CIR
Center for Infrastructure Renewal

Texas A&M University

News

New UTC on Coastal Research and Education Actions for Transportation Equity (CREATE) with TEES as a consortia member

by

This year, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced grant awards for multiple University Transportation Centers (UTCs). Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) and Texas A&M University will lead or aid eight of these during the 2022-2026 Program. 

Photo of roadside erosion along the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston, TX provided by Dr. Nripojyoti Biswas.

Led by Texas State University, the Coastal Research and Education Actions for Transportation Equity (CREATE) is a Tier 1 UTC that will receive $2 million annually for five years. The CREATE consortium, which includes Texas A&M and TEES as principal partners, will research ways to improve the durability and longevity of coastal multimodal transportation infrastructure.  

Dr. Anand J. Puppala, director of the Center for Infrastructure Renewal and A.P. and Florence Wiley Chair Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Texas A&M, is the affiliated principal investigator (PI) for CREATE. Dr. James Kaihatu from civil and environmental engineering and Dr. Jens Figlus from ocean engineering are co-PIs.  

Operating from the Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR), CREATE is one of multiple infrastructure oriented UTCs that will be stationed at CIR. The team, along with Dr. Nripojyoti Biswas, TEES Senior Research Engineer I from the CIR, will work with Dr. Stacey Kulesza from Texas State University and other consortium partners, including the University of Miami, Oregon State University and the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez on research, technology transfer and workforce training activities. 

“The Center’s research on innovative technologies, technology transfer and professional preparation will train future workforce within the coastal transportation infrastructure industry,” Puppala said. “Overall, these endeavors will boost our nation’s global competitiveness and enhance national coastal infrastructure resiliency and security.” 

Ocean Engineering Ph.D. student, Josh Joubert, preparing to collect field data in Galveston Bay.

Research projects by CREATE will focus on four major research areas: 

  • Transformational coastal infrastructure design and construction 
  • Coastal transportation infrastructure evaluation, prediction and prevention 
  • Equitable response to unprecedented hazards 
  • Pathways to blue economy transportation careers 

CREATE will advance transformative knowledge and embrace disruptive technologies to provide economic, sustainable and societal benefits to coastal communities. The UTC aims to revolutionize coastal transportation infrastructure with enhanced efficiency, safety and durability, particularly for equitable infrastructure solutions in disadvantaged communities. CREATE also addresses the current and impending climate change challenges by designing innovative transportation infrastructure that can withstand coastal hazards and will work towards sustainable and resilient infrastructure for the nation. 

For more information about the UTC’s for the 2022-2026 Program: https://www.transportation.gov/utc/bil-centers-and-grantees

For more information about CIR lab spaces, tours or conference & training venues visit cir.tamu.edu

 

Smart Grid Center Short Course “Primer on the Planning and Operation of Large-Scale Electric Grids”

by

Electricity is the lifeblood of our modern society, and for most this electricity is supplied by large-scale, interconnected electric grids.  Engineered as the ultimate in plug-and-play convenience, the wall outlet is actually the gateway to the world’s largest and most complex machine.  The goal of this course is to provide a comprehensive introduction for those without an in-depth electric power engineering background on how such electric grids are designed and operated, and on how they are likely to change in the future.  The electric grid of the past, which was primarily power by large-scale fossil-fuel generators, is no longer a reality and the current system is rapidly changing.  The integration of vast amounts of renewable generation resources along with the addition of new technologies such as energy storage and large amounts of digital technology supporting its design and operation, also known as the smart grid, are presenting many new opportunities and challenges.  This course is focused on providing a non-technical introduction for those who need to understand the design and operation of electric grids.

The course philosophy is to provide in-depth coverage of the topics, but to do so using a practical, hands-on approach with abundant examples.  Throughout the course concepts will be illustrated using common industrial analysis and simulation tools including PowerWorld Simulator.  Collectively the five course instructors have wide experience in this area doing electric power system studies, software tool development, research and engineering education (Hours: CEU 2.1, PDH 21).

Who Should Attend

The course is designed to provide introductory coverage of the design and operation of large-scale electric grids for people without an electric power engineering background.  It is ideally suited for those who work in areas associated with the electric grid and need to better understand electric power engineering but don’t possess a technical degree.  Hence the course is appropriate for non-technical professionals at electric utilities and other companies in the electric power industry as well as for staff at regulatory agencies, government officials, developers, investment bankers, etc.  This short course is particularly useful for those who manage electric power engineers, for new engineers from other disciplines, for academics wishing to gain practical knowledge in this important area, and for graduate students interested in careers in the power industry.

