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ASCE Seattle Section Geotechnical Group - January 2019 Dinner Meeting

Celestial soil mechanics: what would it take to build on Mars?

José E. Andrade
George W. Housner Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering
Cecil and Sally Drinkward Leadership Chair
Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering
California Institute of Technology

The human race is currently actively exploring our solar system and will need to develop infrastructure outside of our planet. In this talk, we will explore what would it take to build infrastructure on Mars a key location for human exploration-- where there is no direct access to common construction materials used on Earth, and where the most abundant and accessible material is regolith. The need to build on the red planet will drive the development of new materials and autonomous construction systems. These developments necessitate an urgent push to understand the physical and chemical properties of the regolith. Specifically, celestial soil mechanics can shed light into the mechanical behavior of these materials by relying on physics-based approaches and new tools such as artificial intelligence. In this talk, we will discuss some of the new developments in simulating the mechanics of regolith using physics-based models, as well as machine learning techniques, and how these could be relevant to building new worlds.

Event Information:
430 Planning Meeting (anyone can attend)
530 Social Hour
615 Dinner
715 Announcement and Presentation
830 Adjourn

Registration:
Regular Registration ends Friday before the event.
Late Registration ends at the event start.