Civil engineering

Slow going

05/01/12 — In California, single drivers of hybrid vehicles could drive in carpool lanes until 2011, but after the state put the brakes on the program, transportation engineer Michael Cassidy and graduate student Kitae Jang found that hybrids in standard lanes slowed traffic on Bay Area freeways.

Rowing on to nationals

04/17/12 — Student engineers from more than a dozen western universities gathered in late March for a weekend of ambitious civil and environmental engineering competitions. Berkeley was the host campus for this year's Mid-Pacific Regional Conference, put on by the American Society of Civil Engineers. At Quarry Lakes in Fremont, concrete canoe teams raced in heats. Berkeley's team, aboard their new canoe GraffiCal 2.0, came in second place. Along with first-place winner University of Nevada, Reno, Berkeley advances to the 25th annual National Concrete Canoe Competition in Reno in mid-June.

Smart sensors in the woods

03/19/12 — About 60 percent of the water used in California comes from Sierra Nevada snowmelt. Monthly measurements help water managers estimate the amount of water held in the snowpack and allow them to allocate the state's most precious resource. Now, the Sierra Nevada is going high tech. Wireless sensors developed by Steven Glaser, professor of civil and environmental engineering, are being tested in an ambitious pilot project at the UC Merced Sierra Nevada Research Institute.

PEER signs contract with Caltrans to continue research on the seismic performance of lifelines

02/17/12 Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center — The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER), headquartered at the University of California, Berkeley. has just signed a three-year research contract with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to carry out a comprehensive multidisciplinary research program on the seismic evaluation and performance of lifelines. This new funding from Caltrans launches a new phase of investigation for the PEER Lifelines Research Program.

A bridge built to sway when the earth shakes

02/06/12 The New York Times — Venture deep inside the new skyway of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and it becomes clear that the bridge's engineers have planned for the long term. The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge is meant to last at least 150 years after its expected opening in 2013. "We wanted to make this bridge flexible so that when the earthquake comes in, the flexibility of the system is such that it basically rides the earthquake," said its lead designer, Berkeley Engineering alumnus Marwan Nader (M.S.'89, Ph.D.'92 CE).

Berkeley Engineering professor Anil Chopra to be keynote speaker at first Panama Canal Engineering Congress

01/31/12 Dredging Today — UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Anil K. Chopra has been confirmed as one of the notable presenters to speak at the "Panama Canal 2012 International Engineering and Infrastructure Congress." The first-ever Congress, organized by the Panama Canal Authority, will be held in April in Panama City and will convene more than 40 experts from 10 countries, who will discuss large scale projects and future trends in the maritime industry. Chopra will share an earthquake analysis and well as design and safety evaluations of concrete gravity dams.

Ashok Gadgil wins Zayed Future Energy Prize’s Lifetime Achievement Award

01/18/12 Lab Manager Magazine — UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Ashok Gadgil has won the Lifetime Achievement award of the 2012 Zayed Future Energy Prize. The $3.5 million prize recognizes and rewards innovation, leadership and longterm vision in renewable energy and sustainability. Gadgil was recognized for "his sustainable humanitarian work in Darfur -- providing energy efficient cooking stoves known as Berkeley-Darfur stoves, cutting the need for firewood by 55 percent."

Berkeley Engineering alum’s designs help Santiago’s skyscrapers endure earthquakes

01/03/12 Bloomberg — Civil engineer Juan Carlos de la Llera, president and co-founder of the engineering company Sirve, designed the quake-resistant technology that helped save Santiago's tallest skyscraper, the 52-story, $200 million Torre Titanium La Portada office building, during the 8.8-magnitude Chilean quake in February 2010. De la Llera earned his doctorate in civil engineering from UC Berkeley.

UC Berkeley gets grant for quake-warning study

11/30/11 San Francisco Chronicle — With the goal of giving people precious seconds to run for their lives before the Big One hits, three West Coast universities will share a $6 million grant to improve an earthquake early warning system already being tested, UC Berkeley announced Tuesday. Berkeley and Caltech are currently testing ShakeAlert, a warning system that is supposed to open a pop-up alert on personal computers at the first sign of a major quake.

