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CEE Unveils New Website
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Green Design Apprenticeship Program
Spring 2007 Design Project
Se A e b lu ac m kc ov ni er E for v de en tai ls ts!
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FALL&WINTER
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CEE Department Head JIM GARRETT reetings from CEE at Carnegie Mellon! I am very pleased to report that we are experiencing robust enrollments at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Our undergraduate program currently has 117 students spread relatively evenly over the sophomore, junior and senior classes. At the same time, we have enrolled 104 full or part-time graduate students this fall (58 Ph.D. students and 46 M.S. students), making them our largest graduate student body ever. I am also very pleased to announce that Julia and Michael Ellegood (CE ’60) have generously established the first Strategic Graduate Fellowship in CEE which will be used to help support doctoral students performing early-stage research in strategic areas. We are grateful to the Ellegoods for this important and generous support; details of this fellowship are presented later in this newsletter. In the past six months, we have also established a number of exciting graduate programs with other international universities. In October, President Cohon signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology (KAIST) to establish a dual Ph.D. degree program between our two CEE departments. Students in this program will spend a minimum of 2 years at each university, meet all requirements from both programs, and produce a dissertation that is acceptable to both programs. The program will provide our department with access to students, research opportunities, and resources that may not have been available to us alone. In May, we signed another IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, WE HAVE MOU with the recently established University of Trinidad and Tobago. UTT was created by the government of Trinidad and Tobago to transition the natural resources ALSO ESTABLISHED A NUMBER OF EXCITING of the country (i.e., natural gas) into more knowledge-based assets. The MOU with UTT establishes a number of different activities, such as educating graduate students GRADUATE PROGRAMS WITH OTHER who will become UTT faculty members, hosting undergraduate and faculty INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES exchanges, and assisting them in the creation of their curriculum. Both of these initiatives will bring new students to our program and allow us to build much deeper relationships with important international partners. We are currently exploring similar relationships with other partners with whom we currently have strong interactions. We are pleased to announce that at our Alumni Dinner this past fall the Distinguished Alumnus Award was presented to Rex Elder (CE ’40) and the Outstanding Alumni Service Award was presented to Wayne Balta (CE ’82).We offer them both hearty congratulations for these awards! We’ve expanded our alumni related events and activities. The events planned for 2008 are listed on the back cover of this newsletter and on our website. We invite all CEE alums to join us at these events and welcome your ideas for other alumni activities. I encourage you to bookmark our new website (www.ce.cmu.edu) to keep current of the exciting activity going on in CEE. Thanks to all who help to make CEE at Carnegie Mellon a better place to work and study.
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CEE Corrections to the Donor Listing in Spring/Summer 2007 Issue: n the previous issue of the CEE newsletter, an article thanking donors contained typographical errors, mislocations, and a few accidental omissions. CEE regrets the errors and wishes to acknowledge and properly thank the following people for their generous donations:
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Gifts of $1000 to $4999 Dr. Rebecca Buchheit Clayton, Mr. & Mrs. Michael and Julia Ellegood, Mr. & Mrs. Michael Gonzalez, Dr. John Hribar, Mr. John Kenny, Mr. Jerome Lehman, Ms. Daria Pishko, Mr. Wasyl Pysh, Mrs. Daina Romualdi, Dr. Thomas Siller, Mr. & Mrs. Alec and Dotty Wisch, and Ms. Amy Wright.
Gifts to $999 Dr. Norbert Ackerman, Mr. Kevin Anderson, Dr. Gordon Batson, Dr. Richard Behr, Mr. Stephen Cohn, Dr. A. J. Eggenberger, Dr. John Gormley, Dr. Marc Halpern, Dr. L.R. Hettche, Dr. Alan Husak, Dr. Sandra Karcher, Mr. & Mrs. Saul and Beryl Kravitz, Ms. Valerie Lahti, Mr. Douglas Lambert, Mrs. Galina Leiphart, Mr. Donald Lessig, Mr. Stanley Lewandowski, Dr. Keith Meyer, Dr. Paul Ossenbruggen, Dr. Christopher Papadopoulos, Dr. Rita Patel, Dr. Raman Pichumani, Dr. Sujoy Roy, Dr. Tariq Samad, Dr. Jack Silberman, Mr. Kim Smith, Ms. Jessica Romualdi Snare and Dr. Ram D. Sriram
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F E AT U R E D S T O RY
Many, if not most, phenomena in the natural and built environment occur at “macro-scales” which are many, many times coarser than the most elementary scales which govern them: the “micro-scales”. The two examples shown here are the deformation of an automobile frame during a traffic accident and a landslide in saturated soil after heavy rains in southern California. For the deformation of the auto frame, the most fundamental micro-scale objects that govern the response are the atoms which make up the metal in the frame; for the landslide, the most fundamental micro-scale objects are the grains of soil on the hill side. The laws which govern the micro-scale are well-known. One could, in principle, use “brute force” to directly simulate all of the elementary objects at the micro-scale. However, it will not be possible to perform these simulations in the foreseeable future with even the most powerful computers on the planet: a very rough estimate would give as many as 1024 soil grains in a hill-side and 1028 atoms in an auto-frame; molecular simulations of metals require resolving atomic vibrational time scales of ~10 -15 seconds while the time scale over which the auto frame deforms in rapid impact is ~1 second, a 15 order of magnitude difference. On the other hand, the materials themselves often point to a more clever kind of modeling which can be done. If one were to look under a microscope, it would become apparent that there are other objects which are intermediate between the micro and macro scales which play an important role. In the case of metal plasticity, there are defects in the crystalline packing called dislocations that one can see here in the Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) image shown in Figure 1. In the case of the grains, one observes chains of forces which emerge to support the applied loads which one can see in the image of a sheared packing of birefringent plastic beads shown in the middle row of Figure 1 (the color of each plastic bead represents the forces which are transmitted through it). It is the goal of multi-scale modeling of materials to infer the laws that govern the interaction of these objects at the coarser “meso-scales” using tools from continuum mechanics, dynamical systems theory, statistical physics, and the theory of partial differential equations. In our opinion, this type of sequential multi-scale approach is the only hope for being able to model macroscopic phenomena starting from microscopic principles.