This course counts toward the Texas A&M Certificate in Electrical Power Engineering.

Topics

  • Introduction and history of the electric grid
  • Components of the electric grid
  • Overview of how electric grids are operated
  • Modeling electric grids at the transmission level
  • Modeling electric grids at the distribution level
  • Common engineering analysis tools
  • Interconnected grid simulations
  • Electricity markets
  • How the electric grid is planned
  • Electric grid protection
  • Policy and regulator issues
  • The role of NERC and regional committees
  • Electric grid dynamics
  • Impacts of renewable resources and energy storage on the grid
  • Electric grid cyber security
  • Improving electric grid resiliency
  • Emerging technologies and their potential impact
  • “SmartGrid” or Grid Modernization

Dates and Times

October 24-26, 2023, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Location

The short course will be held in person at the Center for Infrastructure Renewal, RELLIS Campus.

Registration

Registration is open until October 16, 2023.

Registration fee is $1,795. Discount of 25% is available for employees of Smart Grid Center member companies. For more information on the discount, contact [email protected].

REGISTER NOW

Instructors

Tom Overbye, Ph.D. is a Professor and holder of the O’Donnell Foundation Chair III in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU), and Director of TEES Smart Grid Center.  He received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Before starting his academic career he was employed with Madison Gas and Electric Company, working in their planning and operations departments.  He is the original developer of PowerWorld Simulator (a widely used power system planning tool), a co-founder of PowerWorld Corporation, and an author of a widely used Power System Analysis and Design book.  He is a recipient of the IEEE Power and Energy Society Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award, an EEE Fellow, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and was responsible for the initial development of dynamics analysis in PowerWorld Simulator.

Miroslav Begovic, Ph.D. is the Carolyn S. & Tommie E. Lohman ’59 Professor, and is the former Department Head of Electrical and Computer Engineering  at Texas A&M University. Prior to that, he was Professor and Chair of the Electric Energy Research Group in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and an affiliated faculty member of the Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems and University Center of Excellence in Photovoltaic Research at Georgia Tech. Dr. Begovic obtained his PhD from Virginia Tech University.  His research interests are in monitoring, analysis, and control of power systems, as well as development and applications of renewable and sustainable energy systems. Dr. Begovic is a Fellow of IEEE and member of Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi, Phi Kappa Phi and Eta Kappa Nu. Dr. Begovic is a former Chair of the Emerging Technologies Coordinating Committee of IEEE PES, IEEE PES Treasurer (2010-2011), IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer, and serves as President of the IEEE Power and Energy Society.

Don Morrow is Founder and Partner at Grid Focus LLC, a professional services company focused on the electric utility industry.  Don has worked exclusively in the energy industry and brings a unique combination of technical knowledge and business strategy experience.  Before moving into consulting, Don spent 26 years working at electric utilities, including serving as Director of Operations and Director of Planning at American Transmission Company.  As a consultant, Don has advised clients in operations, system planning, renewable integration, grid resiliency, NERC compliance, utility business models, organizational design, technology strategy and emerging technology utilization. He has led several major transmission studies focused on increasing access to renewable energy including the EHV Overlay study for SPP, the SMARTransmisison Study for a consortium of 8 utilities in the upper Midwest and market assessment studies for Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.  Don received his BSEE and MBA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Kate Davis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University.  Dr. Davis’s work has pioneered significant enhancements to power system cyber-physical security by advancing cyber-physical modeling and analysis capabilities. Prior to joining Texas A&M in 2017, Dr. Davis was a Software Engineer and Senior Consultant for PowerWorld Corporation and with University of Illinois’s Information Trust Institute as a Research Scientist.  Her expertise includes large scale modeling, analysis, and simulations of cyber-physical power system critical infrastructure, where she has particular interest in security-oriented control system analysis techniques. She also works to facilitate transition to practice of state-of-the-art cyber-physical situational awareness capabilities for power utilities. She was recognized as IEEE Senior Member (2018), received the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station Engineering Genesis Award (2019), and became a Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) Young Faculty Fellow (2021).  She leads the Resilient Energy Systems Lab (RESLab), the cyber-physical emulation testbed created by her group, fully functional since 2020.

