NSF CAREER: LINKING PORE STRUCTURE, PERFORMANCE, AND MATERIAL
DESIGN OF A SUSTAINABLE MACROPOROUS CONCRETE FOR MULTIFUNCTIONAL APPLICATIONS

Narayanan Neithalath, Clarkson University
PhD, Purdue University, Civil Engineering, 2004

Enhanced Porosity Concrete (EPC) is a relatively new class of concrete having higher than normal porosity and pore connectivity, thus facilitating applications such as storm water runoff control, and highway noise mitigation.  This CAREER proposal aims to investigate the material design parameters and pore structure features of EPC so as to gain a fundamental understanding of the performance characteristics of the material, and thus facilitate the development of performance based material design methodologies.  This is intended to be achieved through studies using stochastics based stereology on planar images of EPC, fractal and tomographic methods for pore structure characterization, and porous media flow.  Methods for property and performance prediction developed in this study is expected to aid in the development of materials science based design of EPC. 

Dr. Neithalath obtained his PhD from Purdue University in 2004, under the supervision of Profs. Jan Olek and Jason Weiss of the School of Civil Engineering.  Prior to that, he had a Masters in Civil Engineering (Materials) from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, and a B.S (Hons) from University of Calicut, India.  The CAREER proposal that got funded was developed based on his PhD work at Purdue.  He has been a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Clarkson University from Fall 2005 after a short stint as a faculty member in the Concrete Industry Management Program at Middle Tennessee State University.