News Faculty Awards & Achievements

Pitt Receives $25 Million PennDOT Contract

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering will be administering an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) signed between the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT). This five-year agreement—capped at $25 million—names Pitt as one of the leading institutions in the state.

CEE will assist PennDOT in the development and implementation of new technologies and operational strategies in the transportation sector. The terms of the agreement and this preferential treatment were decided based upon the past success that PennDOT has had with Pitt’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and on the academic prowess of its faculty members.

The department will meet with PennDOT officials to discuss the scope of work and identify projects on an annual basis and as they arise. Such projects might include, but are not limited to, those in the realm of sustainable development, advance infrastructure systems and infrastructure renewal, and environmental implications of the transportation sector.

Faculty Achievements in Brief

Kent Harries, assistant professor, has been elected a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in recognition of his contributions to the work of ACI. According to the award letter, “A Fellow shall have made outstanding contributions to the production or use of concrete materials, products, and structures in the areas of education research, development, design, construction, or management.”

Additionally, Harries was awarded and completed a $213,000 PennDOT emergency contract to investigate the December 2005 collapse of the Lake View Drive Bridge onto Interstate 70 in Washington County. The study involved the structural testing of two girders recovered from the now-decommissioned bridge in addition to an extensive analytical study of the behavior of such spans. The findings of the study include a number of recommendations for the inspection and rating of Pennsylvania’s approximately 1600 similar structures.

Harries has recently presented papers and chaired sessions at the following: 3rd International Conference on FRP Composites in Civil Engineering (CICE 2006) held in Miami, Fla., in December 2006; and the 11th International Conference on Structural Faults and Repair held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in June 2006.

Xu Liang, associate professor, recently has been awarded two grants from NOAA and NASA. The NOAA will lead the study “Impacts of Assimilating Remotely Sensed Snow on the Prediction of Orographic Precipitation and Streamflow in the Western United States.” As principle investigator (PI) for Pitt on this project, Liang will lead the work on snow and snowmelt processes, and the development of a new data assimilation framework for assimilating remotely sensed snow, while R. Leung, PI of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, will lead the effort on climate modeling.

The NASA project, titled “Enhancing NOAA AWIPS DSS by Infusing NASA Research Results for Drought and Other Disaster Management” will be led by Virginia Tech and will aim to develop a new hydro-information system. As the PI for Pitt, Liang will lead the work on developing a new methodology to improve NOAA’s hydrologic forecasts.

Additionally, Liang was recently invited to give a short course on “Land Surface Modeling” in the Department of Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering at the National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. She also was invited to give a seminar on “Spatial Properties of Soil Moisture and Data Assimilation” at the Institute of Hydrological Sciences at the National Central University in Taiwan.

Amir Koubaa, academic coordinator, has been added to the Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers in 2006.

Luis Vallejo’s paper, “Influence of Pile Shape on the Crushable Behavior of Granular Materials around Driven Piles: DEM Analysis,” coauthored by Sebastian Lobo-Guerrero (MSCE ‘02, PhD ‘06), geotechnical specialist at American Geotechnical & Environmental Services, was one of four award-winning papers presented at GeoCongress 2006. Geotechnical Engineering in the Information Technology Age was held February 26–March 1 in Atlanta, Ga., and was presented by the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Dan Budny, associate professor and academic director of freshman programs, received the 2006 American Society for Engineering Education Distinguished Service Award, Educational Research and Methods Division.

Piervincenzo Rizzo, assistant professor, was added to the 9th edition of Who’s Who in Science and Engineering. He and Professor F. Lanza di Scalea from UC–San Diego published a chapter titled “Wavelet-Based Unsupervised and Supervised Learning Algorithms for Ultrasonic Structural Monitoring of Waveguides” in a book titled Progress in Smart Materials and Structures edited by Nova Publishers. The chapter describes an algorithm for the structural health monitoring of civil structures (with emphasis on pipelines, rails, and steel cables) by means of ultrasonic waves.

Julie Vandenbossche, assistant professor, recently has been awarded a grant from the Federal Highway Administration to explore using falling weight deflectometer (FWD) data for the mechanistic-empirical design and analysis of pavements. As principle investigator for Pitt, Vandenbossche will work with ApTech Inc., Michigan State University, and Construction Technologies Laboratory, Inc. in establishing guidelines on backcalculating material properties within a pavement structure using FWD data.

Vandenbossche led the submission of a joint proposal between the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mascaro Sustainability Initiative with Michigan Technological University, University of Utah, and ApTech Inc. to the United States Department of Transportation through the Federal Highway Administration in pursuit of the national Recycled Materials Resource Center (RMRC). The goal of the center is to conduct research and provide technology transfer on the use of recycled materials for construction and maintenance of transportation infrastructure. The center will build upon the departmental sustainability initiative currently underway.

Vandenbossche also traveled to Corsendonk, Belgium, to present a paper at the 6th International Workshop on Fundamental Modeling of Design and Performance of Concrete Pavements along with approximately 25 other people from around the world. While in Belgium, she also attended the 10th International PIARC Symposium on Concrete Road in Brussels.

Radisav Vidic, chair and professor, was recently awarded two research grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and one research grant from Corning, Inc.

The grants from the U.S. DOE will be used to study a new approach for the removal of hydrogen sulfide from the fuel gas generated through coal gasification and the potential of impaired waters to be used in recirculating cooling towers in coal-fired thermoelectric power plants.

The grant from Corning, Inc. will be used to evaluate novel materials and reactors for the control of mercury emissions from coal-fired thermoelectric power plants. During the last year, Vidic published eight peer-reviewed journal papers and presented several papers at the International Conference on Carbon held in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July, 2006 and AWWA Annual Conference and Exposition held in San Antonio, Texas, in June, 2006.