SIUE Engineering Students Win ASCE Geowall Competition
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Engineering students won the GeoWall Competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Friday, April 22 at the Mid-Continent Student Conference at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.
“I think it’s gratifying to see such hard work and dedication out of a group of students,” said team captain Andrew Burkhardt, a senior civil engineering major from Beckemeyer. “Teamwork is an extremely important aspect of engineering. Life is full of hardships. For us, it was our load frame breaking before competition from testing various wall design combinations as well as loading the frame with quite a bit of weight - approximately100 pounds each time. But we got motivated, did what we thought was best for the design and brought home the trophy for SIUE!”
Burkhardt was joined by fellow seniors Jalen Bachman, of Rochester, and David Molohon, of Springfield, and graduate student Rabindra Chaulagai. Abdolreza Osouli, PhD and assistant professor of civil engineering, is the faculty advisor. The GeoWall team competed against defending champion University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri-Columbia.
The object of the annual GeoWall competition is for students to design a mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining wall, and then test for performance in various loading scenarios.
The wall was loaded in two stages. The first stage was a five-pound surcharge load placed on the load frame with the box fully enclosed, and 55 pounds of sand slowly added to the 5-pound surcharge load. The surcharge load was to zero the deflection of the load frame. The total 60-pound load was to check the load frame for safety as well as deflection. The 60-pound load was then removed from the load frame, and the frame was then again zeroed with a 5-pound surcharge, and the box was opened. At this stage, 25 pounds of sand was poured into the 5-pound surcharge bucket.
“Our wall held well until the last grains of sand went in and then failed, which was similar to last year’s winner, Arkansas, but their wall failed much quicker than ours,” Burkhardt said. “Our design was quite simple, but strong. The workmanship done by the members of the team was nearly perfect, not quite aesthetically pleasing, but that’s not the point. We are engineers, not architects.”
Photo: SIUE School of Engineering students Jalen Bachman (left) and David Molohon work on the ASCE GeoWall competition.
