A paradigm for integrated structures and materials design for sustainable transportation infrastructure

The design and construction of transportation systems involves many disciplines collaborating to provide efficient, economic, and safe infrastructure to society. Collaboration among these many groups is critical to meeting such demands. This thesis demonstrates a new collaborative framework based upon an integrated structures and materials design (ISMD) paradigm spanning length scales from micrometers to kilometers.; This paradigm relates materials engineering, comprised of constituent components, material microstructure, and material processing to structural engineering through a common material properties link. The work of structural engineers then combines material properties, structural shapes, and construction fabrication to produce a required structural property, such as load capacity. These structural properties, when combined with environmental exposures and maintenance routines determine overall service life structural performance. Each of these links is explored through theoretical, experimental, or field investigations.; Sustainability initiatives are also examined, as related to bridge infrastructure design, operations, and maintenance. The application of a sustainable ISMD design framework is demonstrated allowing for close coordination between infrastructure designers and life cycle analysts through an iterative sustainability design and evaluation process. This collaboration uniquely allows for rigorous scientific assessment of sustainable infrastructure designs through environmental, economic, and social indicators. Major collaboration links established through research efforts include mix designs for 15 new green cementitious material compositions, a predictive model for bridge infrastructure service life developed using mechanistic and phenomenological deterioration models, material impact assessments, and life cycle analysis recommendations. In the case of bridge structures, material and structural durability was found to outweigh material greenness when making sustainable infrastructure design choices. A generalized version of this framework is also applied to pavement overlay and drinking water distribution systems.; Serving as locomotive to evaluate this paradigm, Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) are a unique class of high performance fiber reinforced cementitious composites (HPFRCC) which exhibit high tensile ductility and tight crack width at low fiber volume. The tailorability of ECC at the microstructural level for prescribed material and structural performance lends it toward easy adoption within the broad ISMD philosophy. While ECC is the only class of materials considered, the concepts investigated are not exclusive to ECC materials.