Undergraduate laboratory facilities include:
Also, departmental research laboratories, sometimes used for education, include:
In addition, the Department maintains its own equipment for fabrication as well as enjoys shared use of a small machine shop located in Latrobe Hall. These facilities are used in support of the educational and research laboratories.
Details of the undergraduate laboratory facilities are provided below.
Access/Safety: Students interested in using any facility beyond the computer laboratory must review the JHU CE Laboratory Manual before being provided access. Lab Technician Nickolay Logvinovsky is in charge of laboratory safety and can answer any questions or assist in training as-needed. In addition, faculty member Prof. Narutoshi Nakata is the faculty point of contact regarding laboratory safety. Students are always encouraged to ask questions and should never use equipment that they have not been instructed to use.
Access/Obtaining a Lab Key: Keys to laboratories (including the computing lab) can be obtained in the Civil Engineering Suite on the second floor of Latrobe. A key will be loaned with a $10 dollar deposit, to be returned when the key is returned.
Computers/General: See the Senior Design Computing Laboratory (below) this facility is open to all civil engineering undergradutes. In addition, Macs and PCs are available at the Krieger Academic Computing Lab located at 161 Krieger Hall. For faster wireless connections, try using the Hopkins network.
Details of the undergraduate laboratory facilities follow.
Senior Design Computing Laboratory (Latrobe 8): The Department maintains a small computing laboratory in Latrobe Hall. Professors Guest and Schafer currently maintain this laboratory. The facility includes 6 Windows workstations. New machines are purchased periodically. Private philanthropy has aided this lab, specifically the financial and in-kind contributions from Bentley Systems, Inc. and the financial contributions from Vice President of Research at Bentley Systems, Inc.: alumnus Buddy Cleveland. The machines have Bentley Systems full suite of software, most notably: Microstation for CAD, and STAAD for structural analysis. In addition to standard Office productivity software, the workstations also have Matlab and ABAQUS installed, for mathematical and high-level finite element analysis, respectively. Other engineering specific software needed for undergraduate education is installed on these machines. Access is provided 24/7 to the students once a key is obtained from the Academic Program Coordinator: Lisa Wetzelberger.
Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory (Latrobe 14): The undergraduate teaching laboratory is a multi-purpose space for all undergraduate laboratories in the Department. This laboratory is maintained by Lab Technician Nickolay Logvinovsky. The laboratory was renovated in January 2011. The laboratory consists of a 12 kip screw-driven ATS universal testing machine with a dedicated PC workstation using LabView for data acquisition (primarily load and displacement from the ATS machine, as well as extensometer, strain, and acceleration signals, as needed), an upright environmental chamber, whiteboards, overhead projector, reel-fed power lines from the ceiling, and tables and chairs on wheels for easy configuration. For the undergraduate curriculum this space is used in Statics and Mechanics of Materials (560.201), Dynamics (560.202), Fluid Mechanics (560.351), and Civil Engineering Design I and II (560.349/350). Labs are setup and knocked down by Lab Technician Mr. Logvinovsky and typically administered by Professors with aid from Teaching Assistants. The laboratory equipment for supporting the labs is stored in the Undergraduate Teaching Laboratory as well as in the vestibule office storage area (Latrobe 11) maintained by Mr. Logvinovsky. Access for students is provided during regular laboratory times, after hours access is available for student performing independent research upon request by faculty to the Academic Program Coordinator: Lisa Wetzelberger.
Soil mechanics laboratory (Latrobe 18): The undergraduate soil mechanics laboratory is a dedicated lab providing facilities for students to perform their weekly experiments as part of Soil Mechanics (560.305). This laboratory is maintained by Professor Anandarajah. This laboratory includes equipment required for soil classification, manual triaxial testing, a permeameter, an unconfined compression testing device, a seepage tank, a quicksand tank, a bearing capacity tank and a consolidation setup. In addition, this lab is also utilized for Fluid Mechanics (560/570.351) specifically with a pipe friction apparatus for measuring pressure losses in various piping systems, and a self-contained tilting flume to demonstrate phenomena of hydraulic jump, flow over weirs and other submerged shapes. Access for students is provided during regular laboratory times, after hours access is available for student performing independent research upon request by faculty to the Academic Program Coordinator: Lisa Wetzelberger.
Departmental research laboratories are also used for education. Examples include direct use in classes as well as undergraduate research. As an example of direct use: Professor Schafer’s Thin-walled Structures Laboratory, described below, contains a 100 kip MTS universal testing machine that is used for testing concrete cylinders in Concrete (560.325). Further, Professor Nakata’s Smart Structures and Hybrid Testing Laboratory was used multiple times for demonstrations and laboratories in Dynamics (560.202). Undergraduate researchers are active in all of the laboratories.