The 28-year-old University of Utah civil and environmental engineering assistant professor, who also is a faculty member in the U’s nuclear engineering program, was just named one of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” in science. He, along with academics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and NASA’s Langley Research Center among others, were named one of this year’s outstanding young scientists and scientific entrepreneurs in fields from mathematics to neuroscience and genetics. McDonald was the only researcher from Utah named.

“It feels incredibly exciting,” he said about the announcement. “It’s an honor. It’s also motivation to keep doing more — to get more research funding and get more students to the University of Utah and grow the research program.”

Forbes also named 30 standout individuals each in areas including consumer technology, art and style, energy, finance, music and sports. The science honorees were picked from a list of nominees by judges Cigall Kadoch, assistant professor at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; Robert Langer, Institute Professor at MIT; and author John Scalzi.

McDonald, who was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida, received his bachelor’s in chemistry at the University of West Florida and a doctorate in radiochemistry at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. Radiochemistry is the study of the chemical properties of nuclear materials.

“My favorite class in high school was chemistry, and for my first chemistry course in college I had one of the most phenomenal professors,” he said. “I thought, ‘If this is what chemistry is like, I want to do it.’ And I was hooked since then.”

After researching nuclear forensics at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington, McDonald joined the University of Utah in 2014.

“I absolutely love it,” he said about his experience so far at the U. “I love interacting with students and the excitement from students.”

McDonald’s research focuses on better understanding how nuclear materials behave in the environment and figuring out better ways to identify them. This can help officials locate where the contents of a nuclear device came from or who may have constructed a bomb after detonation.

“There is a huge push in the Department of Energy and Department of Defense to train more people in this area,” he said. “We have a shortage of people in this field.”
McDonald also will be hosting a Department of Homeland Security Nuclear Forensics Undergraduate Summer School this year at the U for 12 students who will be taking courses in nuclear forensics.

New funding of $1.3 million will help the University of Utah determine the suitability of building carbon capture and storage sites near the Hunter and Huntington power plants.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy said the Utah project is among 16 carbon storage projects across the nation selected to receive more than $44 million for cost-shared research and development.

The initiative is designed to reduce pollutants from the burning of fossil fuels, including the development of commercial-scale geologic storage sites for carbon dioxide emissions. A commercial-scale site would be able to store in excess of 50 million tons of pollutants from industrial sources, which are estimated to comprise 21 percent of U.S. emissions.

University of Utah researchers were selected to take part in the first phase of the initiative, which involves a coordinated effort to conduct a “pre-feasibility” study encompassing regulatory and technical requirements of such a site.

Carbon capture and storage is one way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide by capturing the emissions and storing them underground.

The U. project is led by Brian McPherson, a professor in the university’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The group will do an analysis of subbasin suitability near the 895-megawatt Huntington Power Plant and the 1,320 megawatt Hunter Power Plant.

Read the full article at the Deseret News.

Dr. Amanda Bordelon and her students Catalina Arboleda and James Holt constructed “smog-eating” concrete panels for the 6th floor roof terrace of the Quinney Law Building. These panels contain TiO2 nanoparticles embedded in a concrete mixture. The TiO2 is activated by UV light and moderate humidity levels in the air to break down NOx, SOx, and VOCs found in smog. The group is looking for funding to analyze the effect of cement color (chemistry and albedo effects) on the efficiency of the reaction. Past research done related to efficiency and rejuvenation of the embedded TiO2 particles has been published by the Dr. Bordelon’s group in Construction and Building Materials journal http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950061815302142.

Adam Olsen, Nuclear Ph.D. student, presented a poster at the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) Academic Research Initiative (ARI) 9th annual grantees program review meeting. The review meeting, July 12th-14, topics covered were nuclear forensics, materials research, and passive detection technologies. As a part of the meeting activities Olsen’s poster was named as one of the top three posters presented.

Olsen’s research presented was focused on quantitatively characterizing the surface morphology of the uranium oxide U3O8. The purpose of the characterization is help determine the origin of interdicted uranium oxide. The U3O8 samples were synthesized between 600°C – 800°C while holding other parameters constant. The samples were then analyzed by powder-XRD to determine purity and imaged with an SEM. The SEM images were analyzed by segmenting individual sub-particles which were then measured to determine attributes such as particle area and circularity.

University of Utah Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) student chapter receives the Student Chapter Award Honorable Mention from the western ITE region in the Western ITE Annual meeting on July 12th in Albuquerque, NM. There are a total of 29 quantified student chapter compete for the award, and for a second year in a row, University of Utah student chapter is acknowledged as the runner-up.

The purpose of the Student Chapter Award is to encourage Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Student Chapters to:

More information here.

