Civil Engineering

Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty

Susan Glairon — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 10:57:58 +0000

Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty Susan Glairon Sat, 08/16/2025 - 04:57

Susan Glairon

The Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering welcomes two new faculty members in Fall 2025. Meet Assistant Professors Laura Sunberg and Zhi Li—and see why we’re so excited to have these talented scholars on our team.

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New research paves way for greener construction practices

Susan Glairon — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 13:26:44 +0000

New research paves way for greener construction practices Susan Glairon Fri, 08/15/2025 - 07:26

Susan Glairon

The study, led by civil engineering PhD student Daniel Donado-Quintero, shows that setting carbon benchmarks can encourage asphalt producers to lower emissions—for example by using more recycled materials or optimizing production processes—supporting Colorado’s Buy Clean Act and CDOT’s efforts to reduce embodied carbon.

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Wil Srubar named American Ceramic Society fellow

Susan Glairon — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 21:17:13 +0000

Wil Srubar named American Ceramic Society fellow Susan Glairon Thu, 07/03/2025 - 15:17

Susan Glairon

Professor Wil Srubar is the principal director of the Living Materials Laboratory, where an interdisciplinary team develops nature-inspired concrete alternatives that can be produced without fossil fuels or significant carbon emissions.

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Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn

Susan Glairon — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 16:21:26 +0000

Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn Susan Glairon Mon, 06/23/2025 - 10:21

A new study published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality. Ben Livneh, associate professor in civil, environmental and architectural engineering, was the principal investigator and co-author of the study.

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Mortenson Center innovations delivering clean water to more than five million worldwide

Susan Glairon — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 23:00:23 +0000

Mortenson Center innovations delivering clean water to more than five million worldwide Susan Glairon Fri, 06/20/2025 - 17:00

CU Boulder's Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience is transforming global water access by treating clean water as a long-term service—not just a one-time infrastructure project.

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A life-saving mission

Hanna Nordwall — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 23:01:16 +0000

A life-saving mission Hanna Nordwall Fri, 06/06/2025 - 17:01

Susan Glairon

Construction Safety Research Alliance teams with industry to reduce job site injuries

The construction industry has long been one of the most hazardous sectors, with workers facing a high risk of injury.

Researchers at CU Boulder’s Construction Safety Research Alliance (CSRA) observed that while current safety systems have effectively reduced minor worker injuries over the past decade, the rate of serious injuries and fatalities has remained stagnant.

“This means that current safety systems are not as effective in reducing serious injuries and fatalities, a major issue for the industry,” said Elif Oguz Erkal, CSRA’s associate director of research and strategy.

CSRA is a nonprofit research organization established in 2018 by Professor Matthew Hallowell. It brings together industry leaders and academic experts to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities in the construction industry.

Its first project evaluated the validity of “total recordable incident rates,” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration metric used to track workplace injuries, from minor cuts to fatalities. The study found that these incident rates are highly random and not predictive of future safety performance or fatalities.

“Despite this, the industry often relies on these rates to claim, ‘I am safe,’ ” Erkal said. “We know low-severity injuries happen for different reasons than high severity.”

Research meets practice

CSRA is supported by donations from its 117 member companies, and research ideas are also proposed by industry members. Each project lasts about two years and is supported by a team of 25 industry professionals who meet in Boulder quarterly to collaborate. Projects are led by a principal investigator paired with a graduate student, whose dissertation is centered on the project.

“The establishment of CSRA marked a significant shift for these industries,” Erkal said. “For the first time, they have an academic research organization focused on real-world applicability, leveraging the expertise of their safety professionals to address challenges scientifically.”

Shifting the focus

Assessing the risk of serious injuries and fatalities is complex, Erkal explains, as fatalities are rare and often occur in hard-to-predict ways.

As part of its research, CSRA developed “high energy controlled assessments (HECA),” a monitoring metric that shifts focus from lagging indicators like injury rates to actionable prevention. HECA identifies both the types of life-threatening hazards present and the direct controls in place to mitigate them, even when someone makes a mistake.

This “energy-based safety” approach links injury severity to the magnitude of physical energy. For example, a heavier object higher off the ground poses a greater threat than a lighter, lower object. Controls could include a guard rail to prevent objects from falling.

