Research Facilities

Computer Research Facilities

Computing resources within Civil and Environmental Engineering include more than 80 general purpose multimedia PCs, various systems dedicated to research, and numerous privately owned PCs and laptops. Departmental machines are shared throughout faculty, staff, and graduate student offices, along with an undergraduate computer cluster. All doctoral students are provided with a personal desktop machine on completion of their comprehensive examination. The computing infrastructure includes printers distributed throughout the department, high-speed networks, and various pieces of specialized equipment and peripherals. General computing services include file, print, e-mail, scanning, and web servers. All equipment in the department is connected to the campus network and campus file systems, providing connections to other university computing facilities (including Computing Services, the School of Computer Science, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center), as well as the rest of the Internet. Both wireless and direct Ethernet connections are available for networking.

Advanced Infrastructure Systems (AIS) Laboratory

The AIS Lab has recently been established in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The intent of this lab is to support research in sensors and sensing for supporting the AIS mission of proactive data-driven infrastructure construction and maintenance. The lab contains a variety of test equipment such as high-speed data acquisition systems, arbitrary signal generators, signal amplifiers, power amplifiers, multiplexers and an oscilloscope. Scientific engineering software is also available such as LabView, MATLAB, ABAQUS, and COMSOL. Currently, the lab is supporting research sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Transportation Research Board, Bombardier, Inc. Bosch, Physical Acoustics Corporation, Yooshin Corporation, and Pennsylvania Infrastructure Technology Alliance.

The Hauck Environmental Engineering Laboratories: 

Located within the Civil and Environmental Engineering Laboratories complex, the Hauck Environmental Engineering Laboratories were built in 1994. These labs occupy 6000 sq. ft. and comprise a water chemistry lab, a microbiology lab, organic analysis laboratory, an atomic absorption spectrometry lab, an ion chromatography lab, and a geoenvironmental lab. Also included is an adjacent graduate student office with computing areas. The Hauck Laboratories have a full-time laboratory manager, Mr. Ronald Ripper, who has a key role in the management of this facility.

Water Chemistry Laboratory
This facility is equipped for a wide range of studies related to water, waste,  sediment, and soil chemistry. It is used for bench- and pilot-scale studies on new treatment processes, and for investigations of physical, chemical, and biological processes that affect the fate and transport of contaminants in aquatic environments. The laboratory meets all requirements for chemical safety.

Microbiology Laboratory
Experimental work pertaining to aquatic microbiology and environmental biotechnology is conducted in this laboratory. The facility is equipped for bacteriological culturing, measurement, and experimentation. It includes several autoclaves for sterilization, automatic media and plate making equipment, a glove box for anaerobic work, a biosafety cabinet for pathogen work, microscopes, incubators, several PCR systems, an Applied Biosystems 7500 real-time PCR system, a gel-doc system, a DGGE system,  and other instruments for measurement and process studies. It is a biosafety level 1 laboratory. 

Organic Analysis Laboratory
Instrumentation for analysis of organic constituents in water, soil, and air samples is located in this facility. Equipment includes a high-pressure liquid chromatography unit  (HPLC)  with  ultraviolet and fluorescence detectors and an autosampler , a gas chromatograph y unit  (GC)  with  electron capture and flame ionization detectors (ECD and FID) and an autosampler,   a mass spectrometer ,  a UV-visible spectrophotometer, a total organic carbon  (TOC)  analyzer , and a capillary electrophoresis (CE) with autosampler  . The HPLC, GC , and CE  are linked to a common computer data management system.  Other analytical instrumentation in the laboratory includes a BET surface area analyzer; a Kontes midi-vap cyanide distillation system; an Alpkem FS300 flow injection analyzer.

Atomic Absorption Spectrometry Laboratory
This contamination-controlled laboratory is used for analysis of trace metals in water and particulate samples via flame and furnace AA . The laboratory is designed to avoid the contamination of samples or analytical equipment with metal particles. It is also equipped with specially designed laminar flow hoods that provide Class 100 clean spaces for handling of samples.

Ion Chromatography Laboratory
Analyses for low concentrations of specific ionic chemical species in water samples are performed in this facility, which houses a Dionex ion chromatography unit with conductivity and UV detectors . The laboratory is equipped with specially designed laminar flow hoods that provide Class 100 clean spaces for handling of samples. Samples are prepared in an outer room and analyzed via ion chromatography in the inner room.

Geoenvironmental Laboratory
This laboratory is equipped for measurement and study of the physical properties and behavior of soils. It supports research on the influence of soil properties on contaminant distribution, transport, and treatment in the subsurface.

Doherty Air Quality Laboratory

The Carnegie Mellon Air Quality Laboratories were built in 2000. Comprised of two clean laboratories, flow tube reactor area, and main lab area, these laboratories occupy 2500 sq. ft. in Doherty Hall. This facility is equipped for analysis of trace gases and airborne particles, and for preparation and calibration of air sampling equipment. There is also a smog chamber used to study aerosol generation from precursor gases.

Major instrumentation includes a dual-column ion chromatograph, a thermal-optical carbon analyzer, a proton transfer reaction mass spectrometer for analysis of individual particles, two scanning mobility particle sizers for generating size distributions of airborne particles in real time, two differential mobility analyzers for particle size determination by electrical mobility, several micro-orifice uniform deposit inertial impactors to collect airborne particles in different size ranges for subsequent chemical analysis, an array of gas analyzers for organic and inorganic gas species, and a number of other instruments.