The National Institute of Standards and Technology has awarded two grants to the University of Miami worth a total of about $800,000 over the next three years to explore ways to make our coastal structures more resilient to hurricanes and other natural hazards.
One team will look at "ultra-high-performance concrete and glass fiber reinforced polymers" to help make seawalls better able to withstand erosion and cracking from seawater, waves, and storm surge, reports the Miami Herald.
The other team will look to quantify the combined action of hurricane wind, storm surge, and waves on structures in coastal locations like Miami.
"Our hope for these projects is to change the way engineers think about designing structures, not just for strength but also for resilience," says one of the University of Miami researchers.
"We also hope that this research will change the way people choose materials in the building industry."
The grants are part of a larger $7.6 million investment by the National Science Foundation and NIST to support research that expands on our nation's knowledge of community and infrastructure resilience to hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural hazards.
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.