Multiscale Modeling for Engineering Materials
Figure 1: Multiple scales involved in macroscopic phenomena of interest
All of the above applications require a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of stressing and deformation of the involved materials and structures at appropriate length and time scales. An important realization is that it is not possible to acquire the required understanding from experimentation alone, if at all. Even in cases where this may be possible in principle, present-day cost constraints make this solely experimental paradigm impractical; it is simply not possible in today’s day and age to have a decade-or-more long design cycle to introduce a material for a specific application. Thus, advanced physical modeling along with robust numerical simulation of these models is a key to success in the applications described and many others. At the scale of angstroms and femtoseconds, all of our materials of interest can be described by quite reliable physical theories (molecular dynamics/quantum mechanics) whose solutions, in principle, can be computed at arbitrarily larger length and time scales. However, except for very few applications related to the design of new materials for
Materials, either natural or man-made, are a ubiquitous feature of our built and natural environment. They appear as geologic media through which our evolving planet interacts with us, as load-bearing structural members, as machine parts and as microelectrical mechanical systems (MEMS) in the devices used to sense our environments. Understanding the mechanics of materials is important for many reasons: 1) mitigating the damage due to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, by predicting likely areas to see damage and thus providing early warning; 2) to aid in the design of more earthquake resistant structures and materials; 3) for avoiding catastrophic land-slides due to failure and rapid flow of granular media like saturated soils; 4) for better and more cost-effective design with existing materials used in structural, energy, and sensing applications, such as NiAl and TiAl alloys for light-weight, high-temperature operation in turbine engines for energy needs; and 5) for the design of new materials providing targeted functionality, such as highstrength and high-ductility, as in bulk metallic glasses or advanced high strength steels.
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dislocation. Examples of such structures are semiconductor thin films used in electronic devices (LEDs, transistors), and metallic interconnects in integrated circuitry and actuators in MEMS devices. It is well known that deformation microstructures in structural metals critically affect their response to loads – such microstructures are also the result of plasticity in the lengthscale range mentioned above. The goal of Professor Acharya’s research in Field Dislocation Mechanics and its appropriate averaging is the understanding of single and polycrystalline plasticity from the nano to macro scales, with a view towards Figure 2: Dislocation microstructure and size effect in stress-strain response for micron scale metal plasticity developing predictive theory and computational tools for deformananoscale applications, all of the applications of our interest occur at tion-induced microstructure evolution. Figure 2 shows the prediction of length and time scales that are simply not computable with the aforenovel size effects and heterogeneity patterns in the micron-scale response of mentioned physical theories, because of the number of computations metallic materials that are in accord with recent experimental observations. needed, even with the most powerful computers that may be expected The Field Dislocation Mechanics framework offers the intriguing to emerge in the next decade or more. This constraint forces us to study possibility of serving as a general mathematical setting for modeling the existing, and develop new, techniques for consistent and robust coarsemeso and macroscale behavior in diverse applications like earthquake graining of fine length and time scale dynamical response. Such study rupture dynamics and amorphous materials like metallic glasses, when hinges on a careful attention to detail of specific applications coupled characterized by appropriate physics related to material response. Such a with a serious study of, primarily, continuum mechanics, statistical development is being actively pursued as a collaboration between Professors physics, dynamical systems and mathematical homogenization theory. Maloney, Bielak, and Acharya along with Professors Luc Tartar and Noel The research of Professors Amit Acharya, Jacobo Bielak, Walkington in the CMU Mathematics department and collaborators in Kaushik Dayal, and Craig Maloney focuses on the development and Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Illinois at Urbanaapplication of predictive multiscale materials modeling tools to the meChampaign, and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. chanics of crystalline, granular, and amorphous materials. These tools encompass modeling ranging from atomistic and molecular dynamics Shear Localization in Metallic Glasses: simulation to field models of mesoscale and macroscale response develMetallic glasses are an emerging class of engineering materials which offer oped through coarse-graining theory or other approaches. the high formability of thermo-plastics along with the high strength of Existing tools for calculating macroscopic response of solids under metallic alloys. These are desirable properties for applications ranging from complex loadings rely on elegant and powerful techniques involving civil infrastructure to defense. Unfortunately, as their failure modes are not finite element computations of nonlinear partial differential equations yet well understood, critical applications are currently out of the question. that require experimentally determined models of constitutive behavior. One common failure mode for metallic glasses involves bands of intense Unfortunately, in many cases of practical interest, this is not adequate shear strain that develop when samples are pulled in tension. The origin for accurate design and prediction. For example, to design against of these bands is currently a matter of debate. fatigue failure of gas turbine blades used in jet engines and electricity generation, one must address an as-yet unsolved problem in mechanics Figure 3: Horizontal of materials of predicting the stress response of a single crystal as a displacements in a function of strain-path, strain rate, temperature, and crystal orientation, vertically comover the entire range of parameter-values of interest. pressed model metallic glass. Thus, the long term research goal of our group is the scientific understanding, and practical application, of emergent behavior in complex materials systems, or the coarse-scale macroscopic behavior of crystalline, granular and amorphous materials, both spatial and temporal. F E AT U R E D S T O RY
