Laboratories used by Civil Engineering
The GIS Lab is where students can work on large mapping projects. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems which means computer maps. Things that might be mapped are locations of traffic accidents, locations of road sections needing repair, and facility inventory.
The Environmental Lab is used primarily for the Water and Waste Water course.
We test biological, physical, and chemical properties of the water. Contaminant concentration in soils and sediments can also be tested.
Materials
The Materials Lab has equipment for making and testing concrete and asphalt. The concrete mixer is shared with the concrete canoe team.
The lab is equipped with superpave equipment for asphalt testing.
Non-destructive testing is used on concrete and asphalt. It is most useful on existing facilities where you can't crush part of the structure to determine its strength. Instead the structure remains intact.
The results are analyzed to look for defects, determine material properties, and to provide information needed to design a repair.
The Soils Lab has equipment for physical testing of soils to determine its strength, compressibility, and permeability.
The results are used in the design of foundations, earth retention systems, embankments and pavements.
The Structures Lab is set up to a variety of strength checks on building materials such as steel, concrete, wood, asphalt, aluminum, and advanced composite materials. The testing devices, such as a Universal Testing Machine and the Instron, can apply tension, compression and shear loads on the materials. This is a vital task of quality control in construction.