Devin K. Harris

Title:

Civil Infrastructure – The Next Big Playground for Image-Based Assessment and Digital Image Correlation

Civil infrastructure represents the backbone of societies around the world and include critical systems such as roadways, stormwater systems, bridges, office building, etc. These infrastructure systems provide the foundation for essential services such the movement of goods and services, shelter, protection from extreme events, but often do so without much attention given to their functionality. These systems remain as silent servants until there is a major problem or disruption. While many of these systems are robust and designed for long operational service lives, assessment of their performance is often challenging due to constraints in disruption of service, uncertainty in baseline performance, and simply the sheer scale of the system. In recent years, image-based assessment strategies have begun to gain traction in this civil infrastructure space, creating novel opportunities to showcase the unique capabilities of digital image correlation for describing the performance of these systems. This lecture will describe some of these recent applications and case studies and highlight how these approaches fit into a larger performance assessment framework.

Bio:

Dr. Harris is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering within the Department of Engineering Systems at the University of Virginia (UVA). He is also the Director of the Center for Transportation Studies and a member of the Link Lab. Dr. Harris also holds an appointment as the Faculty Director of the UVA Clark Scholars Program. He joined the UVA as an Assistant Professor in July 2012. He had a prior appointment at Michigan Technological University as the Donald F. and Rose Ann Tomasini Assistant Professor in structural engineering. His research interests focus on large scale civil infrastructure systems with an emphasis on smart cities. Dr. Harris often uses both numerical and experimental techniques for evaluating the performance civil infrastructure systems, both in the laboratory and the field. His work has included studies on image-based measurement techniques, crowd-sourcing, data analytics, condition assessment and structural health monitoring, and the application of innovative materials in civil infrastructure.