Overview
The Infrastructure Materials focus area at Oregon State University emphasizes the fundamental understanding of materials and property relationships, microstructural development and its impact on long-term performance, durability and sustainability of civil and construction engineering materials, principles of green construction and materials selection as well as rehabilitation, assessment, and repair of infrastructure with a focus on materials aspects. The Infrastructure Materials research group at Oregon State is home to renown facilities, faculty, staff, and students conducting impactful research with implications on local, national, and international practice in a variety of areas including:
- Cementitious materials
- Concrete mixture optimization and durability
- Shrinkage and cracking mitigation of cementitious systems
- Asphalt and bituminous materials
- Pavement engineering
- Reinforcement corrosion
- Microbial deterioration / corrosion
- Non-destructive testing
- Service-life modeling
- Thermodynamic modeling
The research of the Infrastructure Materials group is funded by local, state, federal, and international agencies and industry partners. Examples of sponsors include National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Global Cement and Concrete Research Network (Innovandi), Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), California Department of Transportation (CalTrans), Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, U.S. Endowment for Forestry & Communities, University Transportation Centers (CREATE, DuReTrans, PacTrans, OTREC), Oregon Manufacturing Innovation Center (OMIC), American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA), and Cascadia Lifelines Program (CLiP).
Facilities & Centers
Concrete Performance Laboratory (CPL)
The CPL focuses on early-age, mechanical, and durability properties of concrete. The lab houses state-of-the-art analytical equipment, environmental chambers, 3D printers for cementitious systems, and a curing room. Studied concrete durability problems include, but not limited to, reinforcement corrosion, alkali-silica reaction (ASR), sulfate attack, salt damage, freeze-thaw-damage, and shrinkage.
Analytical Laboratory for Cementitious Materials (ALCM)
The ALCM focuses on detailed assessment of cementitious materials using advanced characterization techniques. The lab houses state-of-the-art equipment to analyze chemical composition, chemical reactions, sorption/desorption, pore structure, electrical impedance, carbon content, carbonation, freezable water content, and deteriorative processes of paste/mortar/concrete.
Kiewit Materials Performance Lab (KMPL)
The KMPL focuses on sensitive bench-scale experiments to characterize various types of materials and investigate their deterioration mechanisms. Materials of interest involve cement/concrete, metals, alloys, polymers, coatings, asphalt and wood. The laboratory is equipped with grounded bench-top space, two high-performance fume hoods, an environmental test chamber, and electrochemical testing equipment.
Asphalt Materials Performance Lab (AMPL)
The AMPL is equipped to conduct computational modeling and testing in pavement technologies including asphalt binder/mixture characterization, asphalt emulsion performance, aggregate characterization, and asphalt mix/structural design. Research drives the use of sustainable pavement materials, such as permeable pavements, rubber asphalt, warm-mix asphalt, recycled asphalt pavements, and alternative cement binders.
Green Building Materials Laboratory (GBML)
The GBML includes research activities from the Schools of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Civil and Construction Engineering, and the Department of Wood Science and Engineering. Equipment housed in this Oregon BEST Signature Laboratory allows researchers to characterize, develop and test high performance sustainable materials for buildings and transportation infrastructure.
Corrosion, Coatings, and Microbial Deterioration Laboratory (CCML)
The CCML is specialized in advanced studies in corrosion of metals, coatings, and microbial deterioration of metallic and cementitious materials. A focus of CCML is the development of functionally-graded corrosion-resistant alloy clads. As a biosafety-level-1 lab, CCML also focuses on aerobic/anaerobic microbial deterioration of metals, coatings, and cementitious materials.
Computational Resources
Computational studies span atomistic-continuum length scales. Atomistic modeling (DFT, Reax-MD) is used for studying corrosion of metals, thermodynamic modeling (GEMS) is used to study cementitious materials, and reactive-transport modeling is used to study deterioration processes in porous materials. The work is supported by HPC clusters and specialized software.
Outdoor and Marine Exposure Sites
The Infrastructure Materials group maintains two outdoor exposure sites for studying long-term behavior and durability of various materials. One site is located on campus and focused on controlled experiments under ambient (non-marine) exposure conditions. The other site is located at the Hatfield Marine Science Center with a focus on marine exposure.