CEAT 2008 Summer internship Program
CEAT Summer Minority Internship Program
FAA sponsored
June 2 - August 1, 2008
Carlos Zarraga, Dean Graves, Michelle Del Aguila, Prof Lange, Maria Quinones, Nathan Kebede, Kevin Bailey
First Row: Peter Pascau, Victor Cervantes, Jacob Henschen, David Marks
Summer 2008 Interns
Kevin Bailey | Michelle Del Aguila | Dean Graves | Nathan Kebede | Maria Quinones | Carlos Zarraga
Kevin Bailey
University of Illinois
Civil Engineering
Kevin worked with the CEAT FAA project: Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDTE) Technologies for Airport Pavement Acceptance and Quality Assurance Activities . He summarizes his work in the paragraphs to follow:
Quality control is a big part of civil engineering and the world in general. Various methods have been practiced and researched but few implemented. The method of coring has dominated, but recent advancements allow for alternatives to drilling holes everywhere, such as the nuclear gage and ground penetrating radar. The project I have helped research this summer is to acquire an efficient method of using the ground penetrating radar to measure the density of the hot mix asphalt rapidly, continuously and most of all accurately.
The dominance of the coring method has damaged new pavements, caused more damage to the existing pavements and offered only discrete data. Another popular method is a nuclear gage. The nuclear gage is a nondestructive way to evaluate the pavement. This is an improvement, but still offeres many disadvantages. Similar to the coring method, you can only analyze discrete data. The use of a nuclear gage requires a licensed technician. The GPR (Ground Penetrating Radar) is better than the coring method and the use of a nuclear gage.
For the experimental procedure, a fractional experimental design was used. The complete factorial correlation between dielectric constant and density of the hot mixed asphalt (HMA) experimental design was far too large; it was composed of 540 specimens. The fractional design is composed of 22 slabs varying in mixture type, aggregate type, binder type, air void percentage and slab thickness.
Michelle Del Aguila 
California State University, Long Beach
Civil Engineering
Michelle is a senior this Fall '08 at California State University in Long Beach, CA majoring in Civil Engineering. She participated in the CEAT Summer Internship Program funded by the Center's FAA Minority Internship Project. Professor John Popovics was her advisor for the summer working on a CEAT project at the Newmark Civil Engineering Lab. Graduate Student Sara Alzate Diaz worked with Michelle to make her experience a success.
Michelle worked wiht the CEAT FAA Project: Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation (NDTE) Technologies for Airport Pavement Acceptance and Quality Assurance Activities. A summary of her internship research experience:
Michelle's research included work wiht the impact echo method, a non-destructive testing technique used to test surface, internal flaws, defects, and interfaces of materials suchas concrete. Graduate Student, Sara Alzate Diaz, and Michelle performed several tests with the impact echo method on a short-span concrete bridge located on US-150 near Mahomet, IL.
Short-Span Bridge Analysis :
• Overall Fair Condition, still in use by daily traffic
• Highest frequency ranges had corresponding thickness value ranges between 0.5 and 6.05 in
• 4th highest frequency ranges had corresponding thickness value ranges between 17 and 25.20 in
Michelle also worked on a project constructing a field box for carrying equipment and other materials on-site. See a photo below of the field box she constructed.
Field Box Specifications:
• To store impact-echo equipment
• Dimensions 22"x22"x5"
• 2 compartments
• 2 locks, 2 hinges, 1 handle
• 2 coats of wood finisher for added protection
Dean Graves
University of Illinois
Civil Engineering
Dean is junior this Fall ’08 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Civil Engineering. He participated in the CEAT Summer Internship Program funded by the Center’s FAA Minority Internship Project. Professor Erol Tutumluer was his advisor for the summer working on a CEAT project at the Newmark Civil Engineering Lab and ATREL in Rantoul. Graduate Students Phil Donovan and Debakanta Mishra worked with Dean to make his experience a success.
Dean worked on the CEAT FAA research project: Subgrade Support and Stabilization. He summarizes his work in the paragraphs to follow.
During my research at CEAT, I worked with Professor Erol Tutumluer. I worked on two parts during my research. I worked with Phillip R. Donovan doing library research and pavement testing at ATREL with Debakanta Mishra.
Phillip Donovan's project studies the effects of aircraft wander patterns on the rutting behavior of granular layers in airfield pavements. My task was to use the university resources to find literature pertaining to the project. This introduced me to methods of literature search for conducting reseach work in a technical area. The tasks included me finding vaious books and articles through Grainger search engines and indexes, then to copy the needed article, and keep track of the articles obtained and articles that are still needed.
At ATREL, Debakanta Mishra's project studies characteristics of Illinois Aggregates fro Subgreade Replacement and Subbase. The project work with IDOT (Illinois Department of Transportation) to help better categorize, qualify, and distinguish different types of aggregates used in the cration of construction platforms. My work on the project was to assist in preparing samples for Tri-axial testing. Typical pavement systems are designed to be a contruction platform, and consist of different aggregates for different purposes. This poject analysizes the mid layer aggregate to help improve IDOT classifications and requirements for subbase aggregates in pavements.
Nathan Kebede
Jackson State University
Civil Engineering
Nathan is a junior this fall '08 at Jackson State University majoring in Civil Engineering. He participated in the CEAT Summer Internship Program funded by the Center's FAA Minority Internship Project. Professor Bill Buttlar was his advisor for the summer working on a CEAT project at the Newmark Civil Engineering Lab. Post Doctorate Alex Apeagyei and Graduate Student Andrew Braham worked with Nathan at the during his internship.
