Purdue University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering reported that the National Science Foundation is collaborating with a team led by professors Shirley Dyke, Julio Ramirez, and Thomas Hacker of Purdue Polytechnics’ Department of Computer and Information Technology to establish the Center for Visual Structural Expertise for Resilience (C-ViSER).

Julia Davis of the Department of Mechanical Engineering says, “This is an Industry-University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC), a partnership designed to optimize relationships between industry, government and academic researchers. … The new center consists of two sites, Purdue University and the University of Houston. A workshop will be held in Houston on October 21 and 22 to publicize the goals of the center and promote these new industry-academic partnerships.”

The center will build on some of the advances the Purdue team has already made, such as the Automated Reconnaissance Image Organizer (ARIO) tool, which uses machine learning algorithms to automatically organize hundreds of thousands of images in seconds.

This system is used to examine architecture and structural designs and identify potential vulnerabilities. This data can then be applied during natural disasters. In the past, the group has collaborated with the Mid-America Earthquake Center, the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Network, the Natural Hazard Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) Network, and virtual communities such as Multi Hazard Engineering Collaboratory and Hybrid Simulation (MECHS) and NASA.

Hacker noted that he and his graduate student Zhiwei Chu have worked with the Purdue team on several NSF-funded projects over the course of several years, all of which have been relevant to exploring new applications of machine learning in civil engineering.

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