Calendar of Events

P.K. BASU, PH.D., Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Vanderbilt University

"A Glimpse Of Dr. Basu's Research Areas"

ABSTRACT:
My research interests span over a number of areas related to structural engineering, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, advanced materials and pollution transport. The research methodologies used comprises of modeling and simulation, laboratory testing of materials and structures, and full scale testing in the field. Modeling and simulation encompassed multiphysics and multiscale problems extending over fields like aeronautics, biomechanics, civil infrastructure, mechatronics, and the like. Research included investigating the effect of extreme events like earthquake, wind, blast, and ballistic impact. Due to time constraints, only a few of these is discussed, namely, adaptive control of aircraft flutter, extending the life of new and existing bridges, real-time monitoring of bridge health, and blast and impact effects on new armor materials.

BIOGRAPHY:
Dr. Basu is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Graduate Studies Program in Civil Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He has served on the engineering faculty at Washington University- St. Louis from September 1974 to May 1984 and also as the Associate Director and Acting Director of Center for Computational Mechanics at the same university. Prior to this, from 1964 to 1973, he served on the faculty of Bengal Engineering College affiliated to Calcutta University at that time. Currently, this 150 years old institution is known as Bengal Engineering and Science University with the status of a National Institute of Technology.
He is a Fellow and Life member of ASCE, Senior Member of AIAA, Member of ASME, and has been a member of a number of other national and international professional societies. He holds a Professional Engineering license from the State of Tennessee. For more than 40 years he has served the engineering profession in various capacities.
Over the years he has taught all the courses related to structural engineering and mechanics as well as geotechnical engineering offered at undergraduate and graduate levels. At the present time he teaches two graduate level courses ñ one is Finite Element Analysis and the other Structural Dynamics and Control.
Currently he is the principal investigator of two sponsored research projects, one with DOD and the other with Tennessee DOT. The multiyear DOD project is concerned with improved blast and projectile impact resistance of structural components using a new composite material which is being developed for the purpose through laboratory testing, field experiments and rigorous computer based simulations. The DOT projected is concerned with rapid restoration of the strength of damaged infrastructure like a bridge by repairing with bonded composite patch repair. He is the Co-PI of a soon to be awarded approved NSF project related to bridge health monitoring.