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Crystal Plasticity in Metallic Materials: The study of the solid mechanics of crystalline bodies of structural dimensions in the 1µm – 10nm range requires the consideration of crystal lattice defects, the most common of which is the crystal
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Professor Maloney performs computer simulations of these metallic glasses at the level of individual atoms. Figure 3 shows a simulation containing a 2 dimensional slice of 1.6 million atoms. Simulations like these take several days of dedicated time on a cluster of more than 100 CPUs. The sample is being compressed vertically, and the color represents horizontal displacement in a short window of time. Shear strain appears as a sharp gradient in color. The width of the bands that emerge in the simulations is only a few atomic spacings, while the ones observed in the laboratory are thousands of times wider. However, the atomic scale bands seen in the computer simulations form in a correlated way, with new bands forming preferentially near existing ones. Prof. Maloney is currently working with Prof. Acharya to develop meso-scale descriptions, within the Field Dislocation Mechanics framework, using the atomic scale simulations to parameterize the meso-scale models.
Figure 4: A ferroelectric crystal under electromechanical loading undergoes complex microstructural changes
Understanding Active Materials Active materials display unusual couplings between deformation, temperature, optics, and electromagnetism. Current research and development of micro-nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) provides new opportunities for exploiting these unusual materials. These opportunities also require a fundamental understanding of the behavior of active materials at these small scales, especially in dynamic settings. Professor Dayal’s research aims at formulating mesoscopic models and developing numerical techniques to aid design and fabrication of active nanoscale devices. Currently, he focuses on using ferroelectrics to design new optical switching devices and microwave circuit elements. A parallel study aims at an atomic-level understanding of instability, nucleation, and kinetics of microstructural elements in active materials. This will enable development of atomistically-informed mesoscopic models, and provide multiscale capabilities to understand and exploit these complex materials. In the figure 4, a ferroelectric specimen is subjected to mechanical loads. This leads to complex deformations near the tip of notch. The electric fields can lead to the motion of electrical impurities (or ‘dopants’) and is a potential failure mechanism that is currently being researched. End-to-end Earthquake Modeling/Infrastructure Response To prevent earthquakes from becoming disasters, it is essential to gain a better understanding of how earthquakes originate, how the seismic waves propagate from the source, how they amplify as they enter alluvial basins, and how the built environment responds to such excitation. Professor Bielak is working on different aspects of this problem, including the forward and inverse-based simulation of the earthquake ground motion in large basins (figure 5) using high performance computing, and on the effect of this ground motion on portions of an entire city, including buildings, bridges, and underground structures. In addition, he and Professor Acharya use concepts of dislocation mechanics to study the dynamic rupture process
on faults. The objective is to be able to generate realistic scenario earthquakes that can be used as input in end-to-end, or “rupture to rivets”, simulations. Coarse-Graining Nonlinear Dynamics of Materials Systems The question of deducing the general form and specifics of the laws governing macroscopic response of materials based on well-established microscopic theories is essentially a mathematical and algorithmic one. Professor Acharya’s approach to this problem starts from a given fine dynamics with some idea of what time-averaged coarse variables (i.e. time averages of aggregated degrees of freedom) one might be interested in. This microscopic dynamics is augmented by the addition of appropriate forward and backward time-delay variables corresponding to the original set so that an appropriate macroscopic dynamics becomes associated with it that may be computationally approximated. In essence, a practically crucial time-scale separation is induced by the augmentation even if the original dynamics did not come equipped with one. The development and implementation of this methodology involves sophisticated tools from nonlinear mathematics, statistical inference, numerical analysis, database management and data-mining. This work has been successfully applied to small, but difficult, nonlinear problems as proof-of-principle, as recorded in the technical literature. Professors Acharya, Dayal, and Maloney, in collaboration with Prof. Lucio Soibelman (AIS), Profs. Tartar and Walkington (Mathematics), Prof. Erik Ydstie (Chemical Engineering) along with
Figure 5: Spatial distribution of peak horizontal ground velocity in Southern California due to a M 7.8 scenario earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. Insert shows the ground motion in the Los Angeles Basin.
