Facilities
SoilBED
SoilBED, created as part of CenSSIS, consists of two facilities: an indoor controlled media soil test tank in an electromagnetically quite environment and an outdoor test track (located at NU Dedham campus less than 10 miles from the main Boston site) with a rail-mounted platform. The indoor tank (housed in the civil engineering laboratories at the NU Boston campus) is 3.0m x 1.7m with a dept of 1.3m. The sand or soil moisture in the tank can be accurately maintained. The outdoor test track is 3.0m x 23m x 0.7m, backfilled with screened loam over crushed rock. SoilBED facilities are instrumented currently with a multi switched automatic microwave network analyzer for ultra wideband phase and amplitude measurements used in crosswell tomography and mine detection. SoilBED is maintained by Professors Rappaport and Padilla.
RoadBED
RoadBED is a 1.2m x 2.4m x 18.4cm reinforced concrete slab with delaminations of different sizes located at different heights sued to research the non-destructive evaluation of roads. The test slab (donated by industry partner Infrasense) has reinforcing steel running in both the transverse and longitudinal direction. RoadBED is fully characterized. Instrumentation includes a Ground Penetrating Radar unit with a 2GHz air-coupled bistatic antenna. RoadBED is maintained by Professor Wadia-Fascetti.
- RoadBED_detail.pdf: PDF detailing RoadBED configuration
BuildingBED
BuildingBED (to be created as part of the IGERT-ID) is a five-story quarter scale steel structure for use in studies in damage induced by earthquakes and other related sources of vibration induced response as well as in finite element model updating projects. The foot-print is 5m x 5m with a height of 6m. The structure is designed to be modular enabling the configuration to change, and will be collocated with the outdoor SoilBED facility at the NU Dedham campus. BuildingBED will be designed, created, and managed by Professor Bernal.
TierraBED
TierraBED consists of several underground facilities located at UPRM. It includes a two-dimensional flow and electromagnetic soil tank (1.2m high x 1.5m long x 0.1m wide) and two three-dimensional soil tanks (1.5m high x 1.5m long x 1.5m wide). The 2-D tank is in a controlled environment and is instrumented with radar antennas, chemical detection probes, and an image acquisition system. The 3-D soil tanks are in the field and subjected to uncontrolled conditions. It is instrumented with chemical and fluid probes, but its design allows the incorporation of additional sensing probes. TierraBED is maintained by Professor Padilla.
