BlackboardCivil Engineering Faculty Wins Cornerstone Award
Civil Engineering faculty members were awarded one of five Program Enhancement Grants (PEG) under the Corner Stone program at FSU. The Grant will help the department develop the capacity to conduct Condition Assessment of Existing Structures using emerging Nondestructive Techniques. Dr. Primus Mtenga, Dr. Kamal Tawfiq, Dr. John Sobanjo and Dr. Jerry Wekezer are the investigators of this project. The funding will make the department more competitive in the area of Structural Condition Assessment (SCA). SCA is important to both property owners and engineers in deciding between renovation and replacement of an existing structure.
This is important in dealing with the aging national infrastructure, ranging from highways, to drainage and flood control systems, water supply systems, and buildings of all sizes. Recent developments in Nondestructive Evaluation (NDE) techniques, which can be used to detect defects in a structural member without destroying it has made SCA a very lucrative research area. While these NDE techniques can detect defects, the real importance to the engineer or property owner is the remaining strength (life) of the structural member and of the entire structure. This requires the development of correlations between NDE results and the actual residual strength of the structure. This information could then be used to develop tools to assist decision-makers in choosing between renovation and replacement and when to implement the choice.