colleagues at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the National Energy Technology Labs and applied mathematicians at the Univ. of Leicester, UK, and Rennes 1, CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research), France, are in the process of applying these ideas to a variety of practical problems in solid mechanics, biology, chemical engineering, and fluid dynamics. - AMIT ACHARYA, JACOBO BIELAK, KAUSHIK DAYAL, AND CRAIG MALONEY
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CEE NEWS AEESP CONFERENCE NEW CEE WEBSITE NEWS BITS
CEE Unveils New Website CEE recently unveiled a new website at www.ce.cmu.edu . Please visit the new site and send your feedback to Nichole Dwyer at nichole@cmu.edu.
CEE Faculty & Students Travel to AEESP Annual Conference
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large contingent of faculty and graduate students from CEE attended and actively participated in the bi-annual conference of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) held on the campus of Virginia Tech from July 28 - August 1, 2007. The theme of the conference was “Interactions at the Interface: Making the Connections Between Environments, Disciplines, and Nations.” CEE graduate students and faculty gave six platform and six poster presentations, led by Cliff Davidson’s plenary talk on the first day of the conference entitled “Changing the Discipline of Engineering: The Challenge of Sustainability.” The complete program for the conference, including oral and poster presentations by CEE faculty and students is available at http://www.cpe.vt.edu/aeesp/. The Department has a long history of participation in and leadership of AEESP. All CEE faculty members engaged in environmental education and research belong to AEESP and serve or have served on AEESP committees. Mitch Small co-chaired the 1995 AEESP/NSF Research Conference. Dave Dzombak served on the Board from 1996-1999 and was Treasurer from 1997-1999. Jeanne VanBriesen has just been elected to the Board. Alum Catherine Peters (CE ’92) served on the Board and was President from 2003-2004. Alum Jim Mihelcic (CE ’88) is currently serving on the Board and was just elected President of AEESP for Pictured above are CEE Faculty, Students, and Alums at the 2007 AEESP 2007-2008. Carnegie Mellon CEE Conference. First row (left to right): Deanna Matthews, Cliff Davidson, Jianhua Xu,Allison Harris, Mary Schoen, Jeanne VanBriesen, faculty members and alums have in Anu Ramaswami, Greg Lowry, Stacia Thompson, Heather Wakeley, the past and continue to help form Shahzeen Attari. Back row (left to right): Scott Matthews, Dave new directions in environmental Dzombak, Catherine Peters, Damian Helbling, Dominic Boccelli, engineering education and research Troy Hawkins, Joe Bushey, Jim Mihelcic, Dan Giammar, Julian Fairey, through AEESP. Joe Marriott, Kelvin Gregory, Mitch Small, Chris Hendrickson
Michael (CE ’60) and Julia Ellegood Establish First CEE Strategic Doctoral Fellowship
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ith the generosity of Michael and Julia Ellegood, the first ever strategic doctoral fellowship has been established in CEE. The fellowship will support a doctoral student, advised by a team of faculty members, and will target new strategic areas of research where more traditional funding sources may not yet be available. Department Head Jim Garrett said that “We plan to use this fellowship to investigate new areas of research and it is our distinct honor to have Julie and Mike create such a lasting legacy in support of excellence in research for CEE. We greatly appreciate their generous support of our department.” Although this is the first such fellowship in CEE, it is the department’s intention to raise four additional strategic doctoral fellowships over the coming years. The Ellegood Strategic Doctoral Fellowship has been awarded for January 2008 to Professors Acharya, Soibelman and Dayal, who will use the fellowship to recruit a doctoral student to work on a simulation tool that is able to predict the dynamic response of a collection of atoms (in sufficient number for engineering applications) and at times scales that are several orders of magnitude greater than the periods of atomic vibration. Such a tool will allow for the tractable simulation of a number of important phenomena related to practical applications, such as fatigue crack initiation/propagation in turbine blades/discs and the design of reliable microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. The creation of this tool will require both theoretical contributions as well as the development of data management and data mining approaches to support the simulation. For more information on this fellowship, please contact Jim Garrett. CMU 6 CEE
International Programs Established CEE is excited to announce two new international collaborations that were established in 2007. The first international collaboration is with the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT). On May 15, 2007, the CEE Department at Carnegie Mellon and the UTT signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a collaboration. As described by UTT, they were formed as “a private non-profit entity in order to revolutionize tertiary level education in Trinidad and Tobago in support of the national development thrust towards achieving a more developed nation status.” Their stated mission is “to be an entrepreneurial university designed to discover and develop entrepreneurs, commercialize research and development, and spawn companies for wealth generation and sustainable job creation towards the equitable enhancement of the quality of life of all individuals, families and communities of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean”. UTT contacted CEE at Carnegie Mellon to establish a collaboration in the fields of information and communication technology (ICT) and construction technologies. The potential areas of collaboration include enrolling existing or potential UTT staff or students in existing MS or PhD programs at Carnegie Mellon, collaborating in research projects funded by Trinidad and Tobago companies and government agencies, assisting in the development of degree programs, and having UTT’s undergraduate students participate in a summer internships at Carnegie Mellon funded by UTT The second international collaboration is a dual PhD degree program with the Korean Advanced Institute for Science and Technology’s (KAIST) Civil and Environmental Engineering department. The MOU, signed by both CMU President Jared Cohon and KAIST President Suh Nam Pyo on October 5, 2007, reflects a commitment of both universities to explore new research opportunities as well as the joint education program, which enables PhD candidates at Carnegie Mellon and KAIST to earn a degree at each institution. Each PhD student in this program must apply and be admitted to both departments, meet all of the requirements for both PhD degree programs, and create doctoral dissertations that satisfy a committee made up of faculty from both institutions. This dual PhD degree program opens up a number of exciting possibilities for collaboration between our two departments, which are focused on innovative areas in civil and environmental engineering such as advanced sensing-based systems for infrastructure, sustainable engineering, and environmental nanotechnology. New research opportunities will emerge that both universities can approach together by leveraging each department’s strengths. It will enable us to attract new students into our program who are interested in studying both at Carnegie Mellon and
