This week, Silas Nichols, Principal Bridge Engineer – Geotechnical at Federal Highway Administration, visited the Center for Infrastructure Renewal. Dr. Anand Puppala, Interim Director showed the CIR’s unique state-of-the-art facilities. During the facility tour, Silas was able to visit with CIR researchers and students on their work in Corrosion, Structures, and Geomaterials.

Dr. Raymundo Case provided an in-depth look at the ongoing work in the National Corrosion and Materials Reliability Lab, which focuses on solutions to the corrosion needs of industry and government in order to maximize asset life, production efficiency and worker safety. While Dr. Pete Keating showed the Structural and Materials Testing Lab’s unique ability to perform both full-scale, and also component and material testing. Prince Kumar and other members of the Geomaterials team spoke with Silas over their student research projects in the Geotechnical and Unbound Materials Innovation Lab which allows researchers to investigate soil behaviors, pavement geomaterials, soil stabilization, geosynthetics, and rehabilitation techniques that can be implemented in the short and long term.