Civil And Environmental Engineering

The sound of a small basswood bridge failing under a heavy load is more of a whimper than a bang. The snap is audible but subtle, and Jessica Baker listened intently for it dozens of times Saturday. Jessica, a junior at Blackman High School in Murfreesboro, was among a record… Read More

With a population of roughly 150 million people, the delta country of Bangladesh holds about half the population of the entire United States in an area the size of Louisiana, and exists under a near-constant risk of sea level rise and other dynamic climate changes. Now, as the world faces… Read More

Vanderbilt’s five 2020 Eisenhower Fellows assemble with Federal Highway Administration officials after the awards ceremony. From left, Ewa Flom FHWA program manager, Paul Johnson, Charles Doktycz, Will Barbour, Derek Gloudemans, Yanbing Wang and two other FHWA representatives. Five engineering Ph.D. students have received prestigious Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowships and… Read More

  Akiva students gather around the touch table display in the lobby of Vanderbilt’s Laboratory for Systems Integrity and Reliability. “This trip made me want to be an engineer.” Best feedback ever from a youngster on a fieldtrip, according to staff leaders at Vanderbilt Engineering’s Laboratory for Systems Integrity and… Read More

Students Sophia Giordano, Maggie Ford and Jong Jung each design an interactive fairy house for Cheekwood Gardens as their project in “How to Make Almost Anything.” Making things is cool. Making things that solve a problem, improve a life and make a difference is even better. Students in “How to… Read More

Douglas Adams, Daniel F. Flowers Professor, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for extraordinary research contributions in experimental nonlinear dynamic systems with societal impacts in the energy, national security and manufacturing sectors. AAAS also cited Adams, Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental… Read More

Building and testing balsa wood towers with weights on equipment that shakes them and measures the failure frequency was so popular in Professor Lori Troxel’s Structural Engineering course that the activity is now part of the first-year civil engineering module she teaches. Nathan Miller, an engineering senior from Indianapolis, arrived at… Read More

Nuclear power plants contain miles of pipes of different sizes. Shown is the turbine floor with new reheaters and secondary side piping at Unit 2, Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant, 2012. (Photo: Tennessee Valley Authority) A failing pipe can be tough to spot. It may cause a puddle, produce another… Read More

The Vanderbilt Initiative for Smart City Operations and Research worked with Nashville officials to create prediction and planning tools for emergency services. Nashville is an ideal test bed for what a smart city can be, according to researchers. Vanderbilt researchers have discovered a vortex—and this one has nothing to do with icy,… Read More

Soldiers from the 101st and Matthew Yandell, chief innovation officer of HeroWear and recent Vanderbilt engineering PhD graduate, carry howitzer rounds to simulate the physical demands of field artillery missions. Photo|Professor Karl Zelik, Vanderbilt University GPS, duct tape, microwaves and computers—these everyday items have one thing in common:  Each invented,… Read More