Facilities for Research and Instruction
Facilities for advanced study and research are located on the Berkeley campus and at the Richmond Field Station. Members of the research
staff, specialists in their respective fields, participate in organized research programs of the department and in sponsored research
undertaken in cooperation with industry and agencies of the state and federal governments. There are numerous opportunities for qualified
students to be employed on research projects.
Research Facilities Staff (Davis Hall)
Hadgu, Negassi — Environmental Labs, Chemicals
hadgu@ce.berkeley.edu
Higginbotham, Jeff — Machine Shop Supervisor
higgin@ce.berkeley.edu
MacCracken, Bill — Instructional Lab Demonstrations
maccracken@ce.berkeley.edu
Moy, Chris — Electronics
moy@ce.berkeley.edu
Parsons, Dick — Machine Shop, 2nd Floor Activity, Facilities
parsons@ce.berkeley.edu
Riemer, Michael — GeoEngineering Lab, Space FDX
riemer@ce.berkeley.edu
Stepanov, Lev — Concrete Lab
stepanov@ce.berkeley.edu
Laboratories and Resources
The Construction Systems Laboratory is a state-of-the-art computer
facility that serves both research and teaching functions. A mix of
Windows NT and Macintosh personal computers are available for the exclusive
use of students in the construction program. Access to campus
and non-campus computing facilities is available through these units.
For those students interested in construction materials, the department
has excellent testing facilities in the Richmond Field Station, the
Structural Engineering Materials Laboratory and the Geotechnical
Engineering Laboratory.
The Structures and Materials Laboratories are located both on the campus
(Davis Hall) and at the Richmond Field Station (Structural Research
Laboratory). The structural laboratories house equipment for studying
the behavior of structural elements and systems both on scale models
and prototypes. The facilities range from miniaturized precision
equipment to a four-million-pound capacity testing machine. Studies
range from detailed stress analyses by means of photoelastic techniques
to both static and dynamic tests on full-sized structural systems. A
well-equipped machine shop and instrumentation shop complement the
laboratory facility. Instrumentation available in the laboratory
ranges from simple mechanical indicators to a high speed
computer-controlled data acquisition system.
The materials laboratories contain facilities for class instruction
and research in civil engineering materials such as cement and
concrete, structural steel, wood, and plastics. Physical-chemical
research facilities include well-equipped laboratories for chemical
analysis, X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, scanning electron
microscopy, and pore size distribution in cement pastes. Laboratory
furnaces are available for processing of pozzolans, light-weight
aggregates, and special cements. A wide variety of testing equipment
and instrumentation together with humidity-temperature control rooms
provide facilities for studying the mechanical behavior of materials
under wide ranges of loading and environmental conditions.
Environmental Water Resources laboratories are predominately located in
O'Brien Hall and are equipped for experimental work in general fluid
mechanics, granular flow, water-sediment interactions, surface and
groundwater hydrology, hydraulic structures, wave hydrodynamics, and
sediment transport. Additional experimental facilities are available
at the Richmond Field Station including flumes for estuary studies, a
large model basin for studies of harbors, river restoration and related
problems, wind-wave channels, and flumes for stratified flow and debris
flow studies
Environmental Quality laboratories are located in Davis Hall and off
campus. The campus laboratories for research and teaching are
configured for organic and inorganic chemical analysis in air, water
and soils; process analysis for aerosol dynamics, biological
transformations, photochemical reactions, mass transfer rates in porous
media; and computational facilities to support environmental transport
modeling. Additional facilities including mesocosms and experimental
wetlands are utilized at the Richmond Field Station and at Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory The Environmental Engineering program makes
extensive use of the Water Resources Archives, a specialized library of
the University of California system devoted to Western United States
water issues.
Research in transportation engineering is largely conducted under the auspices
of the Institute
of Transportation Studies (ITS). A number of the faculty of the
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering hold research appointments
in the institute. This arrangement provides opportunities for graduate
students to conduct advanced study and research, usually supported
by assistantships financed by project grants. Further information
may be obtained by writing to the ITS Director, 109 McLaughlin Hall.
The ITS Computer Systems Unit in McLaughlin Hall is the center for
transportation-related computer activities. The unit provides programming,
data processing and other systems support to ITS researchers and staff.
Systems unit personnel maintain and enhance the Institute's collection
of software applications and databases, as well as a transportation computer
lab where a wide assortment of computers and peripherals are available.
