Understanding the behavior of composite materials is important to advancing their design since attempts to further strengthen or stiffen them can sometimes produce counterproductive results. A $545,000 grant over three years from the National Science Foundation aims to answer some of the central questions about the microstructural mechanisms that lead to composite performance.

“Be prepared.” This famous mantra isn’t just for the Boy Scouts of America. The need to build durable infrastructure on other planets is coming. To prepare, Penn State researchers have teamed up with NASA to explore how cement solidifies in microgravity environments.

Patrick J. Fox, the John A. and Harriette K. Shaw Professor and Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has recently been elected vice president of the Geo-Institute. The G-I is one of the nine specialty institutes of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Penn State’s student chapter of the American Concrete Institute has not only been restarted following several semesters of hiatus, but it is also being spearheaded by its first-ever all-female leadership team.

After six months of fundraising and planning efforts, the Penn State chapter of Bridges to Prosperity traded in their typical summer vacation for an adventure to Machacamarca, Bolivia, to build a suspended pedestrian foot bridge for an isolated farming town.

Bahman Sheikh, a doctoral student in civil engineering, was recently awarded a Geosynthetic Institute Fellowship grant for his research proposal, titled “Breakwater Design Guidelines for Using Geotextile Tube Technology,” which focuses on the development of a recommended procedure for a geotextile tube breakwaters design.

The Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering, recently selected Kostas Papakonstantinou, assistant professor of civil engineering at Penn State, as an American Society of Civil Engineers 2017 Outstanding Reviewer.