Facilities « School of Civil and Construction Engineering

The Oregon State University School of Civil and Construction Engineering will host a pair of facility open houses on Thursday, Oct. 16, to introduce two new water research Oregon BEST laboratories. An open house and ribbon cutting for the Multipurpose Hydraulics Research Facility will take place at 11:45 a.m. at the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory followed by an open house at 4:00 p.m. for the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Research Facility at the Benton County Avery Facility.

The Multipurpose River Hydraulics Research Facility features a recirculating system with the ability to test two simultaneous and independent experiments with flows of up to 35 cubic feet per second. The facility is ideal for the construction and testing of river and low head pressurized hydraulic structures, and it can also be used for a wide range of research projects, including flood control, reservoir sedimentation, density currents, erosion and scour, aquatic habitat, stream restoration, fish passage and dam removal.

The $600,000 facility, led by OSU water resources professor Arturo Leon, consists of a re-circulating system with a 20-m x 8-m concrete slab (platform for experiments), two independent head tanks, a sediment catchment, a clean water sump, pumps, and impulsion and return pipe lines. Partners for the lab include United State Environmental Protection Agency, Oregon BEST, OSU, and Northwest Research Associates.

To RSVP for the open house, contact OSU professor Arturo Leon.

The OSU-Benton County Green Stormwater Infrastructure Research Facility is a three-celled stormwater research facility for field-scale experiments and testing on green infrastructure (e.g., raingardens, bioswales, etc.). The cells provide the ability to test various stormwater treatment technologies and treatment of various stormwater contaminants. These cells are also instrumented with multiple sensors to enable better data collection and modeling.

Pollutants captured at the $110,000 facility include tractor leaks, fuel tank spills, raw asphalt, road fill sediment, parking lot sediments and chemicals, and road paint spills. In addition to stormwater treatment, this facility supports long term research on stormwater quality to inform current and future projects for treating stormwater using ‘low impact development’ technology.

“The data from this facility will enable us to develop clear recommendations for cities that are facing the overwhelming choices in green stormwater technologies,” said OSU water resources professor Meghna Babbar-Sebens, who is co-director of the facility with Leon. “The facility also provides capabilities for conducting short term as well as long term experiments on different types of innovative green technologies.”

Those in attendance will be able to learn about the partnership project to enhance water quality, provide long-term research and support stormwater and water quality education and outreach. Partners in the project include Benton County, Oregon State University, Oregon BEST, State of Oregon Water Resources Department, and the Pacific Northwest Transportation Consortium.

To RSVP for the stormwater research facilty open house, contact Meghna Babbar-Sebens or Benton County Projects Coordinator Adam Stebbins.

The O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory hosted a hands-on design challenge for approximately 1000 Oregonian students this past week in the Tsunami Structure Challenge (TSC). The activity, led by education and outreach coordinator A licia Lyman-Holt, was comprised of a presentation which set-up the “design” challenge, a design and build phase where groups of four students built structures out of available materials and concluded with a test phase where structures were subjected to tsunami conditions at the wave laboratory.

Following the testing phase, Lyman-Holt gave students a tour of the research facility, introducing students to lab equipment as well as teaching them about the importance of ongoing tsunami and wave research.

The TSC was designed around the engineering goals in the STEM standards for Oregon at the 8^th-grade level, which encompassed the largest number of participants in the challenge.

For more information about the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory, or to schedule a tour, contact Alicia Lyman-Holt.

The Oregon State University School of Civil and Construction Engineering, in partnership with OSU Wood Science and Engineering, introduced the newest addition to the Oregon BEST Green Building Materials Lab (GBML) with an open house for the state-of-the-art Multi-Chamber Modular Environmental Conditioning System (MCMEC) on Thursday, April 30.

The newly-installed unit, one of only three in North America and Europe, is designed to apply realistic environmental and accelerated weather conditions to full-sized research samples. With the capability of creating three separate chambers within the unit, researchers can simulate multiple conditions to the same sample, allowing for maximum flexibility in the design and setup of experiments.

“The ability to simultaneously test materials is what makes this unit unique,” said Jason Ideker, assistant professor in the OSU School of Civil and Construction Engineering. “For example, we now have the capability to do performance testing on a wall to see how it reacts to multiple environments at once.”

The open house served as an introduction of the unit to industry and government research partners. As a shared-use facility, the Oregon BEST GBML is available for government and outside companies to reserve for their own research.

“Oregon BEST was created to help stimulate the green economy,” Ideker said. “This lab can do specialized testing and analysis and will allow companies, from start-ups to large corporations, to do research they may not be capable of doing on their own.”

The approximately $850,000 unit was made possible primarily through grants from Oregon BEST and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

For more information about the Oregon BEST GBML, contact Jason Ideker, OSU assistant professor, at 541-737-9571.

Multi-Chamber Modular Environmental Conditioning System – specifications

Temperature range: -30°C to +40°C

Temperature control: +/- 0.5°C

Relative humidity: 10% to 90%

Dew point limit at -20°C

Water spray system: 5 liters/minute

Metal Halide Solar Array: 700 Watt/m²

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Category Archives: Facilities

OSU CCE to host open houses to introduce new laboratories

Wave Laboratory hosts students in Tsunami Structure Challenge

OSU introduces big addition to Green Building Materials Lab

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