Wen-Chao Huang (left), Yiannis Zevgolis (center) and Oliver Colic (right)

It has been a successful end of the semester for the Geotech group at Purdue. Three graduate students, Yiannis Zevgolis, Oliver Colic and Wen-Chao Huang, were honored by the College of Engineering as “outstanding students” for their contributions to their Schools and the College.

Finite element results for the vertical displacements on top of a reinforced soil structure due to direct bridge abutment loads

Yiannis (Ioannis) Zevgolis, who just this month completed his PhD, received the Outstanding Civil Engineering Graduate Student Award, which recognizes the academic and service contributions of a 2007 graduate. Yiannis joined Purdue in Fall 2002, and after completing his MS degree, started working on his doctoral research on the numerical and probabilistic analysis of reinforced soil structures, under the guidance of Professor Philippe Bourdeau. At Purdue Yiannis initiated the establishment of the Geo-Institute Graduate Student Organization, and served as its first president and webmaster. In the last year he has also been a member of the Civil Engineering Graduate Student Advisory Council, which advises the CE School Head on student related matters. During his time at Purdue Yiannis has also been active in the Hellenic Students Association (HSA), serving as vice-president between 2003 and 2004. In Spring 2007 Yiannis was a teaching assistant for CE297, the CE core static course. His performance as a TA has been recognized this semester with the Nellie Munson Award, the top teaching assistant award in the School of Civil Engineering.

For his research Yiannis Zevgolis investigated reinforced soil structures used as direct bridge abutments employing both a numerical and probabilistic approach. His worked has focused on the analysis of the performance of such structures and of the underlying foundation soil in the absence of deep foundations, and on the development of a probabilistic model that provides the framework for reliability analysis of these structures

Above: a view of the lab-bench system developed by Oliver and Professor Sinfield (left); student and professor at work in the CE spectroscopy lab (right).

Oliver Colic was also chosen as the 2007 Outstanding Graduate Student, but from the School of Electrical Engineering. Despite being an EE student, Oliver has been a member of the Civil Engineering community for the past two years, working for his MS research on the development of a low-cost, compact, time-resolved visible Raman spectroscopy system for macro-nutrient assessment under the supervision of Professor Joe Sinfield. As both an undergraduate and graduate student, Oliver has been active in the School of Electrical Engineering, amongst other things founding an ombudsman program aimed at helping resolve issues amongst students and between students and faculty. As a junior he received the Eaton Award for design excellence in the Electrical Engineering senior design course (EE402). As an undergraduate he went on to work as a TA for this course in both Fall 2004 and Spring 2005. Oliver will receive his MSEE degree this month. Yiannis and Oliver were both honored at the April 15, 2007 College of Engineering Honors reception.

Oliver Colic's work on the development of a non-invasive sensor system for real time identification and quantification of macronutrients using time-resolved Raman spectroscopy has immediate application in prescriptive agriculture. It also lays the groundwork for the development of in-situ portable sensors in other areas, including analysis and quality control in medicine, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and chemical production processes, as well as monitoring of environmental pollutants and detection of explosives.

Above: finite element results showing the zone of yield in a soil mass below a roadway constructed using a geogrid reinforcement at the base/subgrade interface.

Wen-Chao Huang is this year’s Civil Engineering choice for the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Student Award given by the College of Engineering. This award recognizes his performance as a TA in CE383 (Geotechnical Engineering I) in both Fall 2006 and Spring 2007. Wen-Chao has consistently done an exceptional job as a CE383 TA also earning the Estus H. and Vashti L. Magoon TA award in both Spring 2006 and Spring 2007. Wen-Chao is completing his PhD research on the numerical modeling and probability analysis of sub grade improvement using geosynthetic reinforcement under the guidance of Professor Philippe Bourdeau. He expects to defend his PhD thesis this coming august.

The use of a geosynthetic reinforcement is an attractive alternative to traditional methods for construction of roadways on soft soils. Wen-Chao’s research uses numerical techniques to model the effect of such a reinforcement and explores the performance of reinforced systems as a function of design scheme and material characteristics.