The following examples are representative (but not exhaustive) of the types of industry sponsored project opportunities available in the MEng program.
28-Story Proposed Building
Sponsor: Severud
Mentors: Edward DePaola and Jack Gainey
Students: Drew Barlow (MEng), Drew McAuliff (MEng), and Sandesh Rajput (MEng)
Project Description:
Severud was hired to complete the structural design for a 28-story, 315-foot tall, residential/mixed-use building located in Jersey City, New Jersey. They provided the architectural drawings and tasked us with reaching 90% structural plan sheets by the end of the 2023/24 academic school year. A complete structural design narrative will be accomplished by December 2023. This building is to provide a mixed-use space including retail in the lower 5 floors, with residences above in the remaining floors. They will complete load determination on the building and are currently working to design the columns using associated references and the concrete shear walls, utilizing SAP2000. Upon completion of the structural design, they will begin drafting the structural plans using Revit. They will continue working with their advisors at Severud to produce an accurate and effective design.
Mantua Wastewater Treatment Facility
Sponsor: American Structurepoint
Mentor: Karen Saavedra, Adam Rothermel, and Jordan McCormack
Students: Daniela Bolanos (MEng) and Cason Wilburn (MEng)
Project Description:
American Structurepoint is designing a new headworks facility for a wastewater treatment facility in Mantua, OH. This new headworks facility will include screening, grit removal, influent pumps, and a drain pump system to replace the old headworks facility. Group meetings for this project occur on Microsoft Teams every Monday at 9:30 am ET with our three mentors. For the fall semester the primary deliverable will be the Basis of Design report, which will include a project introduction, influent screen selection and sizing, grit removal selection and sizing, influent pump selection and pump curve, drain pump selection and pump curve, sizing of the headworks building, and a preliminary hydraulic profile and cost estimate. The target deliverables for the spring semester are contract documents which include specifications and drawings for the different elements of the headworks facility, OEPA permit, final cost estimate, and a review of the bidding process and shop drawings. The software program being used for drafting will be Civil3D/AutoCAD. Majority of our hydraulic calculations will be completed using excel. The Ten State Standards for Wastewater Facilities is one of the standards that we will be using as reference when working on the design component of the facility. Each member is responsible for doing a certain portion of the work that is assigned every week, since it is just a team of two, group members will split the work.
Fullerton Pike Phase III Bridge
Sponsor: American Structurepoint
Mentors: DJ Bosse and Thomas McNicholas
Students: Frank Ziccardi (MEng), Lee Ngochi (MEng), and Omar Moreno (MEng)
Project Description:
Our project consists of a four-span roadway bridge that spans over a small gully with a creek that will be part of a new roadway alignment in southern Indiana. The bridge will be approximately 520 ft long, with the longest span at 144 ft. The team was given some information from our mentors regarding the bridge, which consisted of roadway classification, design speed, terrain information, and client requests for the bridge, such as curbed sections, bike lanes, multi-use path and sidewalk, and a raised median. We were also given an existing CAD topographic survey file, the proposed roadway alignment in CAD, and parameters for the structure length. So far, we have spent a lot of time familiarizing ourselves with the INDOT Design Manual because a bridge project is new to all of us. We have created typical roadway and bridge cross sections based on the expected roadway demand and the requests from the client. We have also determined the approximate structure length and have explored sizing of a precast-prestressed concrete option and a composite plate girder option for the superstructure of the bridge. For the remainder of the semester, we will be working on a structure size and type report and a preliminary cost estimate which will allow us to determine the preferred superstructure system for a more in-depth analysis next semester.
Raclin Murphy Museum of Art
Sponsor: Bulley and Andrews
Mentors: Jackson Kamp and Collins Udeh
Students: Rachel Adams, Viviana Rivera, Ethan Barhydt, Jack Lyons (MEng)
Project Description:
The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame is a 132,000-square-foot building that began construction in 2021 and is scheduled to open in November of this year (2023). The goal of this project is to act as project managers through the beginning to ending of the construction of this building. Our team is working to conduct an existing conditions study, create an overall logistics plan and safety plan, complete an initial project schedule, understand permitting and budgeting, and develop a bid package. In the spring, our team will also develop a general contract with the owner and work through punch lists to close out the project. In order to be successful, we will use Bluebeam and Procore. Our team is working alongside Jackson Kamp and Collins Udeh from Bulley and Andrews to provide the most cost effective and efficient building plan to bring to bid.
