Theory and construction of wood and other moderne materials

Department of Structures

Optimized bionic structures and materials with behaviour control

Development and optimization of new bionics structures and materials with behaviour control on the basis of artificial intelligence and with structural configurations based on the equivalent models in the nature recently attracts the attention of engineers, physicists and mathematicians. Developed are progressive slender bionics structures and materials with active and passive control of their ultimate behaviour. Bionics structures are mapping the natural structures, for example the spider web like schemes or developing flowers or woods configurations or another models from fauna and flora, with engineering applications in the branch of roof structures, bridges, tall structures or even space systems moving in water, in air or in another mediae or territories. Bionics structures are made of intelligent materials and are equipped with tuned behaviour control joints for regulation of their ultimate response. The control of ultimate behaviour and optimization of such structures and materials appears today as great challenge for advanced structural engineering. As example for intelligent materials suggested in modern bionics structures is to be mentioned the advanced concrete containing the special capsules with polymer substance. In the case of ultimate structural behaviour, with large deformations and cracks, the capsules blast and there appears chemical reaction polymer versus air.
There is initiated the epoxide substance which glues the crack in given location. There appears the self-healing process in the cracks. The same analogy holds and the same tools can be adopted also for advanced structural materials on the basis of glass and carbon fiber composites, for laminated wood, for ceramics, for high strength kevlar and steel substances, etc.
As example for intelligent tuned behaviour control joints in bionics structures there may be mentioned the structural elements which on the basis of the monitoring data obtained perform the assessments of updated deformation and stress situation and automatically initiate the active or passive tuning and control of the ultimate behaviour of the structure. Such structural tuning is made adopting automatic additional prestressing, supporting or stiffening of the structure in critical points in order to perform the behaviour control of bionics structure studied.
Advanced computational methods have to accept modeling of nonlinear behaviour of materials and transient dynamic loads. New meshless approximation techniques seems to be promising for these purposes due to their high adaptability. Meshless methods can treat irregular distribution of points and require no costly mesh generation. In addition, since meshless methods use a functional basis and allow arbitrary location of nodal points, the solution and its derivatives may be found directly where they are needed and with better accuracy compared with conventional discretization methods where differences and interpolations are required.
In the scope of the project suggested there is made further the development of basic principles and axioms of theoretical and numerical assessments of ultimate behaviour of bionics structures with behaviour control. Developed are neural and wave algorithms for numerical approach of the problem. Established will be the new numerical methods for optimization and control of ultimate behaviour of bionics structures. Developed will be further the intelligent materials as well as the tuned vibration control joints for regulation of ultimate behaviour of such structures. (APVV, No:APVV – 1562)