Biosketch

Dr. Yu is Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at UMass Lowell. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T., majoring in structural engineering, radar imaging of concrete structures, signal processing, and electromagnetic modeling of construction materials. He is a recipient of the 2008 ASNT Fellowship Award (Columbus, OH), 2009 Outstanding Aluminum of NYUST (Yunlin, Taiwan), and 2010 Fellow of the JSPS (Tokyo, Japan). He was a visiting scholar to Japan National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) (Tsukuba, Japan) in 2011 and a visiting professor to National Chung-Hsin University (Taichung, Taiwan) in 2012. He served as President of the New England Association of Chinese Professionals (NEACP) during 2012-2014. He is interested in mechanics, theoretical and applied mathematics, structural stability, macro- and micro- structures/behaviors of cementitious composites, electromagnetic properties of construction and metamaterials, and SHM of civil infrastructure. His research has been supported by NSF (National Science Foundation), NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), UMass Science and Technology (S&T) Office, the U.S. DOT (Department of Transportation), AFRL (Air Force Research Laboratory), and AFFOA (Advanced Functional Fabrics of America).

He has served as an external reviewer for several federal funding agencies in the U.S. (NSF, DOE, NASA), as well as for other countries (Canada, Hong Kong). He has also served as an external reviewer for faculty promotion (Univ. North Texas, TX) andfaculty search (Shanghai Jiaotong University, China).

He is actively involved in SPIE Smart Structures/NDE Symposium and has served as Conference Chair in 2013 and 2016, as wel as Conference Co-chair and Session Chair since 2009. He is a mamber to ASCE Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) and ACI Committee 228 Nondestructive Testing of Concrete. He is Senior Member to SPIE since 2018.

Recent interviews:

10/31/2012: I-Team: Aging Light Poles A Safety Concern On Mass. Roads, CBS Boston 04 WBZ

02/20/2015: Winter's weight: Officials warn weekend rain will further burden roofs, Eagle-Tribune

02/12/2018: GoLocal LIVE interview on the Sensing Textiles project (YouTube video), GoLocal TV

Education

• Ph.D., Structures and Materials, Civil and Environmental Engineering, M.I.T. (2008)
• M.Eng., Civil and Environmental Engineering, M.I.T. (2002)
• M.Sc., Civil Engineering, National Central University, Taiwan (1998)
• B.Sc., Construction Engineering, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan (1996)

Expertise

Radar nondestructive testing/evaluation (NDT/E), synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging for surface and subsurface sensing, structural dynamics, deterioration of concrete materials, structural stability, dielectric measurement and modeling of construction materials

Reserach Projects

• Sensing Textile for Civil Infrastructure Monitoring, AFFOA, 2018~2019
• University Transportation Center -- Durability Center (Region 1), led by UMaine (H. Dagher), U.S.DOT, 2018~2023
• Imaging Radar on Inspecting Concrete Containment Structure, U.S.DOE, 2017~2022
• Quantitative Sensing of Bridges, Railways, and Tunnels with Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, U.S.DOT, 2014~2016
• Distributed Active Acoustic Sensing using a Single Optical Fiber for Interfacial Structural Health Monitoring of Reinforced Concrete Structures, NSF, 2014~2017
• Tunable RF-responsive Core-Shell Organofullerenyl Magnetic Hybrid Dielectric Nanoparticles, AFRL, 2015~2020
• Multi-modal Remote Sensing System (MRSS) for Transportation Infrastructure Inspection and Monitoring, U.S.DOT, 2010~2013
• Consortium on Anytime-Anywhere-Anyway (AAA) Transportation Information, UMass S&T Office, 2010~2011
• Design, Synthesis, and Characterization of RF-responsive Fullerenyl Nanomaterials, AFRL, 2011~2012
• Inspection and Monitoring of Parking Garages in Lowell, MA, MA Board of Higher Education (through the Vision Grant), 02/2013~06/2013
• Measurement of Microwave-Frequency Responsive Fullerenyl Dielectric Metamaterials, AFRL, 2011~2013
• VOTERS (Vehicle Onboard Traffic Embedded Roaming Sensors) Project (with Northeastern University, Prof. M.L. Wang), NIST, 2009~2014

