Research Centers

Faculty in the CEE Department actively pursue a wide range of applied and theoretical research across a wide spectrum of problems in civil engineering. Research projects are often collaborative efforts involving faculty from CEE and other departments at Utah State University, from other universities, and from government agencies.

Research conducted by CEE faculty is closely integrated with the five graduate programs in the department and their academic curricula. Research funding provides both financial support and thesis and dissertation topics for graduate students. Many undergraduates also find employment in research programs in the department.

Among other research facilities associated with the CEE Department we have the following:

  • Utah Water Research Laboratory:
    The UWRL is a facility that supports education and teaching within a university environment and service to external audiences. The research is directed at solving multimedia water-related problems of state, national, and international scopes. The Utah Water Research Laboratory was established by Utah State University and the Utah State Legislature in the early 1960s. The present building and hydraulics laboratory were constructed in 1965, and expanded in 1980 to include the Environmental Quality Laboratory. The UWRL includes university faculty, staff, and graduate students that conduct research in the areas of hydraulics, fluid mechanics, groundwater, water resources, hydrology, river mechanics, sedimentation and erosion control, environmental engineering, transportation engineering, and water education. Research projects focus on physical and numerical modeling with research sponsored by international agencies, federal and state agencies, water conservative districts, and privately owned engineering firms and businesses.

  • Utah Technology Transfer (T2) Center:
    The T2 Center was established in 1988 at Utah State University in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) for the purpose of transferring highway technology from FHWA, UDOT and universities to local transportation agencies and to provide an avenue of feedback from local transportation agencies to UDOT, FHWA and universities on local transportation needs.

  • Institute for Natural Systems Engineering:
    INSE is a unique program in which researchers evaluate the impact of engineered systems on aquatic ecosystems habitat. They develop and apply assessment methods using computer simulation, data analysis, and remote sensing. Researchers at INSE develop, test, and apply a wide range of analytical tools suitable for integration within multidisciplinary assessment frameworks. Research focuses on all aspects of physical, chemical, and biological processes necessary to evaluate impacts in watershed systems. Development, testing, and application of analysis tools and assessment frameworks range across basic life history of aquatic species, spatial sampling of river corridors using remote sensing, GPS and hydro-acoustics, 2- and 3-dimensional hydraulic modeling, and habitat modeling.

  • Hydraulics Laboratory:
    The Hydrolics Laboratory utilizes the 50,000 ft 2 hydraulics section of the Utah Water Research Laboratory , which contains a variety of flumes, channels, pumps, pipelines, equipment and instrumentation for conducting research, model studies, hydraulic testing and flow meter calibrations. Water is supplied by gravity flow at rates up to 170 cfs from an upstream reservoir through a 48-inch pipe to a flume which is 8-feet wide, 6-feet deep, and more than 500 feet long. Alternatively, the 48-inch pipe can deliver water at 23 feet of head (main floor) to 33 feet (lower level) through a network of steel pipes (18, 24, and 36 inches diameter), located under the floor. All points in the Hydraulics Laboratory are within 30 feet of a connection to the river water distribution system. Other under-the-floor channels conduct water from the experiments back to the river, to recirculating pumps, or to precise flow measurement systems.

  • Utah Transportation Center:
    The Utah Transportation Center is a Tier II University Transportation Center as designated in SAFETEA-LU, and is part of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, in the College of Engineering, at Utah State University. The theme of the Center is "Innovative Engineering Against Hazards". The colleagues associated with the Center come from varied areas of civil engineering (see bios and research interests in this web page), but all have some background in hazards engineering: earthquakes, landslides, scour, flooding, etc. The work by the colleagues has generally been in the area of highways, but it is a goal of the Center to expand our education and research efforts into a multi-modal effort by looking at transit and rail (both transit and freight).

Specific Research Projects:

View some of the interesting research projects that graduate students and faculty are involved in.