Keynote Lecture - Geotechnical: The Evolving Role of Materials in Infrastructure Systems

Materials have historically been one of the fundamental yet perhaps less appreciated building blocks of infrastructure systems. As increasing engineering challenges are placed on our systems due to the need to construct... [ view full abstract ]

Materials have historically been one of the fundamental yet perhaps less appreciated building blocks of infrastructure systems. As increasing engineering challenges are placed on our systems due to the need to construct infrastructure in more challenging environments, the need to achieve higher performance standards due to the desire to increase maintenance intervals, the need to develop and adopt more sustainable materials and systems and the need to be prepared to meet unprecedented demands as a result of the need for increased resilience in the face of climate change and other unprecedented natural phenomena, materials are now at the core of some of the most innovative science and engineering based developments. This paper will illustrate through a few examples how approaches such as bio-inspired and multi-functional materials are emerging to play central roles in the next generation of infrastructure materials and systems. Specifically, the paper begins by presenting an example of the evolution, within human time-scale, of multi-functional geosynthetic materials. The paper shows how insights gleaned through the use of experimental and numerical micro-scale evaluation tools, in conjunction with new techniques such as 3-D printing, provide a robust basis for performance evaluation and prediction. The importance of innovating at field-scale is illustrated through the concept of inverted base pavements where again, new techniques and tools facilitate, unprecedented insights into system level performance. Finally, the paper concludes by showing how new materials and system innovations can be inspired by nature. The opportunity for humans to learn from and even mimic in many cases, the approach developed and evolved by nature over hundreds of thousands or even millions of years is potentially transformational.