Le Xie, Ph.D. is the Segers Family Dean’s Excellence Professor, Chancellor EDGES Fellow, and Presidential Impact Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University, Assistant Director for Research at TEES Smart Grid Center, and the Associate Director-Energy Digitization at Texas A&M Energy Institute. He received B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2004, S.M. in Engineering Sciences from Harvard in 2005, and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon in 2009. His industry experience includes ISO-New England and Edison Mission Energy Marketing and Trading. His research interest includes modeling and control in data-rich large-scale systems, grid integration of clean energy resources, and electricity markets. Dr. Xie is a Fellow of IEEE and a PES Distinguished Lecturer. He received the U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and Oak Ridge Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award. He was awarded the 2021 IEEE Technical Committee on Cyber-Physical Systems Mid-career Award, and 2017 IEEE PES Outstanding Young Engineer Award. He was recipient of Texas A&M Dean of Engineering Excellence Award, ECE Outstanding Professor Award, and TEES Select Young Fellow. He serves or have served on the Editorial Board of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, IET Transaction on Smart Grid, and Foundations and Trends in Electric Energy Systems. He is the founding chair of IEEE PES Subcommittee on Big Data & Analytics for Grid Operations. His team received the Best Paper awards at North American Power Symposium 2012, IEEE SmartGridComm 2013, HICSS 2019 and 2021, IEEE Sustainable Power & Energy Conference 2019, and IEEE PES General Meeting 2020.

Source Link

Dr. Edith Arámbula-Mercado named Deputy Director of the CIR

by

Effective August 1, Research Engineer and Program Manager Dr. Edith Arámbula-Mercado was named Deputy Director of the CIR (Center for Infrastructure Renewal). Edith brings with her a wealth of experience, making her an excellent addition to the CIR leadership team and further strengthening the TTI/CIR partnership. 

Edith replaces Research Engineer Charles Gurganus, who will be devoting more time to teaching for the Zachry Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the contributions Charles made during his tenure as Deputy Director of the CIR.

Dr. Arámbula-Mercado has worked as a pavement engineer since the year 2000, applying her expertise in a variety of research projects sponsored by state departments of transportation, the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, and Federal Highway Administration. She joined the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) in 2010 and obtained her Texas Professional Engineering (P.E.) license in 2011. Currently, she is a Research Engineer and has served as the Manager of the Recycled Pavement Materials Program.

Dr. Mercado’s specialty lies in the characterization of flexible pavement materials, beneficial uses of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP), and pavement asset management. Her expertise includes pavement performance evaluation, material characterization, laboratory testing, and statistical data analysis. She has worked on projects related to binder specifications, aggregate characteristics, permeable friction courses, fatigue damage characterization, moisture damage evaluation, laboratory aging/conditioning, foaming, cold mixtures, and recycled materials. 

She has provided sponsored technical services for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Florida Department of Transportation, Maryland State Highway Administration, Delaware Department of Transportation, and the District of Columbia Department of Transportation.  

During her career, she has consulted for airports such as LaGuardia Airport (New York) and San Francisco International Airport performing runway conditions assessments. She has been a member of the Association of Asphalt Paving Technologists (AAPT), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), and Transportation Research Board (TRB) for which she has served on three steering committees. 

Please join me in congratulating Edith on her appointment as Deputy Director and supporting her as we continue our journey towards innovation, excellence, and a more sustainable future for our infrastructure.

All the best,  

Anand J. Puppala, PhD, PE, D-GE, F-ASCE and F-ICE

Director – Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR), RELLIS Campus  

CIR labs to be utilized for upcoming UTC research, Dr. Jeffrey Bullard named PI

by

Dr. Jeffrey Bullard, Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering and a preeminent researcher in Infrastructure Materials at CIR is the lead PI from TEES and TAMU on a new University Transportation Center (UTC), “Innovative Bridge Technologies & Accelerated Bridge Construction.” This is one of the eight UTC’s that the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced grant awards for the 2022-2026 Program. Florida International University (FIU) leads the IBT/ABC UTC. Along with TEES, UTC partners include Florida A&M University, University of Georgia, University of Nevada Reno, University of Oklahoma, and University of Washington.

