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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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  • Research Laboratories and Facilities

Research Laboratories and Facilities

Research Laboratories

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is home to laboratories that support the wide array of research areas that encompass our fields of study.

For more information about faculty research groups, visit Research Areas.

Urban and Coastal Water System Laboratory

Features include fluid mechanics and hydro-environmental informatics to addressing water resources engineering challenges. The lab is equipped with a hydraulic wave and sediment flume, hydrology apparatus, volumetric hydraulic benches, stormwater green infrastructure testing platform, as well as environmental modeling and informatics facilities with access to the leading-edge computational clusters, a real-time environment monitoring center, and a sensor fabrication space with testing equipment.

Environmental Engineering Biochemical Process Lab and Water Chemistry Research Labs

This facility has a full array of tools and instrumentation for sampling, simulating, and analyzing environmental matrices and unit processes. Instrumentation includes liquid chromatography (HPLC), total organic carbon and nitrogen analyses, field meters and spectrophotometers; PCR and qPCR thermocyclers and a fluorescent microscope; and tools for cultivating microbes include an anaerobic chamber, laminar flow hoods, shaking and walk-in incubators, and an annular biofilm reactor. 

Brian and Stacey Reilly Sustainable Infrastructure Lab

Provides integrated modeling, simulation, and development of prototype equipment and sensory systems for infrastructure assessment and monitoring and rehabilitation.

Intelligent Transportation Systems

Special interests in mobile sensor and content data, connected vehicles, and active transportation and demand management also include transportation Big Data analytics, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications, and unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) application in traffic monitoring and incident management.

Soil Mechanics and Geoenvironmental Research Laboratory

Covers practical aspects of testing and assessing mechanical properties of soils including ranging from classification to engineering properties. Main tests conducted as a part of the laboratory include: description and identification of soils (visual manual procedure); determining the moisture content of soil (convention and microwave oven methods); determining the specific gravity of soil; determining the liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index of soil; grain size analysis of soil; and more.

Urban Informatics Laboratory

Also known as The Cave, this lab uses geospatial big data and developing data analytics to support disaster response and data collection, damage assessment and modeling, vulnerability assessment and visualization, risk analysis for critical infrastructure, and debris removal and management.  

Structures Laboratory

Includes practical aspects of destructive and non-destructive testing of structural elements/construction materials such as hardened concrete, steel, wood, and masonry. It has several testing machines to characterize the mechanical properties of these materials. The lab also provides facilities for testing aggregate, cement, admixtures, additive materials and fresh concrete, as well as for testing of structural components and assemblies (under static and dynamic loads) including beams, columns, slabs, trusses.

Instructional Computing Facilities

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Environmental Sciences maintain their own computer laboratories that provide specialized software for the use of its students and faculty. All facilities are connected to RUNet via the high-speed Rutgers backbone. 

 

  • The School of Engineering and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have two computational laboratories dedicated to the instruction of computer programming and software use related and team based design project activities. The laboratories provide access to numerous software packages, including MATLAB, AutoCAD, ArcGIS, and more.

  • The Department of Environmental Sciences instructional computing facilities include an Instructional Computing Lab (ICL), an Environmental Engineering Computer Lab, as well as several labs and classrooms with lcd projectors, audio and video equipment, instructor computers, and associated software and support. The ICL and teaching labs and classrooms contain 25 computers for students to meet educational and research objectives for classes, for general use outside of classes, and for faculty and students to make presentations.

    The Environmental Engineering Computer Lab also includes the software AutoCAD, HydroCAD, ArcGIS and SimaPro. Printers, a scanner, and a large format poster printer are available.

    Research groups have access to HPC computing clusters and servers used in the modeling, computation, display, and analysis of research data.