California turns to Chinese company, labor to build most of new Bay Bridge span

10/19/11 Public Radio International — Much of the actual construction of San Francisco's new Bay Bridge was actually done in China. The bridge was then shipped piece by piece to the port of Oakland for assembly. California officials have estimated that they'll save at least $400 million by relying on low-wage Chinese labor. UC Berkeley civil engineering professor William Ibbs says doing it this way makes a lot of sense.

Paving the way

10/17/11 — Often it's only an unexpected pothole or a bumpy road that draws our attention to pavement conditions. But for civil and environmental engineering professor Carl Monismith (B.S'50, M.S'54 CE), the ups-and-downs of pavement have been worth his ongoing consideration for the past 60 years. As the co-director of the Pavement Research Center (PRC), Monismith has been studying pavement design and technology since 1951.

Tapping the West’s water

09/12/11 — Two years ago David Sedlak, UC Berkeley professor of civil and environmental engineering, was invited to speak at the Nobel Conference in Minnesota about his area of expertise: urban water systems. Seeing an opportunity to tell the story of the water delivery networks that are falling apart under our feet, Sedlak did more than deliver a talk describing the problem. He came up with an idea to help solve it.

In vino veritas

09/12/11 — As any wine-sipping oenophile knows, the quality of a wine is influenced, among other things, by the geography, geology and climate of the specific vineyard in which the grapes are grown. The French even have a word for it - terroir - which can be loosely translated as “a sense of place.” For Berkeley Engineering alum Jason Mikami, whose boutique winery produces a handcrafted Zinfandel wine using grapes from his family's estate, the terroir of the vineyard is not only evident in his wines, but also in his own journey as a winemaker.

Tough act to follow

08/18/11 — MIT rejected him. CalTech rejected him. So did Duke and UCLA. But Berkeley saw potential in the teenager from a small Catholic high school in Modesto, and from the time he arrived on campus, Matthew Zahr didn't disappoint. The civil and environmental engineering student graduated this spring with a 3.988, earning his major's top undergraduate award, the department citation, and was nominated, along with four others, for Berkeley's highest undergraduate honor, the University Medal.

Sumbat Der Kiureghian: A son’s tribute to his father’s unique style, creativity

06/11/11 The Armenian Mirror-Spectator — Dr. Armen Der Kiureghian is the Taisei Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and the winner of numerous awards and patents. He is also a dedicated son and art lover, who wants to shed light on the legacy of his late father, painter Sumbat Der Kiureghian. His efforts have culminated in a beautiful coffee-table book, The Life and Art of Sumbat, filled with the paintings of his father, which often captured Iranian village life, as well as traditional Armenian life.

Environmental engineering professor Kara Nelson receives grant for sanitation research

05/02/11 The Daily Californian — UC Berkeley professor of environmental engineering Kara Nelson has been awarded a five-year $100,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for her unconventional research in sanitation and human waste management. Nelson said she will use the grant money to treat human waste at the point where it is being produced, in an effort to eliminate the amount of contact humans have with fecal pathogens.

PEER presents briefing on Japan earthquake and tsunami

04/27/11 Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center — The Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center will give a public briefing presenting the preliminary results of a U.S. research team's reconnaissance trip to Japan to survey damage from the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami of March 11, 2011. The briefing, to be held on April 28, is jointly organized by the PEER, GEER, and EERI's Learning from Earthquakes Program.

Under construction: Engineering the Bay Bridge

04/08/11 — Slated to open in late 2013, the new eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge is meant to do what the old one didn't: withstand a major Bay Area earthquake, sustain only limited damage and quickly admit emergency vehicles and traffic. It must deliver a performance to match its “lifeline” designation. It's also a lifeline for Marwan Nader (M.S'89, Ph.D'92 CE)-because he's bet his career on it. Read part 2 of our story and watch a slideshow of the new Bay Bridge construction.

Japan dam failure renews focus on California dams

03/17/11 California Watch — As Californians closely watch the catastrophe at Japan's nuclear plants, many engineers are also studying the failure of a dam in Japan's northeast Fukushima prefecture. The extent of the damage is still unknown. "One dam failure is too many," said Nicholas Sitar, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley.

Preparing infrastructure for earthquakes

03/11/11 National Public Radio — The Japanese have invested heavily in infrastructure and buildings designed to withstand quakes. To better understand the structural precautions Japan had in place during Friday's 9.0 earthquake and whether the U.S. employs similar technology and building codes, host Robert Siegel talks with Stephen Mahin, professor of structural engineering at UC Berkeley and director of the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center.