The need for this UTC focused on IBT/ABC is evident when considering the current state of our nations’ bridges. According to the ASCE’s 2021 Infrastructure Report Card, the nation’s bridge score was a C, and 42% of all bridges are at least 50 years old, with the average age being 44 years old. In addition, 7.5% of all bridges are considered structurally deficient, meaning they are in “poor” condition. According to the FIU’s ABC UTC website, the mission of the IBT/ABC UTC is “to reduce the societal costs of bridge construction by reducing the duration of work zones, focusing special attention on preservation, service life, construction costs, education of the profession, safety and development of a next-generation workforce fully equipped with IBT/ABC knowledge.”

According to the ASCE’s 2021 Infrastructure Report Card, the nation’s bridge score was a C.

“Our nation’s bridges greatly need more durable and sustainable construction materials, more efficient construction and repair methods, and more effective asset management practices. I expect this UTC to help meet all three of those needs,” says Dr. Bullard. He believes that the UTC’s mission and those needs closely aligned with the resources we have to offer here at the CIR and TAMU. “Our universities and lead investigators have a wealth of resources and backgrounds in these research areas and have already demonstrated the kind of teamwork and leadership required to meet these goals.”

Research, education, workforce development and technology transfer are also some of the UTC’s main objectives. A noteworthy tactic they implement is their development and national distribution of K-12 educational material related to bridge engineering to educate and attract future generations to transportation and sustainability engineering fields. Dr. Bullard notes that the UTC gives a similar, more in depth opportunity to TAMU graduate students as well. He states that “this UTC provides an opportunity to infuse our graduate students with a sense of the excitement and urgency of being at the forefront of nationwide efforts to modernize bridge engineering practices. These students are our country’s future engineering leaders, and they will need that combination of forward-thinking creativity and pragmatic construction practice expertise that this UTC will foster.”

One way to combat the poor conditions of the nation’s bridges is to develop materials that can reach longer lives while still maintaining high performance throughout their use. Texas A&M’s focus on this UTC will be just that. Dr. Bullard and his team will be researching the “development of low-carbon concrete materials for bridges and on enabling ultrahigh performance concrete for additive manufacturing of bridge components” and he says that the CIR has “one of the nation’s best collections of laboratories for developing, processing, and characterizing these kinds of materials.”

CIR Concrete Innovation Lab, Concrete testing

Dr. Anand Puppala, Director of CIR, is delighted to see this UTC research being conducted the CIR. “This IBT/ABC UTC is one of the five major UTCs that work on infrastructure track at CIR,” he says, “I greatly appreciate the efforts by Professor Bullard in bringing this important bridge infrastructure center with focus on materials to CIR.” The CIR’s Laboratory for Advanced Characterization of Infrastructure Materials (ACIM) and the Concrete Innovation Laboratory will be two of the labs utilized for the UTC at Texas A&M. These labs feature high-precision equipment for investigating materials’ thermal and kinetic properties as well as monitoring their response to controlled environmental variables like temperature, relative humidity, and carbon dioxide partial pressure in the atmosphere.

For more information regarding this UTC at FIU, click here.

For a list of all the affiliated UTC’s in the 2022-2026 Program, click here.

For more information regarding the ACIM & Concrete Innovation Labs please visit cir.tamu.edu

Center for Infrastructure Renewal receives visit from ARPA-E

by

From left to right: Dr. Nripojyoti Biswas, Dr. Mohammad Syed, Dr. Zachary Grasley, Xincheng (Ethan) Wang, Dr. Sumedh Sharma, Dr. Kalena Stovall, Dr. Marina Sofos, Dr. Petros Sideris, Jasmine (Yasaman) Norouzi, Dr. Manish Dixit, Dr. Wei Yan, Kifah Alhazzaa, Zoheb Faisal, Dr. Maria Koliou
Left to right: Dr. Nripojyoti Biswas, Dr. Mohammad Syed, Dr. Zachary Grasley, Xincheng (Ethan) Wang, Dr. Sumedh Sharma, Dr. Kalena Stovall, Dr. Marina Sofos, Dr. Petros Sideris, Jasmine (Yasaman) Norouzi, Dr. Manish Dixit, Dr. Wei Yan, Kifah Alhazzaa, Zoheb Faisal, Dr. Maria Koliou

Dr. Marina Sofos, Program Director, and Dr. Kalena Stovall, Technical Consultant (SETA) for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), visited the Center for Infrastructure Renewal to assess the progress of the Hempcrete 3D Printed Buildings for the Sustainability and Resilience project. The project is led by PI, Dr. Petros Sideris and Co-PIs; Dr. Maria Koliou, Dr. Zachary Grasley, Dr. Anand Puppala from the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as Dr. Manish Dixit and Dr. Wei Yan from the Texas A&M College of Architecture.  