Facilities at the Systems Unit, with the combined resources of ITS and the Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, are available to students in
transportation as well as to the ITS research staff. They include
video and hardcopy terminals for use with both campus and off-campus
computer systems, Hewlett-Packhard, IBM, Sage, and VAX
microcomputers. Peripheral equipment includes laser printers,
digitizers, and digital plotters. The Systems Unit also maintains an
extensive library of transportation programs and data files, most of
which are available for student use.
The
Geotechnical Engineering Laboratories on campus and the Soil Mechanics
and Bituminous Materials Laboratory situated at the Richmond Field
Station provide extensive facilities for research on soil and rock
properties, soil and rock mechanics, foundation engineering, and the
behavior and properties of asphalts and asphaltic mixtures.
State-of-the-art computer facilities are available for test control,
data acquisition, data processing, and numerical analysis. Graduate
students working toward master's or doctoral degrees in the Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering conduct individual research in
these laboratories, usually as a part of a continuing program of
research conducted by faculty members.
Current research studies are concerned with the strength and
deformation characteristics of soil under static, dynamic, and repeated
loading; effects of earthquakes on embankments and foundations; soil
stabilization; stresses and deformations in slopes and
embankments; soil rein-forcement; in situ measurementof soil
properties, rheologic characteristics and fatigue behavior of asphalt
mixtures; field testing of pavements; mechanics of jointed rock masses;
measurement of in situ stresses in rock and the relation of stresses to
geological structure; measurement of rock and joint properties in bore
holes; mechanics of jointed rock masses; and design, construction, and
behavior of underground openings; groundwater flow in porous and
fractured media, contaminant transport and containment; aquifer
cleanup; geostatistical characterization of aquifers, and stochastic
analysis of groundwater flow and contaminant transport. The
laboratories provide special facilities for work in these areas, in
addition to equipment for standard tests on soils, rocks, asphalts and
asphaltic mixtures.
Earthquake engineering research is coordinated in the
Earthquake Engineering Research Center at the Richmond Field Station.
This research unit works in close cooperation with the Seismographic
Station, which is a parallel organization in the College of Letters
and Sciences.
Excellent facilities are available for experimental research including
the Earthquake Simulator Laboratory, the Structural Research
Laboratory, the Soils Laboratory, and other laboratories in Davis Hall
on campus.
The Earthquake Simulator Laboratory provides a unique research
capability aimed at improving seismic resistant design of structural
systems. The central feature of this facility is a shaking table
having dimensions 20 feet by 20 feet in plan and weighing 45 tons. An
electronically controlled hydraulic system drives the table vertically
and horizontally to produce motions which simulate the characteristics
of strong-motion earthquakes. A test structure, weighing up to 60
tons, can be attached to the table and be subjected to realistic
deformations. Energy absorption and failure characteristics of
full-scale structures can thus be studied under controlled laboratory
conditions.
Berkeley's library system
contains one of the best research collections in the country. The
system, accessible to all registered students, consists of the Main (Doe)
Library, the Moffitt
Undergraduate Library, the Bancroft Library,
18 branch libraries,
and many special libraries. The Teaching Library, a new service of
the Berkeley campus library system, promotes information literacy
and academic success by teaching students and faculty how to use a
wide range of information resources--print, online, and networked--now
available in the library. The combined holdings of the libraries total
almost 8 million book volumes, 90,000 current serial publications,
55,000,000 manuscripts, 5 million microform items, 400,000 maps, 109,000
government documents, 61,900 sound recordings and 6,000 videos. The
library system has two on-line computer catalogs which contain catalog
records for all nine U.C. campus library systems and a variety of
other databases. These databases are available by remote access for
students having a computer, modem, and communication software.
The Kresge
Engineering Library, conveniently located in the nearby Stephen
D. Bechtel Engineering Center, contains over more than 175,000 volumes
and more than 2,000 journals and periodicals and 680,000 technical
reports.
The Water Resources
Center Archives, located in O'Brien Hall, specializes in material
related to hydraulics, hydrology, and coastal engineering, with
100,000 titles in water resources and over 15,000 reports and papers
on ocean engineering and oceanography.
The Institute of Transportation Studies
Harmer E. Davis Library contains one of the largest multimodal,
interdisciplinary transportation reference and research collections
in the world. The library holds over 125,000 volumes and receives
more than 2,500 serials. The library is also a depository for government
transportation publications.
Extensive holdings are also available in the library
of the National
Information Service for Earthquake Engineering.
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