Disaster mitigation based on smart structures/materials

Abstract

© COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only. The concept "Disaster Mitigation and Sustainable Engineering" is introduced comprehensively and several examples are shown in this paper. It is emphasized that it can be effectively realized in the field "smart materials and structural systems." As serious disasters may not occur for a long period of time, and the structures for disaster mitigation suffer from vast amount of maintenance cost etc., they are better to be used daily. Their compactness and deploying function are also very useful. In order to demonstrate the concept, two examples having been experimentally tried are introduced, that is, artificial forests and deployable structure based on honeycomb to be used against flooding. Other examples and products in the world are also introduced and future directions are discussed.