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‘risk and reliability’

Civil engineering students watch east Towers tumble to rubble

Aug. 2, 2021—Four civil engineering students and their professor were guests of Layton Construction to view the July 31 mechanical demolition of Vanderbilt’s 14-story Carmichael Towers East residence halls from one of the company’s set locations. The implosion process on Nashville’s West End Avenue was overseen by Layton Construction LLC and by Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI), a national leader...

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Baroud receives NSF Early CAREER Award to predict and inform community hazard response

Mar. 11, 2020—Hiba Baroud has received a 2020 NSF Faculty Early CAREER Development grant to boost community resilience and sustainability through a three-pronged project that starts with a better understanding of how people and infrastructures interact during hazards. The five-year, $500,000 grant, “Policy-Infrastructure-Community Interdependencies: The Next Frontiers in Dynamic Networks,” begins July 1, 2020. Baroud, assistant professor...

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Revamped civil engineering curriculum ignites students’ passions

Nov. 3, 2019—Nathan Miller, an engineering senior from Indianapolis, arrived at Vanderbilt in August 2016 thinking he would major in chemical engineering. Like all first-year students, he selected three eight-week modules that introduce different disciplines within engineering. He took chemical, civil and mechanical engineering. The first day of the civil engineering module—students were to design and 3D-print...

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Alert system for failing nuclear plant pipes uses thin films and sound vibrations

Oct. 24, 2019—A failing pipe can be tough to spot. It may cause a puddle, produce another sign of damage, or simply burst before detection. A flooded kitchen or laundry room is messy and inconvenient, but the stakes are much, much higher in nuclear power plants – which on average contain many miles of pipeline. As concern...

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Vanderbilt School of Engineering offers new master of risk, reliability, and resilience engineering

Jan. 26, 2018—A new master’s degree from Vanderbilt University School of Engineering will prepare students to meet increasing workforce needs in risk, reliability and resilience engineering. The Risk, Reliability, and Resilience (RRR) Engineering professional master’s degree program is expected to be of great interest. Companies have been asking whether the School of Engineering has such a program...

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ABS underwriting cost of employee’s PhD in risk and reliability

Nov. 3, 2017—One of the world’s largest marine classification societies is sponsoring a PhD student in risk and reliability engineering, an arrangement that could become more common as the number of jobs requiring graduate degrees outside of academia continues to increase. Eric VanDerHorn, a senior engineer at Houston-based ABS (the American Bureau of Shipping), has completed two...

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Conferences draw 700 engineers from 25 nations to Vanderbilt

May. 23, 2016—Computational mechanics, materials and risk and reliability loom large on session agenda Engineers from 25 nations will return home from Vanderbilt with the most comprehensive, up-to-the-minute information available on predicting how well systems and infrastructure will stand up to stress — and new materials under development to make sure they can. The Engineering Mechanics Institute...

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Vanderbilt team examines human factors in nuclear power plant operations

Nov. 10, 2014—The team studying ways to help nuclear power plant operators improve work performance and safety includes, from left, Julie Adams, Ph.D., Shilo Anders, Ph.D., Sankaran Mahadevan, Ph.D., and Matthew Weinger, M.D. Not pictured is Dan France, Ph.D., MPH. (photo by Anne Rayner) A multidisciplinary Vanderbilt team with deep experience in improving patient safety and technology...

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