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Student Innovator at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Aims To Make Bridges and Buildings More Resilient to Earthquakes
Navid Attary Is One of Three Finalists for the
$30,000 2013 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student
Prize
Navid Attary has created a seismic protection device to
boost the resiliency of bridges and buildings to earthquakes.
His innovation, which uses a new and novel method to dissipate
the destructive forces of earthquakes, could help save
countless lives and prevent billions of dollars of damage
around the world every year.
Attary, a student in the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, is one of three finalists for the 2013 $30,000
Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize. A public ceremony announcing
this year’s winner will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March
5, in the auditorium of the Rensselaer Center for Biotechnology and
Interdisciplinary Studies. For more information on the
ceremony visit: http://www.eng.rpi.edu/lemelson
Attary’s project is titled “A Revolution in Earthquake
Protection Devices: Rotation-Based Mechanical Adaptive Passive
Device.” His faculty adviser is Michael Symans,
associate professor of civil and environmental engineering.
Individuals in every corner of the world know of the danger
presented by earthquakes. Hundreds of seismic events occur
without incident every day, but powerful temblors can throw a
city, region, or entire nation into upheaval in a matter of
seconds. Potent examples are the 2011 Tohoku earthquake in
Japan, which resulted in an estimated 15,000 deaths, 45,000
destroyed buildings, and $300 billion in damage. A year
earlier, the 2010 Haiti earthquake caused an estimated 316,000
deaths, with 250,000 residencies, and 30,000 commercial
buildings collapsed or destroyed.
It is beyond humanity’s ability to prevent earthquakes, but
structural and earthquake engineers throughout history have
developed strategies for strengthening structures and reducing
the damage dealt by earthquakes. For reducing damage, most
seismic protection systems used today work by dissipating, or
damping, the energy created by quakes. Passive dampers are not
unlike shock absorbers in automobiles, and they usually feature
a cylinder containing fluid and a piston that drives the fluid
through the device. This helps redirect earthquake energy from
the frame of the building or bridge to the damping device,
which then harmlessly dissipates the energy in the form of
heat.
While reliable and long-lived, these passive dampers have
limited effectiveness because they cannot adapt to each
earthquake’s unique movement patterns. Active dampers are
smarter and able to respond to many different types of
movement, but these electronic devices are expensive to
maintain, and cease to function if power is lost during an
earthquake.
Attary’s solution to this problem was to create a new type
of seismic protection device that adapts to different types of
movement, but requires no electricity and no expensive
maintenance. He invented a rotation-based mechanical adaptive
passive device, or RB-MAP, which is comprised of a meticulously
engineered collection of gears, pre-torqued springs, and
damping devices that can be installed underneath a bridge or
inside the wall of a building. The RB-MAP takes advantage of a
concept called “negative stiffness” to reduce the earthquake
energy transferred into the structure. The RB-MAP can passively
adapt to different types of earthquakes, as specific movements
will cause selective engagement or disengagement of the gears
and the damping device.
Initial testing has shown that Attary’s RB-MAP can reduce
the force in structures during earthquakes by up to 60 percent.
The device is inexpensive to build, and small and compact
enough to be practical to install inside structures. Overall,
Attary’s patent-pending technology could open the door to a new
generation of seismic protection devices that help save lives
and minimize destruction during earthquakes.
Attary was fascinated with physics and waves in high school,
and became interested in earthquake engineering and waves
following the tragic 2003 Bam earthquake in his home country of
Iran.
When not in the lab or classroom, Attary is spending time
with his wife, Maryam, and their newborn daughter, Atefeh. In
his hometown of Karaj in Iran, not far from Tehran, Attary’s
father, a retired botany professor, and his mother, a retired
high school science teacher, as well as his older brother and
younger sister, are all cheering for him to win the $30,000
Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize.
In his time at Rensselaer, Attary has been the co-author of
several conference papers on this topic and has presented his
research at major research conferences. Additionally, for his
RB-MAP research and efforts, Attary was named one of 10 winners
of the 2012 Rensselaer “Change the World Challenge”
competition. Last year he was also named the winner of the 2012
Rensselaer Founders Award of Excellence, which recognizes
students who “embody qualities of creativity, discovery,
leadership, and the values of pride and responsibility at
Rensselaer.” The Founders Award is one of the highest honors
bestowed to students at Rensselaer.
Attary received his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering
from the Iran University of Science and Technology, and his
master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of
Tehran. Upon completing his doctoral degree from Rensselaer,
Attary plans to commercialize his RB-MAP technology and seek
out a faculty position at a research university.
About the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student
Prize
The $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer Student Prize is
funded through a partnership with the Lemelson-MIT Program,
which has awarded the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to
outstanding student inventors at MIT since 1995.
About The Lemelson-MIT Program
Celebrating innovation, inspiring
youth
The Lemelson-MIT Program celebrates outstanding
innovators and inspires young people to pursue creative lives
and careers through invention.
Jerome H. Lemelson, one of U.S. history’s most prolific
inventors, and his wife, Dorothy, founded the Lemelson-MIT
Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.
It is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and administered by the
School of Engineering. The Lemelson Foundation uses the power
of invention to improve lives by inspiring and enabling the
next generation of inventors and invention-based enterprises to
promote economic growth in the United States and social and
economic progress for the poor in developing countries. http://web.mit.edu/invent/
Read about past winners of the $30,000 Lemelson-Rensselaer
Student Prize:
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Published
February 26,
2013 |
Contact: Michael Mullaney
Phone: (518) 276-6161
E-mail: mullam@rpi.edu |
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