Workshop: Performance-Based Infrastructure Asset Management (PBIAM); Istanbul, Turkey; July 7-9, 2008

Drexel University, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

This grant provides funding for US participants to attend a 3-Day international workshop in Istanbul, Turkey during July 7-9, 2008, to dissect the paradigm of Performance-Based Infrastructure Asset Management (PBIAM). The workshop is co-sponsored by the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Partial support has been promised by Turkish, European Commission, Canadian and Japanese agencies. While it is broadly recognized that infrastructures are multi-domain and multi-disciplinary systems with human, natural and engineered elements, there is currently little awareness and no consensus regarding how innovative paradigms and concepts need to be integrated and leveraged to advance the engineering and management of infrastructures in general and transportation infrastructures in particular. The principal intellectual merit of the workshop will be to bring experts and stakeholders that have so far remained apart, in order to start bridging this gap by leveraging highways and bridges for a realistic case study. The highway transportation infrastructure, its linkages and interdependencies to other modes of transportation and other infrastructures will be leveraged as this case study. Turkey is at the cross-roads between Europe and Asia, and the highway infrastructure connecting Asia and Europe at Istanbul will serve as an excellent backdrop for the discussions. Specific objectives of the workshop include: (1) To bring a multi-disciplinary group of engineers and scientists from academe, government and industry together for discussing how innovative paradigms and concepts may be integrated and leveraged to advance the engineering and management of infrastructures in general, and highway transportation infrastructure in particular. The workshop will explore the inter-relations and synergies between the concepts and paradigms of asset management, performance-based engineering, multihazards risks, multi-domain systems identification, applied systems analysis, health monitoring and intelligent systems in addition to interdependence, resilience and sustainability. (2) To construct Ontology of PBIAM of highway transportation infrastructure to help overcome the fragmentation that is obstructing effective integration and leveraging of concepts and paradigms with potential to innovate engineering and management of infrastructures. Ontology has been leveraged as a mechanism for creating a community sharing a similar worldview and speaking the same language in order to foster highly complex emerging fields of study that face integration challenges. Space, defense, AI, IT are examples. (3) To develop an International Collaborative Research Agenda on PBIAM. This Agenda will incorporate an in-depth understanding and sharing of recent experiences and advances on PBIAM in Europe, the Far East and North America. It will also permit an understanding of how different social and cultural institutions and related human systems in different regions of the world impact PBIAM applications. No one country or region has yet discovered the best and most effective framework for efficient, safe, sustainable and secure operation and preservation of their infrastructures. The path to innovation has to go through global, coordinated, multi-domain, and multi-disciplinary research. This workshop was conceived in this manner and the Ontology and PBIAM Research Agenda will be broadly disseminated through a web site linked to FHWA's site to promote the adoption of PBIAM principles by transportation infrastructure stewards throughout the US. To facilitate the participation of experts from traditionally underrepresented groups in these workshops, several strategies will be employed. First, leading civil engineering faculty and practitioners from traditionally underrepresented groups will be directly contacted by the workshop organizing committee and invited to participate in the workshop. To aid in the identification of qualified faculty and advanced graduate students, the Philadelphia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, which is housed at Drexel University will be leveraged. To aid in the identification of practitioners from underrepresented groups, faculty members and national leaders associated with professional societies that serve underrepresented groups, will be contacted and asked to nominate qualified participants. This project is funded by the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation and the Office of International Science and Engineering.