CEAT Summer Internships 2005
The Center is sponsoring four undergraduate student interns for the summer. The students are contributing to CEAT engineering research projects under sponsorship by the Federal Aviation Administration and the O’Hare Modernization Program. We hope that their experience with CEAT and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois will help them in their education and career path. Following is information on each student and the research work he or she is involved with during the internship.
Victor Cervantes
is a senior in Manufacturing Systems Engineering at California State University Northridge (CSUN). His summer research experience with CEAT is through an internship program with the Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) organized by the Graduate College at the University of Illinois.Victor’s summer research work in the Newmark Structural Engineering Lab and at ATREL is focused on Fracture Mechanics. His lab work includes adding crimped steel fibers to a concrete mixture to determine the strength of the concrete beams and studying how the steel affects the characteristics of the concrete. His experiments will include a two-parameter model test, a tensile split test, and a compressive test. Victor will also aid in collecting and analyzing data from the slab test that will be conducted during the summer.
He will write a paper on this research to complete his SROP requirements and present his research experience at the CSUN Symposium, Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. His summer research work is under the guidance of Professor Jeff Roesler and Graduate Student Cristian Gaedicke. Victor plans to purse a Masters degree and Ph.D. in Material Science at a Big Ten University, preferably the University of Illinois.
Ashraf Khodan
is studying mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He received a B.S. Degree in Physics from Al-Mustansiriyah-University at Baghdad, Iraq in 1997. Ashraf is at the University of Illinois and CEAT this summer through the International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE) program to gain technical experience in the area of civil engineering materials and, specifically, the properties of concrete.Ashraf’s experimental work while at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and CEAT is focused on bond of cement-based materials using Slant Shear Bond testing. He is testing bond strength by using repair material to bond together two equal sections of a Portland cement mortar cylinder. The test is performed by determining the compressive load required to fail the composite cylinder. The bond strength is calculated as max load over area of slant surface and the mortar mix design is a ratio of the Portland cement, water and river sand. Ashraf’s experimental work includes sawing the cylinders at a 30 degree angle into two equal sections and sandblasting the surfaces to achieve greater surface texture.
He is working under the guidance of Professor David Lange and Graduate Student Zach Grasley. In Germany, Ashraf is working specifically with electrical conductivity as an undergraduate technical assistant at TSTG, a railway company. Ashraf plans to work in the Railway industry after completing his degree in Germany.
Holly Nelson
is a sophomore at the Valparaiso University at Valparaiso, Ind. studying Civil Engineering with interests in Structures and Materials. She is a native of Champaign and a graduate of Central High School.Her summer internship with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and CEAT involves experimental research on crack-filling materials and procedures. She is researching low-viscosity urethane for penetrating thin cracks in concrete surfaces. Holly’s experiment has included working with clear acrylic molds created from broken concrete surfaces, and pouring fluid and filler sands down through the crack. The clear acrylic model allows her to photograph time sequences of the penetration of the fluid and sand. She will consider different sand gradations, different crack widths, different procedures and two different concrete surface roughnesses.
Holly is working under the guidance of Professor Lange for the summer internship. She plans to further her studies in Civil Engineering with a Masters degree and hopes to have a career in Environmental Building Design.
Kofi Kwarteng
is a senior in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is broadening his knowledge of engineering for the summer through the CEAT internship program in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Kofi first became interested in civil engineering through his father’s influence as a civil engineer taking the Engineering-in-Training (EIT) examine upon moving to the United States. Kofi is from Ghana, Africa and moved to the U.S. with his family in 2000. He started his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 2001.Kofi is working on a summer research project with CEAT on calibrating Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) probes. His experiments include plotting dry density against moisture content and from that curve he gets parameters for equations that manufacturers set for the probe. Some of his lab work entails preparing soil samples to read identical moisture contents determined by the probe after mixing the soil and drying it in an oven. This can become a tedious process to make sure all of the soil samples have an equal amount of moisture content for uniform samples.
Kofi is working under the guidance of Professor Erol Tutumluer and Graduate Student Joseph Boateng. All of his research is done at the ATREL laboratory in Rantoul. After graduation in May 2006, Kofi plans to have a career in the Power Systems or Power Distribution industry.