Annual Report Year 2010 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

Structural (from page 29)
bridges in the east (one in Virginia and one in
New Jersey) and two in the west (one in Utah
and one in California). Virginia Tech along with
partner researchers from VTRC and Utah State
University are presently planning the periodic
testing and long-term monitoring of other pilot
bridges. Instrumentation and testing of pilot
bridges will continue through the summer of
2011.
Cris Moen’s most recent projects involved
the incorporation of sustainability with structural
engineering. Motivated by recent standard
updates requiring a 30 percent increase in
energy efficiency of new building construction,
he worked with the Metal Building Manufacturing
Association and the American Iron and
Steel Institute to develop new structural design
guidelines for low rise buildings constructed with
continuous rigid foam insulation wall assemblies.
He also led a working group of students,
building construction faculty, and local industry
in an effort to develop a formal multi-disciplinary
optimization protocol for sustainable building
design.
Moen continues to stay active in infrastructure
engineering research. He recently completed a
project with the VTRC to quantify the structural
properties of a new class of corrosion-resistant
reinforcing steel for concrete bridge decks made
up of high chromium stainless steels and austenitic
steel micro-composites.
He is also finding opportunities to apply his
expertise in thin-walled structures to aerospace
engineering. He recently received the NASAsponsored
Virginia Space Grant Consortium
New Investigator Award, which he will use to
fund his research on carbon-fiber composite fuselage
and wing structural components in blended
wing military and commercial aircraft.
Kamal Rojiani’s primary contribution continues
to be in the area of teaching. In fall 2009
he taught CEE 3404 “Theory of Structures,”
CEE 3424 “Reinforced Concrete Design,” CEE
5404 “Theory of Plates and Shells,” and CEE
5494 “SEM Graduate Seminar.” In spring 2010
he taught CEE 3804 “Computer Applications
for CEE,” CEE 5414 “Finite Element Analysis
of Structures,” and CEE 5494 “SEM Graduate
Seminar.” He also taught “Theory of Structures
and Computer Applications for CE” in the first
summer session of 2010.
Rojiani continues to perform numerous
service activities on behalf of the CEE department.
He served as the coordinator of the SEM
program area. He is one of the CEE department
advisors with responsibility for advising over 100
undergraduate students. He is also a member of
the CEE curriculum committee.
Rojiani’s research interests include structural
Of special
importance to the
bridge engineering
community is the
casting and testing
of six full-sized
prestressed concrete
bridge girders.
These girders are
being cast at a
local prestressing
plant and tested in
the structures and
materials laboratory.
safety and reliability, risk analysis, code calibration,
computer applications in civil and structural
engineering, programming methodologies, and
software development. He is currently working
on several books on programming and numerical
applications.
Carin Roberts-Wollmann focused her
research on methods for improving bridge durability
and performance and reducing bridge construction
time. She is collaborating with Cousins,
Elisa Sotelino, Weyers, and Bill Wright on several
bridge research projects. She and Cousins are
nearing completion on a project for the National
Cooperative Highway Research Program to
investigate the use of high-performance/high
strength lightweight concrete for bridge girders
and decks. The project has involved extensive
laboratory testing to investigate development
length of prestress strand, shear strength, and
horizontal shear transfer behavior in lightweight
girders and decks.
With Cousins, Sotelino, and Weyers, she is
investigating the long-term performance of
bridges. This project is sponsored by the FHA
and involves extensive field-testing of bridges.
In the past year, they have tested bridges in
Virginia, New Jersey, and New York.
Roberts-Wollmann continued to teach undergraduate
and graduate classes in reinforced and
prestressed concrete, and remains active advising
the ASCE Concrete for Kids outreach activity.
In the summer of 2010, she and several graduate
students presented the Concrete for Kids activity
to 150 middle and high school students in three
engineering summer camps on campus.
She continues in her role as the secretary
of the Prestressed Concrete Committee of the
American Concrete Institute (ACI) and the
chair of the Transportation Research Board
Committee AFF30 – Concrete Bridges. She also
continues to serve on other technical and board
appointed committees of ACI, TRB, and the
Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute.
Elisa Sotelino continued her research on finite
element analysis and modeling of structures
and on the development of new numerical algorithms
for high performance computing. Sotelino
is currently a co-PI on three major research
grants, namely: Unified Approach for Multiscale
Characterization, Modeling, and Simulation for
Stone-Based Infrastructure Materials with Linbing
Wang (TISE) funded by NSF; Long-Term
Bridge Performance with Cousins and Roberts-
Wollmann, funded by the FHA; and Highway
Bridge Fire Hazard Assessment with Bill Wright,
and Brian Lattimer of mechanical engineering,
funded by the National Cooperative Highway
Research Program.
This past year, she collaborated in the development
of several research proposals with faculty
from the College of Engineering at Virginia
Tech, as well as with colleagues from other
universities. In particular, she is one of the co-PIs
participating on the development of a multimillion
dollar integrative graduate education and
research traineeship proposal to be submitted to
the National Science Foundation (NSF). The preproposal
was selected both internally at Virginia
Tech and later at NSF for full submission. The
topic of the proposal is, Uncovering Network
Interdependencies and Synergies.
William Wright was involved in a number
of research projects in the past year. He was
awarded a two-year research contract from
the National Cooperative Highway Research
Program to study highway bridge fire hazard assessment.
This study is performing an overall risk
assessment and developing an engineering guide
to help DOTs assess bridges after fire.
A FHA sponsored experimental study is continuing
in the structures laboratory to optimize
the fatigue resistance of the rib-deck weld in steel
orthotropic decks. A new study was initiated with
the Virginia Transportation Research Council to
develop and test a new cost-effective orthotropic
steel deck system utilizing laser welded sandwich
panels.
Wright has been involved in field investigations
of several bridges in Virginia. He taught
CEE 5744 “Topics in Structural Steel Design” in
the fall semester and CEE 3434 “Design of Steel
Structures I” in the spring.
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