“By systematically observing their operations, organizations can identify risk exposures within their systems — a significant shift in mindset,” Erkal said. “A decade ago, safety professionals would say, ‘we’re safe,’ simply because no injuries occurred that day. This perspective has evolved. Today, modern safety is defined by the presence of controls.”

‘Applicable and actionable’

CSRA’s research found that approximately 40 percent of high-energy hazards still lack adequate safeguards. In these cases, a single mistake could have fatal consequences.

HECA will help companies identify life-threatening hazards and prioritize their response, including determining where to acquire additional controls, where to focus training and other necessary actions, Erkal said.

The organization also continues to build its community of industry professionals and academics. It is committed to sharing knowledge through peer-reviewed publications, collaborative partnerships and its monthly Communities of Practice webinars, accessible to all who are interested.

“We are deeply committed to producing research that is both applicable and actionable,” Erkal said. “We want greater engagement from the industry groups to take our work, build on it and implement it.”

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A big fix

Michelle Wiese — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 21:57:41 +0000

A big fix Michelle Wiese Fri, 06/06/2025 - 15:57

Susan Glairon

Researchers confront urgent infrastructure challenges in race against time and climate

In March, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Report Card for America’s Infrastructure gave the nation a grade of C, citing concerns over deteriorating bridges, roads, dams, pipelines and other critical systems.

Part of the challenge is urban expansion — much of the infrastructure is within or beneath dense cityscapes, making repairs and upgrades both costly and complex. More frequent and severe hurricanes, wildfires and floods are also accelerating the decline.

CU Engineering researchers are tackling these pressing issues head-on, developing innovative solutions to repairing existing infrastructure and building a more resilient future.

Read on for a deeper dive into projects that address construction worker safety, roadways and underground pipelines.

Infrastructure challenges

Roads

Projects in Cristina Torres-Machi’s group include lifecycle cost analysis of pavement rehabilitation alternatives and the value of satellite-based inspections in decision-making.

Read: Paving the way

Pipes

Brad Wham led efforts to establish new standards for internal replacement pipe testing through the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM).

Read: Pipe dreams

Safety

The Construction Safety Research Alliance, established by Matthew Hallowell in 2018, brings together industry leaders and academic experts to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities in the construction industry.

Read: A life-saving mission

Mija Hubler

Bridges

Mija Hubler and her team are developing a technology that infuses concrete with self-repair capabilities found in living organisms. Concrete’s networks of cracks naturally provide a pathway to facilitate internal healing.

Yida Zhang

Dams

Yida Zhang’s research on the stability of dams zeroes in on the tiny sand grains beneath and surrounding them. He investigates how the grain size distribution evolves under stress and compromises the stability of dams, especially during extreme weather events.

Abbie Liel

Housing resilience

Abbie Liel and researchers at the �Թ�� of Notre Dame are researching ways to design disaster-resistant homes, while also examining what drives people to adopt those innovations.

Researchers confront urgent challenges for roadways, pipelines and more in a race against time and climate.

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Pipe dreams

Hanna Nordwall — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 17:30:18 +0000

Pipe dreams Hanna Nordwall Fri, 06/06/2025 - 11:30

Susan Glairon

Lab establishes worldwide standards for repairing inaccessible, leaking pipelines

Millions of miles of aging water, wastewater and natural gas pipelines across the nation are at growing risk of failure, posing significant environmental, safety and financial challenges.

Repairing these urban pipelines is often complicated and expensive due to their location beneath buildings and roads, but new repair solutions that significantly cut pipeline repair costs are emerging.

"We developed unique testing capabilities that don’t exist anywhere else.”

Brad Wham

CU Boulder’s Center for Infrastructure, Energy and Space Testing (CIEST) is at the forefront, pioneering testing procedures for these innovative solutions.

Led by Assistant Research Professor Brad Wham, CIEST played a key role in establishing a new standard for internal replacement pipe testing through the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM).

“Getting an ASTM standard to vote is a big deal,” Wham said. “We designed these methods for various industries and future pipe replacement solutions. We developed unique testing capabilities that don’t exist anywhere else.”

The work was made possible by a $7.8 million Department of Energy ARPA-E grant, which CIEST shared with Cornell �Թ��, the �Թ�� of Southern Queensland (USQ) and the Gas Technologies Institute.

This advancement paves the way for cutting-edge pipe repair technologies, such as using robots or other methods to install internal replacement pipes that line aging pipelines, reinforcing their walls and extending their service life.

