Research Laboratories and Facilities

Features include fluid mechanics and hydro-environmental informatics to addressing water resources engineering challenges. The lab is equipped with a hydraulic wave and sediment flume, hydrology apparatus, volumetric hydraulic benches, stormwater green infrastructure testing platform, as well as environmental modeling and informatics facilities with access to the leading-edge computational clusters, a real-time environment monitoring center, and a sensor fabrication space with testing equipment.

This facility has a full array of tools and instrumentation for sampling, simulating, and analyzing environmental matrices and unit processes. Instrumentation includes liquid chromatography (HPLC), total organic carbon and nitrogen analyses, field meters and spectrophotometers; PCR and qPCR thermocyclers and a fluorescent microscope; and tools for cultivating microbes include an anaerobic chamber, laminar flow hoods, shaking and walk-in incubators, and an annular biofilm reactor. 

Provides integrated modeling, simulation, and development of prototype equipment and sensory systems for infrastructure assessment and monitoring and rehabilitation.

Special interests in mobile sensor and content data, connected vehicles, and active transportation and demand management also include transportation Big Data analytics, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, and unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) application in traffic monitoring and incident management.

Covers practical aspects of testing and assessing mechanical properties of soils including ranging from classification to engineering properties. Main tests conducted as a part of the laboratory include: description and identification of soils (visual manual procedure); determining the moisture content of soil (convention and microwave oven methods); determining the specific gravity of soil; determining the liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index of soil; grain size analysis of soil; and more.

Also known as The Cave, this lab uses geospatial big data and developing data analytics to support disaster response and data collection, damage assessment and modeling, vulnerability assessment and visualization, risk analysis for critical infrastructure, and debris removal and management.  

Includes practical aspects of destructive and non-destructive testing of structural elements/construction materials such as hardened concrete, steel, wood, and masonry. It has several testing machines to characterize the mechanical properties of these materials. The lab also provides facilities for testing aggregate, cement, admixtures, additive materials and fresh concrete, as well as for testing of structural components and assemblies (under static and dynamic loads) including beams, columns, slabs, trusses.

The world’s first accelerated testing facility for full-scale bridge systems, the BEAST subjects bridges to extreme environmental and traffic loading to simulate decades of deterioration in months instead of years. The BEAST eats bridges, spits out quantitative data on materials and components performance, and could save billions in infrastructure costs.