"Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT"
is published quarterly by the
Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Bldg. 1-383, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139

Editor: Debbie Levey
(617)253-7101
levey@mit.edu

Comings & goings

Honors/awards

            Prof. Rafael Bras has been elected as the next president of the American Geophysical Union’s hydrology section, and Dr. Claire Welty ‘89 will be the new secretary.

            Chalmers University in Gottenberg, Sweden, has awarded Prof. David Marks an honorary doctorate for Leadership in Global Sustainability. “This is a wonderful recognition of Dave’s international accomplishments in environmental research and education,” says Prof. Dan Roos, who has been spreading the good news.

            Doctoral student Monica Starnes, who is currently doing experiments at the National Institute for Standards and Testing, will receive the ACI-James Instruments Student Award 2001 for the best non-destructive testing paper. The title is “Quantitative Infrared Thermography for Quality Control of Concrete Structures Strengthened with FRP Composites,” and her co-authors are Nicholas J. Carino, an engineering scientist at NIST, and her advisor, Prof. Eduardo Kausel.

            One of this year’s three winners of the Marvin E. Goody awards for completion of a thesis in the Spring 2002 term was grad student Georgios Constantinides. The award recognizes those who extend the horizons of existing building techniques and use of materials, encourage links between the academic world and the building industry, and increased appreciation of the bond between good design and good building.
            Constructing and operating buildings consumes the majority of the world’s natural resources and energy, and contributes the bulk of the landfill waste, points out Constantinides. His thesis, “The Elastic Properties of Calcium-Leached Cement Pastes and Mortars: A Multi-Scale Investigation,” applies durability mechanics theory to study the effect of chemical degradation on cement based materials, the dominant construction material in the world.
“I investigate the durability performance of concrete in a specific degradation scenario, calcium leaching, which can occur when concrete dams, tunnels, nuclear containment vessels, etc. remain in contact with water over long periods of time.” He has recently gained his SM and is working toward a PhD in the Structures and Materials group of CEE.

            Seven years ago Prof. Joe Sussman helped found the ITS (Intelligent Transportation Society) Massachusetts and served on their board up to last year. To recognize his contributions, the ITS MA board established the Joseph M. Sussman Leadership Award, to be given annually. The first winner is Elizabeth Councilman, a senior administrator of UMass/Amherst who has served as president of ITS MA and provided strong leadership during their early years.

Publications

            The lead article in the next issue of the International Journal of Logistics Management (Vol. 12, No. 2, due out in April) will be “Supply Chain Management Under the Threat of International Terrorism,” by Prof. Yossi Sheffi. He supplied an abstract: “On the morning of September 11th, 2001, the United States and the Western world entered into a new era: one in which large scale terrorist acts are to be expected. The impacts of the new era will challenge supply chain managers to adjust relations with suppliers and customers, contend with transportation difficulties and amend inventory management strategies.
            “This paper looks at the twin corporate challenges of (i) preparing to deal with the aftermath of terrorist attacks and (ii) operating under heightened security. The first challenge involves setting certain operational redundancies. The second means less reliable lead times and less certain demand scenarios. In addition, the paper looks at how companies should organize to meet those challenges efficiently and suggests a new public-private partnership. While the paper is focused on the US, it has worldwide implications.”

Births

            Theresa Eileen McLaughlin, the first baby born in Hoboken, NJ on Jan. 1, 2002, is the granddaughter of Prof. Jerry and Barbara Connor. The new parents are Tracey and Maurcie McLaughlin.

            From his Caribbean cruise, former Prof. Robert Logcher e-mailed news of another grandson, Scott Henri Logcher, born on Feb. 16 about six weeks early but healthy and nearly full-sized. The parents are Dan and Susan Logcher.

Deaths

            David Germaine, son of principal research associate John Germaine and Barbara Germaine, died in an auto accident on March 2. He was 17. David and two other classmates had been en route to offer flowers and condolences to the parents of an older friend who had been killed while trying to break up a fight at Bates College in Maine. Devastated at losing two outstanding members of the community in the same weekend, students at Lexington High School held a candlelight vigil and engaged in collective mourning. David was remembered by classmates as a good friend and a thoroughly decent fellow who always tried his hardest.
            Friends can make donations to the David Germaine Memorial Scholarship Fund, Middlesex Savings Bank, 64 Main Street, Concord, MA 01742.

Publicity

            Many MIT people presented papers at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting held in Boston in February, including Prof. Herbert Einstein. His talk, “New Transalpine Transportation Tunnels,” described the some of the problems of building deeper and longer tunnels under the Alps to expedite truck transportation throughout Europe.
            Denise Brehm writes in the 2/27 Tech Talk: “Einstein focused on three tunnels: the 57-km Gotthard Tunnel and the 36-km Loetschberg Tunnel, which are both under construction in Switzerland, and the 53-km Maurienne-Ambin Tunnel between France and Italy, which is in the advanced planning stage. All three will accommodate both high speed passenger and freight trains.
            “‘In a nutshell, the difficulties arise because these tunnels are going to be deeper than present tunnels, they will also be longer and the overburden (pressure from rock and water above) will be greater,’ said Einstein. ‘In addition, as you go deeper into the earth, it gets hotter, so you have temperatures in the 50° C range, which makes for difficult working conditions.’
            “Tunnel builders will encounter a major geologic problem in areas where the geology is soil-like, rather than rock. Soil or weak rocks are unable to withstand high pressures from above; unlike solid rock, which can handle a high overburden, weak material will be prone to collapse. They will have to make special considerations for construction in these “bad zones,”’ Einstein said.
            “Einstein has developed a modeling tool that takes into consideration the factors and uncertainties involved to help managers estimate the costs and time for building the tunnels. ‘As you know from local large construction projects [referring to Boston’s Big Dig], it’s very difficult to estimate what these will cost.’”

            Dozens of follow-up articles about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, from the New York Times to small-town papers, contained quotes by Profs. Eduardo Kausel and Jerome Connor. Kausel has also been interviewed on several TV programs.