Abdeldjelil Belarbi
Title
Challenges and Opportunities Toward Preserving and Rnewing EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE and enhancing new constructions using innovative materials and design techniques
Abstract
For many decades, several researchers have reported on issues of corrosion which include harm on human health and damage to civil engineering infrastructure and it was estimated that corrosion cost the world about 2.5 trillion USD, annually. Over many decades, researchers have studied the effects of natural hazards such as earthquakes, wildfires, severe weather and environmental disturbances with a primary goal to design and build a safe, resilient, and durable civil engineering infrastructure.
The durability of reinforced concrete (RC) and prestressed concrete (PC) structures is related to the susceptibility of metal reinforcements to the well-known phenomena of corrosion. Corrosion can occur in different forms, with different degrees of progression, under different environmental conditions.
In the last five decades researchers and engineers have focused on new and advanced materials to either prolong the life of existing infrastructure by means of repair and retrofitting or design and built new structures using these advanced materials. Researchers have focused on two aspects: (1) the preservation and renewal of existing infrastructure using methods such as strengthening and retrofit with the help of Fiber-Reinforced Polymers (FRP), Shape-Memory Alloys (SMA) and others as new materials and (2) the development of new and/or upgraded design techniques to adopt the mechanical properties of innovative construction material such as FRP, SMA, high-Strength Stainless steel (HSSS). Accordingly, this presentation provides an overview of new development in the use of these materials associated with derived new techniques and design methodologies as well as the state-of-the-art and state-of-practice in advanced materials and their use in civil engineering with a promise of a more durable and resilient infrastructure.
Biography
Dr. Abdeldjelil Belarbi is Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Professor Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Houston. Prior to joining the University of Houston (UH) in 2009, he was a Distinguished Professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology. During his career he taught more than fourteen different undergraduate and graduate courses on subjects related to civil and structural engineering and structural concrete He is actively engaged in a broad spectrum of structural engineering research areas. His primary research contributions focus on the constitutive modelling, analytical, and experimental investigations of structural concrete. His research has also focused on smart structures and the use of advanced materials for both new constructions and rehabilitation of aging and deteriorated civil engineering infrastructure.
Dr. Belarbi has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on numerous research projects with a research expenditure of close to twenty millions US dollars and has published over 260 technical papers and reports and had supervised over 55 MSCE theses and PhD dissertations. Dr. Belarbi is a Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Concrete Institute (ACI), the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), the International Institute for FRP in construction (IIFC) and the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM). He is also very active (member and/or Chair) on several national technical committees within ACI, PCI, ASCE, and TRB.
Dr. Belarbi is the recipient of over thirty (30) national and university awards and honors for his excellence in research, teaching and professional activities. This include 1995 Outstanding Paper Award of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (Earthquake Spectra Journal), the 2003 Honorable Mention for Outstanding paper from the Masonry Society, the 2004 Best FRPRCS Experimental Paper Award, and the 2025 Best Elsevier Engineering Structures Journal Featured Paper Award. He was also the recipient of nine Faculty Excellence Awards and ten Outstanding Teaching Awards for his excellence in research, teaching and service contributions to the profession and Missouri S&T. Among other national awards, Dr. Belarbi is the recipient of the 1999 UH Distinguished Young Alumnus Award and the 2024 UH Distinguished Award, the Missouri Governor’s award for excellence in teaching, and the James M. Robbins Excellence in Teaching National Award. In 2009 he was inducted as an Honorary Member of Chi Epsilon, the Honor Society of Civil Engineering. He is also the recipient of the 2011 ACI Joe W. Kelly Award and 2019 ACI nVent LENTON Award for ACI318-19 Code Simplification and Improvement. Most recently he was awarded the Delmar L. Bloem Distinguished Service Award for leading the effort of ASCE-ACI 445 shear and torsion committee to improve the ACI318 code provisions. In 2024, he received the IAAM Scientist Medal.