Autonomous and resilient infrastructure with cognitive and self-deployable load-bearing structural components

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores concepts and pilot studies for realizing autonomous and disaster-resistant infrastructures through integrating cognitive and self-deployable load-bearing structural components. These components act as secondary, and independent structural systems, that allow civil construction to autonomously reconfigure their internal structure to adapt to severe loading conditions in real-time. As a result, an autonomous infrastructure can achieve higher levels of structural resilience under extreme events (i.e. fire, earthquake etc.). This improved performance mitigates premature failure (collapse), thus providing occupants with sufficient time to evacuate, and allowing first responders to tackle the adverse effects of disasters. The practicality of the proposed concepts is illustrated through a comprehensive case study that covers fundamental aspects of structural performance and human evacuation in a super-tall 80-storey high-rise building undergoing an extreme event.