Selected Publications

• Yu, T. Damage Detection of GFRP-concrete Systems Using Electromagnetic Waves: Theory and Experiment. Lambert Academic Publishing (LAP), September, Koln, Germany; 2009 (ISBN: 978-3-8383-1186-9) (link)
• Buyukozturk, O. and T. Yu, "Structural health monitoring and seismic impact assessment," In: Proc. of the 5^th Natl Conf on Earthquake Engng. May 26-30, Istanbul, Turkey; 2003 (pdf) -> SHM
• Buyukozturk, O., and T. Yu, “Chapter 7: A Novel Structural Assessment Technique to Prevent Damaged FRP-Wrapped Concrete Bridge Piers from Collapse,” In: Seismic Risk Assessment and Retrofitting: With Special Emphasis on Existing Low Rise Structures (Geotechnical, Geological and Earthquake Engineering Series), Springer, New York, NY; 2009 (ISBN: 978-9-0481-2680-4); doi: 10.1007/978-90-481-2681-1 (link)
• Yu, T. “Chapter 12: Laser-based Sensing,” In:  Sensor Technologies for Civil Infrastructures: Performance Assessment and Health Monitoring, M.L. Wang, J.P. Lynch, H. Sohn (ed.), Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge, UK; 2014 (ISBN: 978-1-7824-2244-0) (pdf)
• Buyukozturk O., T. Yu, JA Ortega. A methodology for determining complex permittivity of construction materials based on transmission-only coherent, wide-bandwidth free-space measurements. Cement and Concrete Composites 2006; 28 (4): 349-359; doi:10.1016/j.cemconcomp.2006.02.004 (pdf)
• Yu, T., O. Buyukozturk. A far-field airborne radar NDT technique for detecting debonding in GFRP-retrofitted concrete structures. NDT&E International 2008; 41: 10-24; doi:10.1016/j.ndteint.2007.07.002 (pdf) -> SAR imaging for debonding detection
• Yu, T. A distant damage assessment method for multi-layer composite systems using electromagnetic waves, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, ASCE 2011; 137 (8): 547-560; doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2007.09.009 (pdf) -> SAR imaging and mathematical morphology
• Yu, T., B. Boyaci, F.H. Wu. A parametric study of the transient electromagnetic response of GFRP-wrapped concrete cylinders. Research in Nondestructive Evaluation (RNDE) 2013; 24 (3): 125-153; doi:10.1080/09349847.20.2012.713162 (pdf) -> FDTD simulation for debonding detection
• Wang, M., S.  Jeon, C.  Su, T.  Yu, L-S. Tan, L.Y.  Chiang, Synthesis of Photoswitchable Magnetic Au–Fullerosome Hybrid Nanomaterials for Permittivity Enhancement Applications, Molecules 20 (8) 2015; 14746-14760. (pdf) -> Metamaterials
• Zou, X., T. Schmidtt, D. Perloff, N. Wu, T. Yu, and X. Wang, Nondestructive corrosion detection using fiber optic photoacoustic generator, Measurement 2015; 62: 74-80. (pdf) -> Photoacoustic FOS for corrosion detection
• Yu, T., T.K. Cheng, A. Zhou, D. Lau, Remote defect detection of FRP-bonded concrete system using acoustic-laser and imaging radar techniques, Construction and Building Materials 2016; (109): 146-155. (pdf) -> Multi-modal NDT/E for debonding detection
• Wang, M. C. Su, T. Yu, L. Tan, B. Hu, A. Urbas, L.Y. Chiang, Novel photoswitchable dielectric properties on nanomaterials of electronic core-shell ?-FeOx@Au@fullerosomes for GHz frequency applications, Nanoscale 2016, doi: 10.1039/C5NR07363D (pdf) -> Metamaterials
• Yu, T, Quantitative Assessment of CFRP-concrete Cylinders using Synthetic Aperture Radar Images, RNDE, ASNT, 28(3); 168-185, 2017, doi: 10.1080/09349847.2016.1173266 (pdf) -> K-R-I Transform
• Wang, M., T. Yu, L-S. Tan, A. Urbas, L. Chiang, Tunability of RF-Responses by Plasmonic Dielectric Amplification Using Branched e–-Polarizable C60-Adducts on Magnetic Nanoparticles, Journal of Physical Chemistry Part C 2016, doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.6b05279 (pdf) -> Metamaterials
• Yu, T, J Owusu Twumasi, V Le, Q Tang, N D'Amico, Surface and Subsurface Remote Sensing of Concrete Structures using Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging, Journal of Structural Engineering, ASCE, 143(10); 1-11, 2017, doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)ST.1943-541X.0001730 (pdf) -> SAR imaging for subsurface sensing of concrete bridges
• Du, C., J. Owusu Twumasi, Q. Tang, X. Guo, J. Zhou, T. Yu, and X. Wan, All-optical Photoacoustic Sensors for Steel Rebar Corrosion Monitoring, Sensors, 18, 1353, 2018, doi:10.3390/s18051353 (pdf)
• Al-Zeyadi, A., T. Yu, Characterization of Moisture Content in a Concrete Panel using Synthetic Aperture Radar Images, Journal of Aerospace Engineering, ASCE, 32(1); 1-8, 2018, doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)AS.1943-5525.0000945 (pdf) -> SAR imaging for moisture determination
• Wang, M., T. Yu, L-S Tan, A. Urbas, L. Chiang, Enhancement of Photoswitchable Dielectric Property by Conducting Electron Donors on Plasmonic Core–Shell Gold-Fluorenyl C₆₀ Nanoparticles, Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 2018, doi:10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b02676 (pdf) -> Metamaterials
• Al-Zeyadi, A., T. Yu, Moisture determination of concrete panel using SAR imaging and the K-R-I transform, Construction and Building Materials 2018, 184; 351-360, doi:10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2018.06.209 (pdf) ->SAR imaging and K-R-I transform for subsurface moisture determination of concrete
• Yin, H., M. Wang, T. Yu, L-S. Tan, L.Y. Chiang, Photoswitchable Charge-Polarizer on
  GHz-Responsive Trilayered Core-Shell Dielectric Nanoparticles, Molecules 2018, 23, 1873; doi:10.3390/molecules23081873 (pdf) -> Metamaterials
• Tang, Q., C. Du, J. Hu, X. Wang, T. Yu. Surface Rust Detection using Ultrasonic Waves in a Cylindrical Geometry by Finite Element Simulation, Infrastructrues 2018, 3, 29; doi:10.3390/infrastructures3030029 (pdf) -> FEA for surface rust detection in a cylindrical geometry