CAREER: Integrated Modeling of Sustainability and Reliability for Interdependent Infrastructure Systems

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program award is to provide an approach for assessing the economic, environmental, and social sustainability and reliability of interdependent power and water systems. This is intended to better support proactive management of public and private infrastructure, particularly in areas susceptible to natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes. The research develops indicators for measuring trends in the sustainability of power and water systems, providing a basis for changing the management and funding of these systems to improve their sustainability. The project also provides new computational frameworks for modeling interdependent power and water systems. The impacts of natural hazards such as hurricanes and earthquakes will be combined with the effects of aging to develop a more holistic reliability modeling approach for infrastructure systems. The reliability and sustainability models are brought into the infrastructure management process to help support meaningful change in power and water systems in hazard-prone areas. If successful, this work will contribute to the development of improved methods for assessing and managing aging infrastructure systems in the US. These improved methods would allow limited public and private funds to be used more efficiently to improve infrastructure systems before they fail rather than relying on a reactive approach of repairing failures after they occur. This project will also develop a series of on-line and classroom teaching materials for middle school, high school, college, graduate school, and professional education. These materials will help to further establish a pipeline of students who are interested and educated in infrastructure engineering.