Dr. Richard Porter was a keynote speaker in the open plenary session of the 2nd Serbian Road Congress in Belgrade, Serbia. The 2nd Serbian Road Congress was held in Belgrade, on June 9-10, 2016.

Their mission states” Roads influence on the life of modern society and determine the paths of future development. The way society relate to roads, and the way roads relate to nature, reflects the way society relate to its environment and itself. Responsible decision-making, based on new technologies of planning and design, as well as construction based on modern techniques of materialisation of these projects, will turn good ideas to even better road infrastructure. These irrefutable facts form the main topics of the forthcoming Second Serbian Road Congress in Belgrade.”

Find out more here.

Repair of damaged bridge columns following an earthquake is a good alternative to replacement; benefits include cost savings, reduction in construction time, and decreased interruption of emergency services. The objective of bridge repair is to rehabilitate damaged columns to a performance level similar to the original performance by restoring their lateral load and displacement capacity. In the design of bridges for earthquakes, damage is typically directed to bridge columns, thus protecting the pier caps and footings; hence, the post-seismic repair is focused on columns. Repair techniques for damaged columns include externally bonded carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) jackets, steel jackets and reinforced concrete jackets. Until recently it has been assumed that when longitudinal bars within the column buckle or fracture the column should be replaced.

Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) is gaining acceptance because of reduced construction time and minimal traffic interruption. Grouted Splice Sleeves (GSS) have been gaining attention as a possible precast concrete connection method for ABC in seismic regions. Findings from recent ABC research indicate that columns connected using GSS connectors concentrate column damage and decrease the area of damage compared to traditional monolithic construction. These characteristics are advantageous for repair purposes, leaving a relatively undamaged column for relocation of the area of column damage.

The repair method has been implemented on four severely damaged precast concrete columns connected using GSS connectors. The specimens were column-to-footing and column-to-pier cap joints, and had undergone quasi-static cyclic loading, simulating earthquakes reaching a severe damage state before being repaired. Damage was concentrated at the column ends and included concrete crushing, rebar fracture and rebar pullout from the GSS, thus significantly compromising lateral load and displacement capacity.

The repair technique uses materials that are easy to install including epoxy anchored headed steel bars, CFRP sheets and either nonshrink or expansive concrete. The first step in the repair procedure was to create a prefabricated CFRP shell. While the CFRP shell was curing, the holes for the headed steel bars were drilled into the footing or pier cap and the headed steel bars were epoxy anchored into place around the column. After the CFRP shell had cured it was split in half and placed around the column to simulate field conditions; three additional CFRP layers were applied to complete construction of the CFRP shell, which also acted as stay-in-place formwork. Once the CFRP shell had fully cured, either nonshrink or expansive concrete was cast inside the shell.

The strength and displacement capacity of the damaged bridge columns was restored by achieving approximately the same displacement and lateral load as the original specimens. The result is a cost effective repair which could be installed within a few days. The research was funded by the Utah, New York State and Texas Departments of Transportation and the Mountain Plains Consortium.

According to Dr. Chris Pantelides, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah and principal investigator of the research, “although the repair was developed for precast concrete columns it could be extended to cast-in-place columns; it has the potential to be used in the retrofit of columns before an earthquake as well as the repair of columns after an earthquake.” Based on the overall performance, this is a viable repair technique for severely damaged columns in regions with strong earthquakes. Even though initial column damage was severe, the method is robust and applicable to columns with varying damage states including buckled or fractured longitudinal steel bars. The repair technique is rapid and satisfies the requirements of accelerated bridge construction.

The research can be found in a paper titled “Seismic Repair of Severely Damaged Precast Reinforced Concrete Bridge Columns Connected with Grouted Splice Sleeves,” accepted and soon to be published by ACI Structural Journal.

On Saturday, April 2, the University of Utah’s Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers earned a spot at the National Steel Bridge Competition, held this year on May 27-28 at BYU. Only the top three teams advance from the Rocky Mountain Regional Conference. The regional conference was contested this year at Denver, CO. The region consists of schools from the states of Colorado, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.

Each of the 14 teams competing this year designed and fabricated a steel bridge before the event. During the competition, the teams race to construct their bridge. The bridge this year spanned 21-feet, crossed a river, and supported 2,500 pounds. A team’s cost comes from a formula that combines time to construct the bridge, the number of construction laborers used by the team, the weight of the bridge, and the deflection of the bridge when it supports the required load. Costs are added for construction and/or design violations. Teams’ bridges are ranked by lowest total cost.

Last year over 225 teams across North America vied for 47 positions at the national competition. Hence, it is a great honor for this year’s team to have made to the national level. Utah’s team is captained by Kevin Simmons and includes construction team members Tom Buhler, Treven Edwards, Ian Hartman, Alan Palmer, and Nick Reay.