An Atomic-Scale Erector Set To Predict Building Damage

To design buildings that can withstand the largest of storms, Kostas Keremidis, a PhD candidate at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, is using research at the smallest scale — that of the atom.rete Sustainability Hub is modeling structures as ensembles of atoms.

To design buildings that can withstand the largest of storms, Kostas Keremidis, a PhD candidate at the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub, is using research at the smallest scale — that of the atom.His approach, which derives partially from materials science, models a building as a collection of points that interact through forces like those found at the atomic scale.

“When you look at a building, it is actually a series of connections between columns, windows, doors, and so on,” says Keremidis. “Our new framework looks at how different building components connect together to form a building like atoms form a molecule — similar forces hold them together, both at the atomic and building scale.” The framework is called molecular dynamics-based structural modeling.

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