CAREER: Mollusk and Arthropod-inspired Bio-Cemented Composites for Sustainable, Resilient, and Multifunctional Ground Improvement

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award will explore the potential for incorporating bio-inspired principles from natural composites found in mollusks and arthropods with existing bio-cementation soil improvement to yield multifunctional, resilient, and sustainable bio-cemented composites for the improvement of weak and problematic soils. While bio-cementation has been shown to dramatically improve soil engineering behaviors, the presence of cementation can also result in some potentially unfavorable responses including rapid strength and stiffness losses.

This project will draw inspiration from the structure and mechanisms associated with mechanically superior biogenic composites to modify existing bio-cementation and further enhance soil engineering behaviors to provide transformative benefits with respect to the environmental sustainability, economic efficacy, long-term resilience, and multifunctionality of geotechnical soil improvement and reliant civil infrastructure. Project education and outreach activities will address critical deficiencies in the pipeline of underrepresented minority students towards STEM-based higher education by: (1) increasing the awareness of underrepresented minority students of STEM fields, higher education, and careers through outreach at various venues including the Seattle Aquarium, (2) improving the recruitment of underrepresented minority students to STEM-based higher education through modules, mobile outreach toolkits, an academy for K-12 teachers, and implementation of content in classrooms, and (3) enhancing underrepresented minority student retention in STEM through research experiences, integration with support programs, and incorporation of project outcomes in curricula.

Over 600 K-12 and community college students will be engaged annually from remote and diverse student populations.

Project research will leverage small-scale biogeochemical experiments, reactive transport numerical modeling, triaxial and resonant column geotechnical laboratory tests, and advanced chemical, biological, and material analyses to: (1) explore the potential of bio-inspired principles to be translated to bio-cemented soils to achieve bio-cemented composites with enhanced fracture toughness, ductility, and strength, (2) investigate the engineering behaviors of bio-cemented composite treated soils including (a) pre-yielding, post-yielding, and critical state behaviors, (b) low-strain dynamic properties, and (c) liquefaction behaviors, (3) examine the ability of bio-cemented composites to provide new functionalities including contaminant removal and thermal and hydraulic enhancements, and (4) explore the resilience of bio-cemented composites to biogeochemical and mechanical stressors and the environmental and economic efficacy of composites relative to existing technologies. The project will advance the emerging field of bio-mediated soil improvement by leveraging novel bio-mediated processes and bio-inspired principles to develop new materials for geotechnical ground improvement that can improve the resiliency, sustainability, and multifunctionality of civil infrastructure.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.