KAIST. Finally, through these dual degree PhD students, researchers in both programs will be able to make some use of each others research facilities. For more information on these collaborations, please visit www.ce.cmu.edu/graduate/kaist.html.
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Green Design Apprenticeship Program Since 2004, the Green Design Institute (GDI), an interdisciplinary research team of colleagues from CEE, Engineering and Public Policy, Mechanical Engineering and the Tepper School of Business, at Carnegie Mellon University has offered the Green Design Apprenticeship Program for local high school students. Each year, a cohort of 15 to 20 students meet for five school days spread over a five-month period. The Apprenticeship continues to be a top choice for students applying for apprenticeship programs, and the number of students participating has grown each year. The Green Design Apprenticeship introduces students to the principles of green design, including the connections between engineering and environmental and social issues. Topics cover the breadth of the field and are based on research conducted by the GDI. Topics include Life Cycle Assessment, impacts of energy production and consumption, issues regarding water quality and quantity, future transportation alternatives, and advances in green building. Students use the on-line Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment tool (www.eiolca.net), determine their personal electricity consumption, compare feasibility of transportation vehicles and fuels, and debate public infrastructure needs for water and electricity. A highlight of the program is a tour of the CMU campus and the extent of green design incorporated into new construction and building renovation projects, where students see firsthand how the concepts they have learned are engineered into buildings. The program is part of a broader apprenticeship program, the AIU3 Gifted and Talented Apprenticeship Program, organized by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, a regional educational service agency of the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The program couples students with professionals in many fields to explore future career possibilities. The Green Design Apprenticeship is supported through the National Science Foundation as outreach to broader audiences on various Green Design Institute grants, and through funding from the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research (SEER). - JAMES GOWER
Green Design Apprenticeship students presenting information about the life cycle of beverage container materials.
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CEE NEWS Continued The site has been in use since the first available day. It provides a unique experience setting above a hillside and being surrounded by glass.
Spring 2007 Design and Construction Project
-LARRY CARTWRIGHT
The spring 2007 Design and Construction project was a garden and seating area in honor of the late Allen Newell. Professor Newell taught at Carnegie Mellon for 36 years and is considered one of the founders of the fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive science. The project was funded by his wife, Mrs. Noël Newell. The project site was located on a below-grade hillside on the north side of Newell Simon Hall. This building was formerly owned by the U.S. Bureau of Mines and was the center of their national coal research. The university purchased it from the U.S. government in 1985. On the east and west side of the hillside are matching 12 foot diameter chimneys that have been truncated and capped. The caps are 4 feet below existing grade. In 1993, the Design and Construction project was the installation of a fire escape and deck atop the west chimney. The Newell project site was the east chimney. The final design was a series of five overlapping squares that spiral down the hillside and terminate on the chimney. The squares increase in size from 6’ by 6’ to 12’ by 12’. In plan view, the squares also rotate counter-clockwise. The four upper squares required caissons for support. These were drilled by JG Contracting, owned by John Gyurina (CE ’87). Above the caissons, four cylinders were cast in pumpkin colored concrete to match the shape and color of the chimney. The five square decks were cantilevered structures of charcoal concrete. Each square had built-in planters which required creative placement of the reinforcing steel. To further compound the problem, there was a spiral ramp that extended from the top to the bottom square. The ramp was included to make the design compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This also posed problems in ‘the design’ of the cantilevered squares. In total, the students placed 38 cubic yards of concrete. The ramp and surface of the lower deck were fabricated of Trex®, a recycled wood and plastic product. All squares were surrounded by 42” high glass walls. The glass was ½” thick, tempered safety glass. The glass enclosure provides an ethereal look to the entire structure. An existing concrete wall on the east side of the site was covered with a “living wall” system. This is a system of stainless steel angles and cables which enable creeping plants to grow up the wall without contacting it. Virginia Creeper plants were planted at the base of the wall. The remaining hillside was planted with assorted shrubs and 1500 ivy plants. The students also designed and built three benches for the lower deck. They are made of cedar and have unique swiveling mahogany armrests which could accommodate a lunch or a laptop computer. The lower deck also includes two ground-fault convenience outlets and a stainless steel base for the future addition of an umbrella.
