Preparing the Next Generation of Bridge Engineers
By Peter Murphy
Published October 18, 2018 This content is archived.
A UB Institute of Bridge Engineering (IBE) and Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering faculty member presented research to national practitioners, researchers, manufacturers, and engineers from departments of transportation.
Pinar Okumus delivered a presentation to the Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) committee, a subcommittee of PCI’s committee on bridges. She discussed UHPC and its different capabilities.
“UHPC can be used to minimize spalling damage to seismic resistant precast concrete bridge columns in rocking or hybrid systems,” Okumus says. She also discussed UHPC’s behavior compared to normal concrete.
Okumus presented the results and analysis of a bridge columns test conducted in UB’s structural engineering and earthquake simulation laboratory (SEESL) by her PhD student, Cancan Yang. Yang tested bridge columns under cyclic loading.
During the same conference, Okumus updated the PCI committee on bridges on her work with the seismic design subcommittee on the State-of-the-Art Report on Seismic Design of Precast Concrete Bridges.
Okumus presented her research during the PCI Committee Days and Membership Conference earlier this month in Illinois.
Okumus joined UB in 2013, after earning a PhD from the University of Wisconsin in 2012. Her research focuses on understanding the fundamental structural behavior of reinforced and prestressed concrete bridge structures under service and extreme loads.