Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

In fall 2001 and fall 2004, the Civil Engineering Department of Ryerson University started to offer Master's and Ph.D. programs, respectively. In the 2010/2011 academic year, 143 graduate students have registered into the graduate program (among them 35 Ph.D. students and 30 M.A.SC. students). Approximately 50% of these students are registered in the Structural/Materials Engineering Stream. In 2003, the department has established a new large-size structures laboratory to replace the old one. During the last few years, the applicant and his colleagues strived to expand the capabilities of this lab to conduct monotonic load tests in addition to limited cyclic load testing available using the recently-purchases 4500-kN compression testing machine. This lab is in urgent need of vibration excitation system (i.e. dynamic actuator system) to widen the scope of experimental research conducted by graduate students. The applicant and the co-applicants' research focus on a common them, namely the study of the behavior of structures and bridges subjected to dynamic loading. Each of the four applicants' research team is in urgent need to use this proposed excitation system to investigate the structural dynamic and seismic responses of different structures and components as affected by the environmental conditions and the use of new and innovative materials as well as to verify finite-element computer modeling. The acquisition of this equipment will allow the applicants to supervise and train young researchers in various fields, including seismic engineering and structural dynamics of structures and bridges as affected by utilizing new and innovative materials in structural components.