The tests carried out in the CIEST lab demonstrated that many of the internal replacement pipes effectively sealed holes, cracks and gaps, providing a lasting seal of 50 to 100 years at a cost of less than $1 million per mile — much lower than the approximately $10 million per mile to dig up and replace pipes in urban centers.

In addition to a 90 percent drop in cost, the repairs will help reduce methane emissions from natural gas lines and prevent leaking water lines from wasting significant quantities of treated water.

The USQ team used CIEST’s data to develop a publicly available app that lets users input specifications and site details to design and assess internal replacement pipe technologies.

Natural gas and water utilities have been cautious about adopting new technologies, due to strict regulations and high risks in the event of failure, Wham said. To address these concerns, the project involved major gas utilities and global experts to guide testing development.

“As an unbiased third party, we’re building confidence in these technologies and fostering industry competition, which helps reduce costs,” he said.

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Paving the way

Hanna Nordwall — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 16:44:58 +0000

Paving the way Hanna Nordwall Fri, 06/06/2025 - 10:44

Researcher proposes using satellite data to find and repair rough roads

Everyone benefits from driving on a smooth, well-paved road. It means better gas mileage, more efficient travel and less upkeep on a vehicle.

Of course, the more traffic on a road, the quicker it breaks down. Add in weather elements such as snow, ice and rain and this leads to issues such as potholes, cracked asphalt and wheel ruts.

Cristina Torres-Machi

Cristina Torres-Machi, an assistant professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, knows better than most why sustainable infrastructure is so critical.

“My interest in road conditions and maintenance started when I got my bachelor’s degree as a civil engineer,” Torres-Machi said. “I realized that there’s so much infrastructure that’s already been built that we need to maintain. We don’t do a very good job at that, just as we don’t necessarily do a good job with our annual health check-ups. It’s not only about building infrastructure, it’s about maintaining it.”

“We can get a feeling of whether the condition is good, very bad or good enough.”

Torres-Machi has been a member of the CU Boulder faculty since 2017, leading her Innovation for Resilient Infrastructure research group. They seek to develop cost-effective and data-driven methods for decision-making in infrastructure management.

The group’s research projects include the life-cycle cost analysis of pavement rehabilitation alternatives and the value of satellite-based inspections to inform transport asset management decisions.

Torres-Machi believes that local, state and federal governmental systems prefer building new roads and bridges because people do not directly see the benefits of maintaining existing infrastructure.

“We notice when things like roads and bridges aren’t well maintained, and we see when things are brand new, because those get a lot of attention,” she said.

The traditional way to find out what condition a particular road is in is to go out and drive on it, which can be time-consuming and expensive. This limits road inspections to primary ones, leaving those less-traveled also less monitored.

Torres-Machi and her fellow researchers are using funding from the Minnesota Department of Transportation to explore the potential of using satellite data to look into pavement conditions.

“We can get a feeling of whether the condition is good, very bad or good enough,” she said. “The data is not going to give us a lot of details, but it can give us a feeling of how bad the condition may be, so we can go back and do a more detailed inspection of these roads.”

The lifespan of a well-maintained road is about 25 years, Torres-Machi said.

She compared identifying cracks or other potential road risks early on to going to the dentist regularly.

“If you take a proactive approach to dental care, that’s going to prevent major problems from developing down the line that will likely be more expensive to deal with and also more painful,” she said. “A similar thing happens with roads: If we delay maintenance and consider treatments when roads are in poor condition, maintenance costs are 10 times larger than applying preventive treatments. This is the reason why timely maintenance and frequent inspections are so important. Our research using satellite images to inspect pavement conditions can help local, state and federal agencies in identifying maintenance needs.”

Cristina Torres-Machi, an assistant professor of civil, environmental and architectural engineering, leads her Innovation for Resilient Infrastructure research group to develop cost-effective and data-driven methods for decision-making in infrastructure management.

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What makes some homes, neighborhoods more likely to survive wildfire? New research offers insight

Susan Glairon — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:51:04 +0000

What makes some homes, neighborhoods more likely to survive wildfire? New research offers insight Susan Glairon Wed, 06/04/2025 - 09:51

Professor Abbie Liel’s research, recently published in Fire Technology, examined destruction patterns from the December 2021 Marshall Fire, which killed two people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Boulder County.

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