PhD Candidate, Azad Heidari along with his advisors – David Watkins and Alex Mayer recently published “Hydrologic impacts and trade-offs associated with forest-based bioenergy development practices in a snow-dominated watershed, Wisconsin, USA“ in the Journal of Hydrology. The journal is a peer-reviewed academic publication that is currently ranked first in Google Scholar in the Hydrology and Water Resource category.
Alan Labisch, an environmental engineering student, Eric Seagren (CEE), and David Hand (CEE) are featured in a Detroit Free Press article.
It’s a daunting task: How to break down “the forever chemical?”
But scientists across the country are researching, with urgency, ways to bust apart or capture per- and polyflouroalkyl substances, or PFAS. State officials suspect the potentially harmful compound could be contaminating more than 11,000 sites in Michigan, and hundreds more across the country.
In addition, Michigan Technological University is examining how granular-activated carbon filters, the most common solution to dealing with PFS contamination, can be optimized for peak performance at the lowest cost.
“What we’re trying to do is create ways to tell other engineers how they can treat PFAS with granular-activated carbon,” said Alan Labisch, an environmental engineering student working on the project under the supervision of Michigan Tech environmental engineering professor Eric Seagren and professor emeritus David Hand.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) North Central Student Conference brings together students from 11 universities from Michigan and Ohio to participate in a multitude of events, particularly the Concrete Canoe competition.
Beginning with the 2019 competition year, the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) is the sole sponsor of all 18 regional Student Steel Bridge Competitions (SSBC) nationwide. Students from 11 universities from Michigan, Indiana and Ohio competed based on the rules established by AISC.
The 2019 conference and competitions took place April 12-14 at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Among the attendees were the Michigan Tech Concrete Canoe team and Michigan Tech ASCE Student Chapter’s Steel Bridge team.
Both the Concrete Canoe and Steel Bridge teams finished first, qualifying them for the Nationals.
The Steel Bridge team also finished first in the subcategories of stiffness, economy, construction speed, structural efficiency and aesthetics.
The National Finals of the Steel Bridge competition are May 31- June 1 at Southern Illinois University.
The National Finals of the Concrete Canoe competition are June 6-8 in Melbourne, Florida.
Related:
Scaling the Heights: Concrete Canoe Team Prepped for 2018 Regionals
Steeled for Success: A Husky Tradition Forged in Engineering Excellence
A group of five students from Chi Epsilon Honors Society and ASCE traveled to Milwaukee, WI to visit Michigan Tech alumni and see engineers working in the field. The first stop was at the American Transmission Company, where students got a tour of the operations room and a detailed look at the power distribution to the Upper Peninsula. The lecture at this location focused on engineering applications and the challenges engineers face in constructing power distribution.
The next stop was Komatsu Mining Corp. where Michigan Tech alumni Jonathon LeCloux greeted the students. The lecture at this location focused on the history of the company and their new sustainable South Harbor Campus. The students were then taken on a tour of the facilities that included heat treating, heavy fabrication, operations, mist collection, VOC handling, and HVAC controls.
The third stop was the Jones Island Water Reclamation Facility. Here the students learned about the wastewater treatment process and how they make fertilizer called Milorginate from their dried sludge.
Finally, the students were able to meet up with Michigan 
Tech alumni Kevin LaPean at Aquarius Technologies. Here the students gained more understanding of the aeration tanks within the wastewater treatment plant as Aquarius Technologies designs air diffusers. These four stops were incredibly eye opening, and allowed the students to ask questions about career opportunities, and create networking connections.
Students and faculty in pavement materials areas attended the 98th Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting on January 13-17, 2019. Siyu Chen, Xiaodong Zhou, Jiaqing Wang, Lingyun You, Dongdong Ge, Miao Yu, Chaochao Liu, and Junfeng Gao presented at the meeting. Professor Zhanping You presented “The Development of a New Asphalt Mixture Containing Reacted and Activated Rubber and Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement via Superpave Mix Design and Marshall Mix Design.”
Tim Colling, Director of the Center for Technology & Training, attended throughout and served on the ANB 25: Highway Safety Performance Committee.
