Student Name: Marc Anthony Koerschner

Advisor: Dr. Dimitri Mavris

Milestone: PhD Thesis Final Examination (Defense)

Degree Program: Aerospace Engineering

Title: A Methodology for the Selection and Integration of Self-Healing Architectures in Human Habitation Design

Abstract: Faults and degradations within human habitation systems can lead to rising costs, inefficiencies, and potential catastrophic failures of the systems in question. Earth based buildings consume a significant percentage of all energy worldwide, with a large component of this energy being wasted on faults and inefficiencies within heating and cooling systems. Deep space habitats have an inherent desire for increased resiliency due to the hostile environment they aim to protect human occupants from, with faults and degradations potentially jeopardizing missions, as well as the health and safety of occupants. Self-healing systems are proving to be a very promising new approach in system design, particularly for their capability to introduce new layers of resiliency and efficiency into systems by the way of autonomy. This work aims to explore the applicability of self-healing systems into human habitation design, whether space focused or terrestrial, along with satisfying architectures for self-healing system implementation. This thesis offers a method to integrate self-healing architectures within baseline systems during early phases of design, verify core system functionality, and quantify and compare benefits of self-healing architecture inclusion. Value of this methodology will be demonstrated on a simulated Mars surface habitat, with various self-healing architectures being selected and integrated within the system to show improved performance above baseline function.

Date and time: 2025-11-03, 11:00 AM

Location: Weber Collaborative Visualization Environment (CoVE)

Committee:
Dr. Dimitri Mavris (advisor), School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Kyriakos Vamvoudakis, School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. John Christian, School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. Michael Balchanos, School of Aerospace Engineering
Dr. José Valenzuela Del Río, Siemens AG