FAA COE Student of the Year – Zach Grasley

grasley

Zachary Grasley has been named the 2005 DOT COE Student of the Year. Zach is a Ph.D. student with CEAT in the University of Illinois’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He completed his Master’s in Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois in 2003 under faculty advisor and CEAT Director, David Lange. Professor Lange is also his advisor for the Ph.D. work which he is expected to defend in June 2006. Zach completed his B.S. in Civil Engineering at Michigan Technology University in 2001, graduating Summa Cum Laude.

The Award

For the past fifteen years, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has honored an outstanding student from each University Transportation Center (UTC) at a special ceremony held during the TRB Annual Meeting, and FAA has been invited for the past six years to submit a nomination. Zach is the fourth student from the University of Illinois to receive this award. As the Outstanding Student of the Year, Zach will receive a certificate presented by a high-ranking Departmental official. In addition to the certificate, Zach will receive $1,000 through an award from the Center, plus the cost of attendance at TRB. Selection for the award was based upon his accomplishments in three areas: Technical Merit and Research, Academic Performance; and Professionalism and Leadership.

His Research

Zach has been involved in several research projects while pursing his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Illinois and with CEAT. Zach’s research during his Ph.D. studies has been focused on PCC Mix Designs, August 2004- June 2006. This research project involves assisting in the optimization of concrete mixture design specifications for a new airfield pavement at O’Hare International Airport and assessing the feasibility of using recycled concrete aggregate as an internal curing agent in new airfield pavement. Zach has also received an Eisenhower Fellowship Research award through the National Highway Institute for developing new analytical models for predicting shrinkage of concrete as both a composite and viscoelastic material in which he authored the grant proposal. In addition, Zach won a PCA Research Fellowship in support of his work on the project New Sensor Tech. to Measure Int. Moisture Content in Concrete.

His Publications

Zach is a prolific researcher with 25 publications and 17 presentations to date. His most noteworthy are listed below:

Refereed Journal Publications

  • 1. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, “Thermal Dilation and Internal Relative Humidity of Hardened Cement Paste”, Materials and Structures, accepted for publication, (2005).
  • 2. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, M.D. D'Ambrosia, S. Chapa-Villalobos, "The Internal Relative Humidity of Concrete: What Does it Mean?", Concrete International, accepted for publication (2005).
  • 3. M. D. D’Ambrosia, D. A. Lange, Z. C. Grasley, C.-J. Lee, S. A. Altoubat, J. R. Roesler, “Instrumentation and Analysis of High Performance Concrete Bridge Decks”, Transportation Research Record, accepted for publication (2005).
  • 4. A.J. Brinks, D.A. Lange, M.D. D’Ambrosia, Z.C. Grasley, ‘A Layered Finite Element Model for the Analysis of Segregated Concrete’, ACI Materials Journal, submitted for publication, (2005).
  • 5. Z.C. Grasley, G.W. Scherer, D.A. Lange, J.J. Valenza, “Dynamic Pressurization Method for Measuring Permeability and Modulus: II. Cementitious Materials”, Materials and Structures, submitted for publication, (2005).
  • 6. Z.C. Grasley, M.D. D'Ambrosia, D.A. Lange, "Internal Relative Humidity and Drying Stress Gradients in Concrete", Materials and Structures, accepted for publication (2004).
  • 7. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, "Modeling Drying Shrinkage Stress Gradients in Concrete", Cement, Concrete, and Aggregates, v 26 n 2 (2004).

Book Chapters

  • 8. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, M.D. D'Ambrosia, "Drying Stresses and Internal Relative Humidity in Concrete", Materials Science of Concrete VII, ed. Jan Skalny (2005).

Refereed Conference Proceedings

  • 9. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, A.J. Brinks, M.D. D'Ambrosia, "Modeling Autogenous Shrinkage of Concrete Accounting for Creep Caused by Aggregate Restraint", proc. of 4th Int. Conf. on Self-Desiccation & its Importance in Conc. Tech., NIST, Gathersburg, MD, June (2005).
  • 10. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, Y-S Liu, "Volume Change Mechanisms in Concrete: New Directions for Modeling", proc. of Knud Hojgaard Conference, June (2005).
  • 11. M.D. D'Ambrosia, D.A. Lange, Z.C. Grasley, "Measurement and Modeling of Creep and Shrinkage of Concrete under Stress from Shrinkage at Early Ages ", ACI SP 220 (2004).
  • 12. Z.C. Grasley, D.A. Lange, "Early-Age Concrete Stresses Induced by Drying Shrinkage and Thermal Dilation", proc. of 5th Int. PhD Symp. in Civil Eng., Delft, The Netherlands (2004).