D E PA RT M E N T N E W S B I T S CEE Receives Graduate Fellowship Honoring China’s Mao Yisheng CEE gratefully acknowledges the receipt of $50,000 from the Mao Yisheng Scientific and Technical Education Fund to establish an endowment for a graduate fellowship to honor the memory and technical excellence of China’s pioneering bridge builder, Mao Yisheng. Dr. Yisheng earned Carnegie Mellon’s first Ph.D. in 1919. The establishment of this fellowship was celebrated during a reception on June 6, 2007, which was attended by Mao’s daughter, Madame Mao Yulin. For more information on how to cotribute to this fund, please contact Jim Garrett.
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Garrett and Soibelman Appointed as Co-Editors Professors Jim Garrett and Lucio Soibelman were recently selected by a national committee to be co-editors-in-chief of the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering starting in January 2008. The journal, published bimonthly, is a leading publication in the area of computer research in civil engineering.
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Marano Designated as Distinguished Faculty of SRA Donna Marano, Director of Finance and Administration for CEE, received the designation of 2007 Society for Research Administrators (SRA) International Distinguished Faculty Member. The designation recognizes individuals who continually distinguish themselves as exemplary teachers, scholars and practitioners in the field of Research Administration. In 2007, Donna was also elected as an at-large board member for SRA.
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New M.S. Program in CEE Established A new M.S. program has been established in the field of Global Sustainable Construction. This new program, offered by CEE, seeks to educate future decision makers in the construction industry about how the global and local drivers of sustainability are likely to affect their decisions. The suggested core curriculum introduces students to the economic, environmental, and social implications of the construction industry. Participating students will learn how to make decisions specifically geared towards sustainable construction practices. The ability to define sustainability with respect to local as well as global effects is important for achieving such global sustainable construction practices. Courses on construction project management, the global construction process, economic planning, environmental life cycle assessment, and sustainability will provide the foundation for sustainable construction process decision making. The courses in this program are taught by a cross-disciplinary team of professors, including faculty in CEE’s Advanced Infrastructure Systems (AIS) and Environmental Engineering Science and Management (EESM) groups.
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STUDENTS
Chi Epsilon Inducts New Members Chi Epsilon, a national civil engineering honor society, inducted new members this past fall. The new members include undergraduate students Katherine Basta, Katelynn Benton, Daniel Cox, Christopher Fornataro, Paz Gilboa, Thomas Hendrickson, Nolan Kurtz, Jennifer Lawrence, Albert Penksa, Patrick Snyder, Andrew Stocchetti, Corey Tucker and Professors Susan Finger and Kelvin Gregory.
Undergraduate Students Study Hazardous Art Supplies For some time, Carnegie Mellon University has stressed ‘green’ awareness in its practices and attitudes. Accordingly, the campus art store expressed interest in assessing the type of art products offered, with hopes to provide greener alternatives wherever possible. As part of Professor Susan Finger’s CEE Projects course, CEE students Amanda Mitchell and Pamela Torres, along with Information Science student Devin Blais conducted abbreviated Life Cycle Assessments for 20 art supplies sold in the campus art store. The products, known to be hazardous when handled improperly, were analyzed for impacts to health and environmental impact from the moment the product arrives on campus to the moment it leaves. The team delivered a database summarizing the results of the life cycle assessment, safety risks, safe practices, proper disposal and possible alternatives. With this information in hand, the art store is better equipped to make informed decisions regarding future art supply purchases. The project continued after the end of the course with funding from a Small Undergraduate Research Grant (SURG) offered through the Undergraduate Research Office. -JAMES GOWER
Seungbum Kim and Saurabh Puri Win Awards CHI EPSILON STUDENT AWARDS TEAMS CONTEST
Left to right: Benjamin, Constantine, Shahzeen, Ines and advisor Professor Dave Dzombak
Ph.D. candidates Seungbum Kim and Saurabh Puri were recently recognized for their research. Seungbum Kim and his advisor Adjunct Professor Hoon Sohn won the Best Student Paper at the International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring at Stanford University for their paper entitled, “Instantaneous Crack Detection in Thin Metal Plates and Aircraft Panels.” Saurabh Puri was selected to receive a Philip Saurabh Puri Seungbum Kim and Marsha Dowd Fellowship given by the Institute for Complex Engineered Systems Department at Carnegie Mellon for his project, “Strength, Internal Stress and Relaxation in Mesoscale Plasticity.” Congratulations to Seungbum and his advisor Professor Sohn and Saurabh and his advisor Professor Amit Acharya!
