EnKF which maintains the first two moments only. At any instant in time, the probability density function of the model state or parameters can be easily obtained by simulating the Polynomial Chaos basis. Furthermore it allows representation of non-Gaussian measurement and parameter uncertainties in a simpler, less taxing way without the necessity of managing a large ensemble. The proposed method is used for realistic nonlinear models, and its efficiency is first demonstrated for reservoir characterization using automatic history matching and then for tracking the fluid front dynamics to maximize the waterflooding sweeping efficiency by controlling the injection rates. The developed methodology is also used for system identification of civil structures with strong nonlinear behavior.
Location: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) - rielian Hall 209
Audiences: Everyone Is Invited
Contact: Evangeline Reyes