To be recognized nationally and internationally for excellence in Civil Engineering education, research and service
Our faculty is active in research with other academic and research units at the university. These relationships involve teaching, research and professional and university service. Academic departments include agronomy, architecture, business and economics, geological sciences, public administration and microbiology, in addition to the other engineering departments. Research units with collaborations with civil engineering include the Kentucky Transportation Center, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, Center for Applied Energy Research, Center on Aging and UK College of Medicine.
The department has also forged many important partnerships with civil engineering-related businesses and with government agencies reliant upon the profession. These include the Federal Highway and Safety Administration, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Kentucky Cabinet for Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, Kentucky Geological Survey and the Kentucky National Guard.
The Department of Civil Engineering offers an education equal to that offered at the best engineering schools in the nation. To ensure this education continues to meet the changing needs of government, business and society, two advisory boards have been established. These boards consist of leaders in the civil engineering profession who can provide the department with wise counsel on matters such as the curriculum, laboratories and other key components of the engineer’s education.
The Civil Engineering Industry Advisory Board is concerned with the overall civil engineering department and the education imparted. The Construction Engineering Industry Advisory Board guides the specialty area of construction management within the department.
The Oliver H. Raymond Building contains the department’s faculty and administrative offices, classrooms, laboratories and computing facilities. It also houses the administrative offices and laboratories of the Kentucky Transportation Center. The student’s learning process is fostered in well-equipped teaching, research and computing facilities, assuring the education received is equal to any in the nation
The department has experimental research and teaching laboratories for the different areas of concentration. State-of-the-art laboratories are major focal points in the civil engineering program. These laboratories include:
The Construction Engineering Laboratory has been designed to provide construction engineering and management students with state-of-the-art facilities in which to develop their skills. The lab includes seven work stations networked to scanners, color printers and color plotters. Each computer has a wide range of project management software loaded: AutoCad 2000; Primevera Project Planner; Primevera Expedition; Precision Estimating; Microsoft (Excel, Word, Project, Access, Powerpoint), Pathmaker II and QFD Scope. In addition, the lab contains work tables, plan files and a reference library.
The environmental engineering laboratories are fully equipped to perform a wide range of biological and chemical analyses of water quality. The major facilities include four research laboratories with approximately 5,000 square feet of space and three gas chromatographies equipped with flame-ionization and electron- capture detectors, with both packed-column and capillary-column capability; a gradient high performance liquid chromatograph equipped with one variable wave-length UV-detector; one gas partitioner; one ion chromatograph equipped with a variable wavelength UV/Vis detector and a reagent delivery module; one atomic absorption spectrophotometer; one UV and visible recording spectrophotometer; one laboratory reduction gas detector; one electrophoresis systems (horizontal gel system, photo- documentation camera and hood, variable intensity transilluminator and constant power supply) and one 14-L laboratory fermentor. Four constant temperature environmental chambers are also available for kinetic and process evaluations.
The geotechnical engineering laboratory is equipped to perform all conventional soil mechanics tests. The laboratory has a variety of field research equipment, including a slope inclinometer, cross hole testing equipment, spectral analysis of surface waves capability, a cone penetrometer and a truck-mounted drill rig. A large variety of dynamic soil testing equipment has been developed at this facility, some of which is in use throughout the world. The laboratory includes a 1-meter radius centrifuge facility with data acquisition, advanced imageanalysis capability and a fully automated monotonic/cyclic triaxial testing system.
The hydrosystems laboratory contains nearly 3,800 total square feet with 2,400 square feet of high bay area. The laboratory is equipped with a submerged pipe and drainage gallery that permits distribution and collection of water at various points throughout the laboratory. The laboratory is equipped for both hydraulic and hydrologic experiments and includes a 40-foot tilting flume, a scale water distribution network, a pipe surge experimental apparatus, a rainfall hydro graph table, a groundwater tank and additional experimental equipment. The laboratory is used for graduate and undergraduate instruction and research.
A well-equipped materials testing laboratory is available for developing design criteria and evaluating various types of building materials. The laboratory includes facilities for performing all kinds of tests on concrete and bituminous mixes. A 300,000 pound capacity universal testing machine, smaller testing machines, environmentally controlled curing rooms, automatic freeze-thaw durability testing and other equipment are available. Most of the test results can be recorded and analyzed automatically by use of a computer-controlled data acquisition system.
Testing of full-scale structural models is carried out in a 2,000 square feet structural engineering laboratory, complete with a heavy duty loading floor, cranes and access galleries below the floor. The laboratory has special provisions for the maintenance of constant temperature and humidity. It is equipped with extensive jacking, loading and strain measuring apparatus.
All types of surveying instrumentation, including optical transits and optical reading theodolites up to first-order (Wild T-3), self-leveling and tilting levels (one with optical micrometer), two Wild DI-1000 Electronic Distance Meters, a K&E Auto-ranger and an Alpha I EDM are available in the surveying laboratory.
A Photogrammetry lab including Kelsh and Multiplex Stereo-plotters, lens and mirror stereoscopes, DBA Multi-laterative Comparator, a B&L Zoom Transfer Scope and a B&L Stereo Interpretation System are also available for student use.
The other civil engineering laboratories, especially the geotechnical and materials laboratories are also available to support research investigations in transportation. The laboratory for traffic and safety studies includes the approximately 70,000 miles of roads and streets in Kentucky and the vehicles and drivers using them. Equipment consists of portable skid test devices; skid mark analyzer; vehicle classifiers and weigh-in- motion equipment; automatic traffic recorders; speed meters; noise meters and recorders; acoustic emission instrumentation and a variety of video equipment for data collection and analysis.
The excellent computer and electronic data processing capabilities that are available for general use by engineering researchers are used extensively in support of the transportation research program. A variety of specialized software is available to support studies of traffic flow and operational control.
The water resources research laboratory contains 300 square feet of space and is equipped with four workstations, maps, digitizer, CD-ROM readers and GIS software for use in the spatial analysis of hydrologic data sets. The equipment is dedicated to both research and graduate student instruction in water resources planning and GIS applications.