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Students Win Prestigious Contest Four graduate students are first-place winners in a national letterwriting competition called “Tomorrow’s Energy Ambassadors, Managers and Scholars (TEAMS)”. Shahzeen Attari (CEE/EPP), Ines Margarida Lima de Avezedo (EPP), Benjamin Flath (CEE), and Constantine Samaras (CEE/EPP) wrote an open letter to the 2008 presidential candidates challenging them on the issues of energy and sustainability. The contest was sponsored by Johnson Controls and asked students from 200 member schools of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) to participate. The winning letter was published in the Nov. 20, 2007 issue of USA Today. CMU 9 CEE
FACULTY
Jeanne VanBriesen Collaborates on Best Paper Professor Jeanne VanBriesen was a collaborating author on the paper, “Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks”. The paper was presented and won best student paper at the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (ACMKDD). Jeanne collaborated with Computer Science students Jure Leskovec and Andreas Krause, and Computer Science Professors Carlos Guestrin and Christos Faloutsos and Google Technical Staff Member Natalie Glance.
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Scott Matthews Wins Laudise Prize at ISIE Professor Scott Matthews was awarded the prestigious Laudise Prize at the 2007 International Society for Industrial Ecology Annual Meeting. The Laudise Prize is given for significant contributions to industrial ecology by a young scientist or engineer of outstanding ability. It is sponsored by AT&T and in memory of Robert Laudise.
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Jacobo Bielak Elected to MAE
LAUDISE PRIZE NSF GRANT NRC REPORT
Professor Jacobo Bielak has been elected as a Corresponding Member of the Mexican Academy of Engineering. It is one of the highest honors that an engineer can receive in Mexico. Professor Bielak was elected because of his contributions to computational science and engineering with application to earthquake engineering and engineering seismology. The Mexican Academy of Engineering brings together distinguished engineering practitioners and researchers from the private and public sectors, with the objective of working towards the increasing and sustainable
New NSF Grant Jacobo Bielak and colleagues were recently awarded a prestigious grant from NSF. The $1.6M grant was awarded for the proposal, “Towards Petascale Simulation of Urban Earthquake Impacts.” Professor Bielak submitted this proposal to the NSF PetaApps program: Accelerating Discovery in Science and Engineering Through Petascale Simulations and Analysis, together with his Co-PIs Ahmed Elgamal of UCSD, Greg Fenves of UC Berkeley, Kwan-Liu Ma of UC Davis, and Dave O’Hallaron, of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. Congratulations to Jacobo and his colleagues!
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development of Mexico. It functions as a consulting organization to various public and private institutions responsible for teaching, developing or applying engineering knowledge or scientific and technological research.
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Kelvin Gregory Receives DOE Grant Professor Kelvin Gregory has recently received a grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) Environmental Remediation Science Program entitled “Electro-de-Induced Removal and Recovery of Uranium(VI) from Acidic Sub-surfaces”. This research will evaluate a novel technology for in-situ recovery of uranium from contaminated groundwater at Oak Ridge National Lab.This is an exploratory grant for 18 months and $150K, and offers significant opportunity for long-term support should the technology prove to be a practical solution for this long-term, complex, and recalcitrant problem at ORNL.
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Dave Dzombak Participates in NRC Report Release Professor Dave Dzombak chaired a National Research Council (NRC) committee on “Mississippi River Water Quality and The Clean Water Act” that released its report on October 15, 2007 stating “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must take a more aggressive leadership role in implementing the Clean Water Act if water quality in the Mississippi River and the northern Gulf of Mexico is to improve.” The full press release on this committee and its report can be see at: www.nationalacademies.org.
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Larry Cartwright Wins Alumni Award At the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Awards Ceremony in October 2007, Teaching Professor Larry Cartwright was awarded with the Faculty Service Alumni Award. It is awarded for extraordinary commitment to the support and education of Carnegie Mellon alumni around the world.
ALUMNI
John R. Kenny, (CE ’82) P.E., DBIA, has been named a senior vice president and appointed to the Board of Directors of Gannett Fleming, Inc., an international planning, design, and construction management firm.
••••• Bobbi Marstellar, (CEE ’93) recently appointed vice president of the American Institute of Steel Construction, Inc., was featured in an ‘On the Job’ cover story in Engineering News Record. See the July 16, 2007 issue at www.ENR.com. Bobbi was also named one of the ‘40 under 40’ executives in the Chicago Business Weekly. Visit www.chicagobusiness.com and search for Nov. 5, 2007 issue or ‘40 under 40’.