Professor Eric Seagren attended the TRB meeting as a member of the Geo-Environmental Processes Committee (AFP40) to participate in the committee’s annual meeting.
Assistant Professor Zhen Liu (Leo) attended TRB with a visiting student, Peng Gao. Liu presented at the committee meeting of AFP50: Committee on Seasonal Climatic Effects on Transportation Infrastructure. The title of the presentation was “Data-Driven Predictions of Freezing and Thawing Depths with 3D Models.”
Associate Professor Pasi Lautala chaired the AR040 Freight Rail Transportation Committee. He also presented a poster by himself and Alawudin Salim (MS alumnus of Civil Engineering) “A HUMAN BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS OF HIGHWAY-RAILROAD GRADE CROSSINGS BASED ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AND DRIVER DEMOGRAPHICS.”
Research Assistant Sangpil Ko presented a poster co-authored by himself, Pasi Lautala, and Assistant Professor Kuilin Zhang on “Log Movement in the Superior Region – Rate and Capacity Based Analysis of Modal Shares.”
Associate Professor Amlan Mukherjee presented on a recently concluded National Cooperative Highway Research Program project involving the development of a Guidebook for Sustainable Highway Construction Practices at the meeting for the TRB Standing Committee on Construction Management (AFH10).
Mukherjee also presented the Michigan Department of Transportation study on “Workflows for Digital Project Delivery in Transportation Construction Projects” at the sub-committee meeting on Information Systems in Construction Management [AFH10(1)], where he serves as Secretary.
Mukherjee and PhD candidate Chaitanya Bhat co-authored a paper on “Sensitivity of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Outcomes to Parameter Uncertainty: Implications For Material Procurement Decision-Making.” The paper was presented at a lectern session by Bhat. It has also been accepted for publication in the Journal of the Transportation Research Record, to be published in 2019. Mr.Bhat presented his research on “Life-Cycle Thinking” in a 3 Minute Thesis event organized at TRB.
Taking advantage of their time in Washington DC, Mukherjee and Bhat, as part of their ongoing research in pavement Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) funded by the Federal Highway Administration, also organized a stakeholder meeting with fellow collaborators among members of the Federal LCA Commons.
Also in attendance were PhD students Qinjie Lyu and Jiaqing Wang.
Civil Engineering PhD student Chaitanya Bhat’s 3-Minute Thesis (3MT) presentation from the 2019 TRB Annual Meeting has been selected for a webinar titled “Operation and Preservation Young Professionals Research Part II: Pavement Preservation.”
The senior design section (CEE 4905) advised by Dr. David Hand and Dr. Eric Seagren traveled on February 1, 2019, to visit the Plainfield Township Water Department’s treatment plant outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The plant is operating a pilot-scale study examining the removal of per- and poly-fluoralkyl substances (PFAS) from their water supply using granular activated carbon (GAC). PFAS compounds were invented in the 1930s and since then have been manufactured for a variety of uses including: nonstick coatings, stain and water-resistant products, protective coatings, and firefighting foam. These compounds are very stable in water, are persistent, bioaccumulative, and not known to degrade in the environment. In 2017, Michigan was one of first states in the country to begin to establish a clean-up standard for PFAS in groundwater when used as a drinking water source. The Michigan PFAS Action Response Team, made up of several state agencies, has worked to identify PFAS contamination in the state.
The purpose of this senior design project is to develop design guidance for the use of GAC for the removal of PFAS chemicals from water supplies. GAC is a Best Available Technology (BAT) as designated by the USEPA for removal of organic chemicals from water. In fact, GAC is presently being used in several of the sites identified in Michigan for removal of PFAS compounds. Design guidance for using GAC for the removal of these compounds is needed as it can provide regulatory agencies, consulting engineers, and water utilities with the tools necessary to effectively and economically evaluate the use of GAC for treatment of these chemicals. Therefore, the main objectives of this project are to: (1) evaluate the design of the pilot-scale GAC system that has been implemented at the Plainfield Township Water Department’s treatment plant, and (2) to develop a general design guidance for the application of GAC fixed-bed adsorption processes for the removal of PFAS from drinking water.
