MILITARY PARTNERS
Keeping Naval Vessels Shipshape Through Better Data Analysis David Lattanzi, assistant professor of civil, environmental, and infrastructure engineering, is working on a project to make it easier for the people who monitor and analyze naval ship and structure performance data to understand and act on the information they gather. Naval vessels, as well as many other engineered systems, must undergo routine surveys throughout their life cycles to assess their integrity and the need for repairs and retrofts. Through these surveys, a broad range of information is collected. Most of this data is not easily integrated or correlated, and it is typically not structured in a manner that allows for engineering analyses. The goal of this research is to develop a framework for integrating these sources of data to enable the application of a range of new and advanced data analytics techniques. The concept is to create a living virtual model, or “digital twin,” of a structure that can provide a platform for data fusion and analytics. The result of the program will be new methods for integrating and modeling engineering information to improve life cycle prediction capabilities. Lattanzi received $391,000 from the U.S. Department of the Navy for this research. He is working with doctoral student Sara Mohammadi and master’s student Nicole Nmair on this project. Lattanzi expects to complete the project in June 2021. —Michele McDonald
Assistant professor Dave Lattanzi uses digital technology to create virtual twins of structures that may improve life cycle prediction capabilities for the U.S. Navy. Photo by Evan Cantwell
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