The ARPA-E team were able to see firsthand the overall progress made by Dr. Petros Sideris and his team in developing 3D-printed hempcrete material and building designs and obtained a comprehensive view of the project. The 3D-printer was put on display in the CIR’s Structural and Materials Testing (High Bay) Lab where it will be used to print the hempcrete material to study its mechanical properties, durability and various structural designs for building applications.  

After the meeting, TAMU researchers showcased several pieces of equipment within the CIR labs that aid in the research and experimentation for various durability and rheological parameters of the 3D-printed Hempcrete material, such as compression testing, freeze-thaw studies and shrinkage.   

Hempcrete is a bio-composite made of the inner woody core of hemp plants mixed with a lime-based binder and has been studied as an alternative to present day concrete materials due to its low carbon footprint and use of non-toxic materials. The project is funded by a $3.74 million grant Texas A&M received in 2022 from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) for the Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program. 

 

For more information regarding the CIR and research facilities, click here.  

Center for Infrastructure Renewal Celebrates 5th Anniversary

by

The Center for Infrastructure Renewal (CIR) opened in 2016 with one goal — to develop infrastructure practices at lower costs in less time to sustain a longer life. As the CIR enters its fifth year, it welcomes multiple new University Transportation Centers, projects and researchers who will contribute to its ongoing efforts to achieve these objectives.

CIR Director Dr. Anand Puppala expressed enthusiasm for the prospects of the center and its endeavors.

“The CIR has been making tremendous progress in the infrastructure sector, whether transportation, coastal or energy infrastructure related. Our collective focus on sustainability and resiliency is leading to robust infrastructure research solutions and some of these areas such as 3D printing, low carbon infrastructure materials, asset management, test beds in austere and agile environments, corrosion and energy grids,” he said. “We are proud of our researchers’ accomplishments and hope to do much more cutting-edge and transformative research in various infrastructure tracks in the coming years.”

Located at the Texas A&M-RELLIS campus, the CIR is a collaboration between the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) and the private sector.

“Our research endeavors at the CIR yield solutions that profoundly impact society. Through our rigorous research efforts, we explore innovative approaches and technologies to optimize the performance of critical infrastructure systems,” said Dr. John E. Hurtado, interim vice chancellor for Texas A&M Engineering and interim director of TEES. “The CIR will continue to advance infrastructure practices, promote economic growth and ensure a safe and reliable transportation system for the people of Texas and beyond.”

As a research facility, the CIR provides an ideal environment for educational growth and learning, where knowledge is cultivated, ideas are explored and the next generation of scholars and researchers are empowered to contribute to the field of infrastructure renewal.

“One accomplishment we are proud of most is that the researchers from both TEES and TTI work with many graduate and undergraduate students in research works and prepare them for future infrastructure workforce needs in Texas, the United States and many parts of the world,” Puppala said. “We are thankful to many agencies and industries for supporting our research, and we look forward to more collaborative research works with them.”

Reflecting on the past five years, CIR Deputy Director Dr. Charles Gurganus drew an analogy to a child’s growth to capture the progress made by the CIR.

“The growth and potential of the CIR has been similar to that of a child,” he said. “It has gone from an idea between TEES and TTI to a growing center at the forefront of infrastructure research. Similar to a child in its first five years, the growth has been rapid. But also similar to a child, the next five years present a vast array of growth opportunities.”

Gurganus recognized the potential impact the CIR can make on a global scale, especially given the substantial investments of both capital and time in infrastructure projects.

“The CIR is perfectly situated with expertise, equipment and facilities to help solve infrastructure’s most challenging problems,” he said. “Over the last five years, through the CIR, TTI has performed work to find solutions to rehabilitate aging roadways, identify optimum binder rates to get more bang for the buck in Texas’ seal coat program, develop new testing methods to predict the performance of pavements and create mixture designs that balance multiple performance criteria, to name a few.”

 

To learn more about our research space or event venues, visit cir.tamu.edu

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tamucir/

The Texas A&M University SystemTexas A&M UniversityTexas A&M Engineering Experiment StationTexas A&M Transportation Institute