Events

Abstract: The building and construction industry is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The quantities of structural materials used globally correspond to approx. 10% of the annual carbon emissions. With predicted population growth and urbanization in the coming decades, there is a need to reduce the embodied carbon of new construction significantly. Recommended strategies include using more environmentally friendly materials and/or structural optimization. Topology optimization is a promising design method in this context since the resulting designs often significantly outperform conventional low-weight designs. Topology optimization is a free-form approach in which a formal optimization problem is posed and solved using mathematical programming. It uses computational mechanics and optimization tools to generate improved designs in a fully automated manner. However, for operating designs to perform as predicted, the used model and problem formulation must capture the material behavior and any relevant design limitations, e.g., induced by the planned fabrication or construction method. This talk will discuss different strategies to include relevant considerations, including an approach that interactively leverages human experiences.

Bio: Josephine Carstensen is the Gilbert W. Winslow Career Development (Assistant) Professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environment Engineering (CEE). She leads the Carstensen Group, where her work spans from developing computational design frameworks for various structural types, scales, and design scenarios to experimental investigations that are used to inform necessary algorithmic considerations. Dr. Carstensen has received awards for both research and teaching, including the National Science Foundation CAREER award and the CEE Maseeh Award for Excellence in Teaching. She joined the MIT CEE faculty in 2019 after two years as a lecturer at MIT, jointly appointed in CEE and Architecture. She received her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 2017 and holds a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. from the Technical University of Denmark.