Nathan worked on research for Professor Buttlar on CEAT FAA Project: Development of New Methodologies for Mechanistic Design of Asphalt Overlays. In the paragraph below, Nathan gives an abstract to his summer research work:
The BBR (Bending Beam Rheometer) is a Superpave binder test used to determine an asphalt binder's low temperature PG grading. This test requires expensive pieces of hardware and sophisticated computer software to analyze the data. This research has attempted to use teh acoustic emissions technique to classify asphalt binder's characteristec at sbu-zero temperatures. Low temperature cracking can be monitored and studied through the acousic emissions technique. Moreover, this test helps pinpoint the formation of cracks at a specific time and temperature. Samples were prepared by means of casts made on granite slabs. These samples were cooled in a chamber and monitored through the method of acoustic emissions. The data collected was filtered through a set threshold and frequency level. Filtered data were analyzed to better understand the exact time and temperature of the crack formation. This is an ongoing research that is showing remarkable results and high progress. The results from this test have compared well with the results of the BBR.
Maria Quinones
University of Illinois
Civil Engineering
Maria is a junior this fall '08 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign majoring in Civil Engineering. She participated in the CEAT Summer Internship Program funded by the Center's FAA Minority Internship Project. Professor Jeff Roesler was her advisor for the summer. Graduate Students Victor Cervantes and Amanda Bordorlen worked with Maria to make her experience a success.
Maria worked with the CEAT FAA project: Alternative Fatigue Cracking Modes on Airfield Rigid Pavements, and the OMP project, Concrete Pavement Studies. Maria's introduction and purpose of her work is below:
Material testing was carried out using the concrete mix and design also utilized for the thin concrete pavement (TCP) project taking place in the Advanced Transportation Research and Engineering Laboratory (ATREL). Compressive strength, tensile split strength, three-point bending (TPB), flexural strength, and elastic modulus tests were conducted for the mixtures to characterize fracture and strength of the material. Samples were divided into sections: Section 1 and Section 2 with the addition of synthetic fibers. The strength of concrete can be a good indicator of the concrete's quality and potential performance (1). The fracture properties of the concrete can provide more description of the maximum load capacity of the material and the crack propagation resistance or toughness of the material, which is provided by TPB samples (1).
The objective of this study was to understand material properties of concrete samples that are incorporated in the TCP project in ATREL. The goal of the larger research is to analyze the performance data of small panel size thin concrete pavements to conclude its efficiency and propose its use in different traffic levels (2). Several variables are incorporated, including the thickness (ranging from 4-8 inches) of the slabs, the base type (asphalt/stabilized or granular/unstabilized base), and the addition of fiber to some sections/samples (2). Typical jointed plain concrete pavement slabs are regulated to 8 to 12 feet in thickness, therefore a decrease in the thickness to 4 feet is quite significant with TCP (2).
Carlos Zarraga
University of New Orleans
Civil Engineering
Carlos is senior this fall '08 at the University of New Orleans. He participated in the Summer Research Opportunity Program (SROP) organized through the UIUC Graduate College. CEAT sponsored his research work with the Center's Summer Internship Program funded by the FAA Minority Internship Project. Professor David Lange was his advisor for the summer working on a CEAT project at the Newmark Civil Engineering Lab. Graduate Students Peter Pascua worked with Carlos to make his experience a success.
Through the SROP internship program, Carlos received an award for "Outstanding Scholorship". As a SROP intern he participated in many activities hosted by this group, including presentations, writing and testing skills. Carlos worked with the CEAT FAA project: Determination of Critical Loading Cases for Curled Slabs, and the CEAT OMP project: Concrete Pavement Studies. A summary of his research work entitled, "How does the Permeability of Concrete affect its Durability?" is in the paragraph to follow.
The durability of concrete has proven to be a formidable obstacle in the service life of new and existing structures. The durability of concrete is a function of permeability. Permeability is governed by the capillary pores in the cement paste. Pores that are too large will result in a high permeability, while pores that are small will result in a low permeability. The objective of this research is to study the permeability of concrete as the water-to-cement ratio is changed. For this investigation, the AutoClam device will be used to explore the permeability of different water-to-cement ratios respectively. Results presented in this investigation will provide valuable knowledge of the durability of concrete. Current research and or tests will study any relationships between water permeability and the water-cement ratio of the concrete mix. Our ultimate goal will be to show/prove an inverse relationship between water permeability and concrete ewater-to-cement ratio. The test results show thtat by increasing or decreasing of water-to-cement ratio and curing time, the permeability of concrete changes. The AutoClam can be tested side by side with a 16' head of water and or the Rapid Chloride Permeability ASTM standard permeability test.
Chicago White Sox Game
On July 21, 2008, the CEAT graduate students and summer interns took a break from their research work to attend a Chicago White Sox game. This was a team building activity for the summer interns and the graduate student mentors. CEAT Director, Professor Lange, also attended the game with the students. The White Sox played the Texas Rangers. 
CEAT Summer Internship Program Kick-off Picnic
As the CEAT Summer Internship Program began, the Center hosted a cookout at Hessel Park in Champaign on June 5, 2008. All of the CEAT interns, CEAT graduate students and CEAT faculty were invited to attend.