The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
Civil Engineering College of Engineering and Computer Science
News
The Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ National GeoWall, held During GeoCongress 2020, is the most competitive national student competition in the area of Geotechnical Engineering. GeoCongress is the largest international conference in Geotechnical engineering https://www.geocongress.org/. Teams are challenged to provide optimal design of bridge abutments at model scale. The teams have to design, construct and test a wooden sandbox and carry out the largest vertical load and will remain stable for a period of time to win. This is the link with official name and rules for this year: https://www.geocongress.org/sites/geocongress.org/2020/files/inline-files/geo-congress-2020-national-geowall-competition-rules.pdf.
Many well-known national universities participate this event for many years. This is the first time UTRGV participates. We are among the finalists that are invited to the conference to compete. For 20 finalists, there are UCLA, UIUC, RPI - Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, UC Davis, Lafayette College…. In the pics are the results:
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 295.6 points ranked 1st
- UTRGV 295.5 ranked 2nd
- North Dakota State 294.4 ranked 3rd
- UCLA 278.7 4th
- Texas A&M 278.2 5th
We are 0.1 points/300 points from the trophy. Our team used LEAST reinforcement material, but with our optimum design (dimensions and positions of the reinforcement+ construction techniques), our box hold more than 2 times of load as required! Unfortunately we got minus 2 points because of the timing.
The team’s advisor, Dr. Thang Pham, is one of the top experts in bridge abutment. He has worked closely with the students, and he is super proud of the students. They are very dedicated, bright, and hard working. They have worked in almost every weekend for months. Second place national, for the first try - they make us all very proud!
UTRGV team with the first and the third place teams at the Geo Congress in Minnesota.