Jiaqing Wang attended the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 98th Annual Meeting at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, January 13–17, 2019, in Washington, D.C. He presented his recent research work under Dr. Qingli Dai’s supervision. The presentation title was “Effectively Recycling Scrap Tire Rubbers into Epoxy Polymer Concrete as Overlays or Repair Materials.”
To reduce environmental landfill problems with the accumulation of tire rubbers, scrap tire rubbers were added to epoxy polymer concrete. The solid rubber particles (with mesh size #50) were introduced into epoxy concrete with two different contents of 5% and 10% based on the epoxy monomer weight. The test results indicated that the use of solid waste tires could not only enhance the performance of neat epoxy concrete, but also contribute to environmental protection while extending the service life of existing concrete structures. His presentation and the research work that was conducted in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Michigan Tech attracted the audience’s attention and interest.
Wang also attended the 9th International Association of Chinese Infrastructure Professionals (IACIP) Annual Workshop “Innovations of Transportation Infrastructure In an Era of Climate Change.” He received 2nd prize in the student poster competition.
Sarah Washko, an environmental engineering MS student, participated in the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Snow Measurement Field School on January 6-11, 2019, in Bozeman Montana. The NASA-funded course provided training for performing high-quality snow measurements in the field, as well as in the fundamentals of snow hydrology analysis. In addition to traditional field methods, remote sensing techniques were also explored.
Each day in the field concluded with a presentation of the day’s findings. The final day culminated in a student designed field campaign at the Bridger Bowl Ski area. The workshop was designed to cultivate snow measurement and research design skills.
Marjan Monfarednsab, a civil engineering graduate student, applied for and was accepted to the Society of Women Engineers’ (SWE) Women Empowered in STEM (weSTEM) Conference on February 23, 2019.
The weSTEM conference provides a forum through which current and future STEM leaders can motivate and inspire each other to excel at the frontier of scientific advancement and develop solutions for the next generation of technical challenges.
Monfarednsab is the first SWE graduate student member at Michigan Tech to be accepted to the conference. Her travel and conference costs will be funded by the SWE section and the College of Engineering, along with the conference sponsors.
Emily Gamm, a structures grad student, was awarded a scholarship to attend the American Segmental Bridge Institute (ASBI) Convention in Chicago, Nov. 5-7, 2018. She participated in technical sessions, committee meetings, networking opportunities (including meeting Michigan Tech alumnus Tim Barry) and a tour of a segmental bridge construction project. The tour also included an opportunity to sign the inside face of one of the match cast segments.
Environmental Engineering MS student Hayden Henderson traveled to the North American Lake Management Society (NALMS) annual conference in Cincinnati to present his work titled: The Role of Anoxia, Entrainment, and Intrusions in Mediating Phosphorus Trophic State Dynamics to the general audience. In addition, he was asked to speak to the attendees of a workshop on internal phosphorus loading regarding a specific research site and subsequent findings. The 38th International Symposium of NALMS took place October 30 to November 2, 2018.
After returning from the conference, Hayden was informed that the research poster he presented at the conference titled: “Neither Wolf nor Dog: P-Management in a Quasi Polymictic Lake” was awarded 1st place in the Jody Connor Student Award poster competition.
HOUGHTON — Students at Michigan Technological University’s (MTU) Sustainable Development House (SDH) have combined fish and plants into a sustainable farming system called aquaponics. The arrangement of pipes and tanks uses plants and bacteria in an inorganic substrate as the filter for fish tank water, creating an organic system that feeds the plants and keeps the fish healthy.
“We just added a ton of new fish Wednesday,” said SDH resident and project manager Rose Turner.
The aquaponic setup is part of Turner’s senior design project at MTU. It’s a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics, and has some of the strengths and weaknesses of each.
Read more at the Mining Gazette, by Joshua Vissers.
Rose is a senior environmental engineering student from Berkley, Michigan. This is her final semester at Tech and her last semester as the coordinator of the SDH.
Read more at the Michigan Tech Sustainability Demonstration House Facebook page.