Year
2021-2022
Research Description
An optimization framework and an inverse-design method for using curved crease folding to create desired shapes.
Mentor
Evgeni Filipov, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Year
2021-2022
Research Description
Numerical modelling of community resilience in the face of natural disasters, including models of entire cities, accounting for individual buildings, bridges, infrastructure systems and people.
Mentor
Sherif El-Tawil, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Spence’s main research thrusts are focused on the theoretical and computational development of models and frameworks for the implementation and adoption in practice of performance-based wind engineering, optimization of structural systems subject to uncertainty and experimental/stochastic wind loads, and metamodeling of nonlinear and dynamic structural systems under uncertainty. Specific areas in which Dr. Spence’s research group have made contributions are: performance-based wind engineering, system-level analysis and optimization of uncertain dynamic systems, probabilistic modeling and uncertainty propagation, metamodeling of static and dynamic systems, machine learning in stochastic analysis of structures, resilience and adaptation of communities subject to severe wind events, topology optimization of uncertain stochastic systems, and computational fluid dynamics for wind and rain simulation.
Computational fluid dynamics simulation of wind driven rain in hurricanes
Jeremy Bricker is an Associate Professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research is focused on hydraulic engineering to investigate the resilience of structures and infrastructure exposed to both increasing hazard due to climate change and increasing consequences due to expansion of development in coastal and flood-prone areas.
Computational methods are useful in hydraulic engineering for assessing the safety of coastal and hydraulic structures, estimating the flood risk experienced by communities, and predicting damage to buildings during floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis. At a large scale of hundreds to thousands of kilometers, shallow water equation models simulate tsunami propagation, storm surge and wave generation, and river flood occurrence. At scales of kilometers to tens of kilometers, these models resolve overland inundation due to flood events, allowing empirical or analytical estimates of forces on structures and damage to buildings and infrastructure. At a small scale of tens to hundreds of meters, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) directly calculates pressures and forces on submerged and emergent structures from floodwaters and waves. This can be linked with a dynamic response model to assess whether resonance could lead to structural failure, or linked with a Finite Element Method (FEM) model to assess stresses within the structure. Such modeling is useful for forensic analysis of the failure of bridges, buildings, and other infrastructure after floods, as well as for planning and design of new structures.
Streamlines around the cross-section of a 3-girder bridge deck submerged by a river flood, from Oudenbroek et al. (2018).
Year
2020-2021
Research Description
Simulation of multi-physical behavior in active shape morphing micro-origami
Mentor
Evgueni Filipov, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Year
2020-2021
Research Description
Conclusive, predictive, and scalable robotic hazard detection using deep neural networks and synthetic training data.
Mentor
Prof. SangHyun Lee, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Graduation Year
2017
Thesis Title
Computational Approaches to Fire-structure Interaction and Real-time Fire Monitoring
Graduation Year
2016
Current Job
Enrico Fermi Argonne Scholar at Argonne National Laboratory
Graduation Year
2016
Current Job
Assistant Professor of Engineering at Perimeter College, Georgia State University