Annual Report Year 2004 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Via Scholar Claire Booth won a scholarshipfrom the Air and Waste ManagementAssociation for her work on thevolatilization of organics from a contaminatedgroundwater site. Shown atleft, Booth collects a sample from a soilcolumn and at right, she injects the samplefor analysis of the concentration ofVOCs.PROGRAM AREAS: EWRWater quality and treatmentJohn Novak and his students had another busy year.Papers at the annual Water Environment Federation meetingin Los Angeles were presented by Novak and his students,Chul Park and Chris Muller. Novak also presented a paper atthe International Water Association Sludge Conference inTrondheim, Norway. Research continued with project supportedby the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission,U.S. Filter, D.C. Water & Sewer Authority, CH2M HILL andWaste Management, Inc. In addition, joint projects with MarkWiddowson on groundwater remediation for the MidwestHazardous Substances Research Center and SERDP continued.Seven papers were published in research journals and Novakserved as the advisor for 15 graduate students.Novak also continued as chair of the Research Council ofthe Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF). As partof his work with WERF, he attended a joint research meetingwith the Japanese in Hawaii and the Biosolids Summit inAlexandria, Va. to discuss critical issues in wastewater sludgemanagement and to prepare the research agenda for the nextfive years. Novak also presented two invited seminars, one atthe University of Massachusetts and another at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis.Remediation and drinking water treatmentPeter Vikesland’s research group continued to be highlyactive. In September, Vikesland was one of 50 academicresearchers invited to the National Academy of EngineeringFrontiers of Engineering Symposium. This selective meetingbrought together engineers below the age of 45 from industry,academia, and government to discuss leading edgeresearch in engineering. In May, Vikesland was an invited participantat a NSF-sponsored workshop held in Cartagena,Colombia. This workshop was designed to facilitate communicationsbetween U.S. environmental engineers and scientistsand their counterparts in Columbia and Central America.Krista Rule received a Graduate Student Award from theEnvironmental Chemistry Division of the American Chemical20Society. The award acknowledged Rule’s academic successand her research examining the reactivity of the antimicrobialagent triclosan with drinking water disinfectants. Fundingagencies continue to support research in drinking water treatmentand subsurface contaminant remediation. Vikeslandwon an NSF CAREER award to study the nanoscale aspects ofiron corrosion and also obtained funding from the AWWARF(with Marc Edwards) for a project to examine the processesresponsible for the self-healing of corroded concrete pipes.Attenuation softwareMark Widdowson was elected to serve as coordinator ofthe newly-formed Environmental and Water Resources graduateprogram in 2004. Widdowson had two new researchprojects on the topics of monitored natural attenuation andphytoremediation. The first is a two-year project funded bythe Environmental Security Technology Certification Programto demonstrate the computation tool, NAS (Natural AttenuationSoftware, developed at Virginia Tech under funding bythe Navy) at a number of contaminated sites in the UnitedStates. Widdowson is collaborating with investigators fromthe U.S. Geological Survey, Naval Facilities EngineeringService Center, and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command.NAS (www.cee.vt.edu/NAS) is designed to facilitatedecision-making based on site-specific remediation goals(i.e., risk to humans and ecosystems, cost, and time). The secondproject will involve the development and validation of acomputational model for the uptake of contaminants by trees.Widdowson continues research with John Novak on sustainabilityof natural attenuation of chlorinated solvents fundedby the Strategic Environmental Research & DevelopmentProgram and on a phytoremediation study funded throughthe U.S. EPA. Along with his colleagues and students, he presentedpapers at the International Conference onRemediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds andthe Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America.Widdowson co-taught several short courses on estimatingtimeframes for monitored natural attenuation.
Newly developed “structural soils” may hold the key to reducing stormwater runoff from paved areas. Structuralsoil is a blend of aggregate and plant growth medium that is able to support traffic loads while promoting tree growth.Shown above, a paved park in New York state is underlain by structural soil, which serves both as a load-bearing layer forvehicles and as a medium for tree growth. Joseph Dove, with Susan Day and Roger Harris of Tech’s department of forestry,are developing a pilot project to build “green” parking areas in Blacksburg; Ithaca, N.Y.; and Davis, Calif. (Image courtesy ofNina Bassuk of Cornell University.)Geotechnical EngineeringWith the dedication of one of the country’stop geotechnical research facilities, theW.C. English Geotechnical Research Laboratory,outstanding graduate students, andmajor new grants from the NSF and otheragencies, the geotechnical engineering program continued itsmany contributions to the field. Jim Mitchell was honoredwith the H. Bolton Seed Medal from the GeoInstitute, awardedfor outstanding contributions to teaching, research, and/orpractice in geotechnical engineering.Personal achievementsThomas Brandon was on sabbatical leave during the fallsemester. Initial plans to spend his sabbatical in Venezuelawere abandoned due to the emerging political unrest there,and he split his time between the English Geotechnical Laband Puerto Rico. Work on the W.C. English GeotechnicalResearch Laboratory did not end with the November 2003dedication ceremony, but continued throughout the year.Brandon is currently engaged in research on the use ofadmixtures in soils (with George Filz and Jim Mitchell) for theVirginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and the AirForce Research Laboratory, and on the dynamic behavior ofpre-sheared surfaces (with Mike Duncan) for the NSF.Joe Dove has been busy this year on several new andexciting projects and initiatives. As part of the multi-disciplinaryAMADEUS project (see ‘Team gets...’ page 23), he isworking to develop new methods of processing and usinginformation for underground construction projects. He andgraduate student Alfred Antony are developing semi-automaticimage analysis methods to map and characterize rock discontinuitiesfrom digital photographs using a tablet PC. Doveis also a part of a major initiative to establish a national deepunderground science and engineering laboratory (DUSEL)near the Virginia Tech campus.With Marte Gutierrez, Dove is conducting NSF-sponsored21
Page 5 and 6: Below: Late night driving in the ra
Page 7: knowing how different water sources
Page 10 and 11: Model tethers“highway in the sky
Page 12 and 13: Making smarter decisionswith geospa
Page 14 and 15: Vikesland winsCAREER awardStudy of
Page 16 and 17: Vecellio Construction Engineeringan
Page 18 and 19: Environmental& Water Resources Engi
Page 20 and 21: drinking water and Chen her work on
Page 24 and 25: Underground national labproposed fo
Page 26 and 27: PROGRAM AREAS: GEOTECHNICALinterfac
Page 28 and 29: The steel sandwich panel bridge dec
Page 30 and 31: PROGRAM AREAS: TISEThis past year p
Page 32 and 33: PROGRAM AREAS: TISEworked on new pr
Page 34 and 35: 2004-2005 undergraduatescholarship
Page 36 and 37: Meetthe ViaScholarsThe following pa
Page 38 and 39: Via Scholars — Master’s Student
Page 40 and 41: Via Scholars — Master’s Student
Page 42 and 43: Via Scholars — Doctoral StudentsD
Page 44 and 45: Via Scholars — Doctoral Students
Page 46 and 47: VIA ALUMNIVIA AlumniWhere Are They
Page 48 and 49: VIA ALUMNIGeorge FilzDegree/Year: P
Page 50 and 51: The Academyof DistinguishedAlumniTh
Page 52 and 53: CEE alumniwho contributedto CEE dur
Page 54 and 55: CEE alumni who contributedto CEE du
Page 56: The Charles E. Via, Jr.Department o

Annual Report Year 2004 - Civil and Environmental Engineering

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?