••••• Rick Creech (CE ’84), Principal of Creech Engineers, Inc., received a 2007 Hot Firm Award from ZweigWhite for his company as one of the top 100 fastest growing engineering firms in the country.
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HOT FIRM AWARD ALUMNI AWARDS NEW APPOINTMENTS
Stanley Lewandowski (CE ’45) was recently honored by NASA with a brick bearing his name in the SpaceWalk of Honor at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex. Mr. Lewandowski was honored in recognition of his work as a structural engineer on the Boeing Saturn V Ground Support Team, in charge of guaranteeing the structural integrity of the Mobile Launcher and the Launcher Umbilical Tower.
Rajat Ghosh (CEE ’93) , a senior project leader at Alcoa Technical Center, was selected to participate in the prestigious National Academy of Engineering’s (NAE) 13th annual U.S. Frontiers of Engineering symposium. The three-day event brought together engineers ages 30 to 45 who are performing exceptional engineering research and technical work in a variety of disciplines.The participants—from industry, academia, and government— were nominated by fellow engineers or organizations and chosen from more than 260 applicants.
••••• Karl Dahm (CEE ’98) was recently named Director of Engineering for QC Laboratories, Inc. in Houston, TX. QC Laboratories is a diversified firm of professional engineers and technical specialists offering material testing and consulting services.
••••• Joe Belechak (CE ’81) has been appointed Vice President for Strategy at Westinghouse Electric. Mr. Belechak will have overall responsibility for strategic planning, with emphasis on Westinghouse strategic initiatives in the areas of flawless products and performance, growth through alliances and acquisitions, and increased market share. As head of the Westinghouse Strategic Council, he will work closely with Westinghouse’s three business units, Nuclear Fuel, Nuclear Services and Nuclear Power Plants, to ensure effective integration and maximiztion of all Westinghouse strategic growth initiatives.
••••• Christian Buergy (CEE ’02) was recently named the new Managing Partner of Texxmo Mobility Solutions. Texxmo develops solutions for mobile computing.
Alumni Awards Given at CEE Alumni Dinner Two alumni were given awards at the annual CEE Alumni Dinner held in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon’s Homecoming on October 25, 2007. The two awards presented at the dinner were the Distinguished Alumnus Award and the Outstanding Alumni Service Award. The Distinguished Alumnus Award was given to Rex Elder (right). Mr. Elder is retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority for which he directed the renowned TVA Hydraulics Laboratory. The Outstanding Alumni Service Award was given to Wayne Balta. Mr. Balta is currently the Vice President of Corporate Environmental Affairs and Product Safety at IBM Corporation. Please see www.ce.cmu.edu for more details on these awards.
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Civil & Environmental
ENGINEERING
CEE
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Carnegie Mellon University 5000 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890
Mark your calendar for the 2008 CEE Alumni Events! I
April 17, 2008: CARNIVAL! CEE reception and alumni award presentation in the Tung Au Lab from 6:00pm to 8:00pm
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July 12, 2008: Annual Alumni Family Picnic! Morning activities will include student poster presentations, children activities, and a campus tour including senior design projects followed by a family barbecue, fun and games at noon!
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October 23, 2008: Homecoming! CEE hosts the Annual Alumni Reception and dinner at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (PAA), followed by a brief program will include an update on CEE and alumni awards presentation. Visit www.ce.cmu.edu/people/alumni for details.
Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate and Carnegie Mellon University is required not to discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs or activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, or handicap in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, or other federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. In addition, Carnegie Mellon University does not discriminate in admission, employment, or administration of its programs on the basis of religion, creed, ancestry, belief, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation, or in violation of federal, state, or local laws or executive orders. However, in the judgment of the Carnegie Mellon Human Relations Commission, the Department of Defense policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” excludes openly gay, lesbian, and bisexual students from receiving ROTC scholarships or serving in the military. Nevertheless, all ROTC classes at Carnegie Mellon University are available to all students. Inquiries concerning application of these statements should be directed to the Provost, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone 412-268-6684, or to the Vice President for Enrollment, Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, telephone 412-268-2056. Obtain general information about Carnegie Mellon University by calling 412-268-2000. Carnegie Mellon University publishes an annual campus security report describing the University’s security, alcohol and drug, and sexual assault policies, and containing statistics about the number and type of crimes committed on the campus during the preceding three years.You can obtain a copy by contacting the Carnegie Mellon Police Department at 412-268-2323. The security report is also available at www.cmu.edu/security. Carnegie Mellon University makes every effort to provide accessible facilities and programs for individuals with disabilities. For accommodations/services, please contact the Equal Opportunity Office at 412-268-2012.
CEE Newsletter Fall/Winter 07/08 Department Head: Jim Garrett Editor: Nichole Dwyer Design: Dan Hart CEE website: www.ce.cmu.edu t: 412.268.2940 f: 412.268.7813 email: nichole@cmu.edu Writers: Amit Acharya, Jacobo Bielak Larry Cartwright, Kaushik Dayal, James Gower Craig Maloney