Project: Analysis and Design of 11-story Concrete Frame Building
Industry Sponsor: Schaefer
Course(s): CE 60274 – Advanced Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Design
Students: Mua’yyed Malabeh (MEng) and Henrique Martins
The team was mentored through the design process of an 11-story cast-in-place reinforced concrete building with post-tensioned slabs. A professional engineer from Schaefer, Matthew Horne. P.E. volunteered his time to the graduate students. The project started with the design criteria for calculating the vertical and lateral loads on the building using ASCE 7-16 design code. The design process was initiated by calculating the preliminary column loads, column sizes, and gravity foundation design using hand calculations and Excel. The lateral system (shear wall) finite element analysis was completed by modeling the entire structure using ETABS, and design was completed by utilizing ETABS built-in shear wall design module. Post-tensioned slab design was completed next and performed using RAM-Concept. Using the unbalanced slab-to-column moments calculated by RAM Concept in combination with the previously calculated axial loads, the final column design was completed in spColumn. Finally, a set of conceptual structural drawings were created along with final column and footing schedules.
Project: Youth Service Bureau & South Bend Thrive Development Project Site Design
Industry sponsor: City of South Bend
Mentors: Charlotte Brach and Eric Horvath
Course(s): CE 67600 – Special Studies: MEng Capstone
Students: Bethel Aninyei (MEng) and Yiqiao Qin
This design project works as part of the Youth Service Bureau and South Bend Thrive Development Project for the City of South Bend. In this project, we are planning to utilize a currently underdeveloped 16-acre site which is 3 miles to the southeast of the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend. The site is marked by the Sorin Park to the north, the Mckinley Ave. to the south, the U-Haul Neighborhood Dealer Building to the east, and the Preston Dr. residences to the west. This site will consist of residential and commercial lots, with a YSB community center, and low income residential housing. In order to help construct the site, this senior project will come up with the layout plans for the residential and commercial lots in this area and give further suggestions on some aspects of the infrastructures such as sewer system design. The references of this project include the standards from both the City of South Bend and the YSB project. We will be using ArcGIS and AutoCad as the engineering tools in our progress.
Project: TxDOT Prestressed Girder Bridge Design
Industry Sponsor: Kiewit Infrastructure Engineering
Course(s): CE 67600 – Special Studies: Prestressed Concrete Design
Students: Karla La Torre Alvarez (MEng) and Will Tjaden
The team was mentored through the design process of precast prestressed (PCPS) concrete I-girders that were part of a representative freeway bridge in Texas. Two engineers from Kiewit Infrastructure Engineers, Eric Herbert S.E. P.E. & Samuel Hess P.E., graciously volunteered their time to the graduate students. The girders were designed using the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) Bridge Design Manual and the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Manual. The design process included generating dead and live loads for both interior and exterior girders, calculating necessary live load distribution factors to distribute the live loads per girder, and calculating losses were calculated based on the TxDOT state specific equations which investigated both long and short conditions. Finally, a set of conceptual drawings were created that displayed the bridge layout, typical I-girder section details including reinforcement details and an elevation view of the prestressed girder. The team utilized a PCPS girder design software called PGSuper developed by the Washington Department of Transportation and TxDOT for the streamlined design of PCPS bridges. With every output from the software considered in the design, hand calculations were performed to quality assure the proposed design. Deliverables included detailed calculations for the design process and drawings that abide to TxDOT Standards.
Project: Affordable Housing Development in Mishawaka, Indiana
Industry Sponsor: Housing for Humanity in collaboration with the Notre Dame School of Architecture and multiple regional design and development firms
Course(s): Fall Break Special Activity with Professor Phil Barutha
Students: Hany Alrahahleh (MEng), Karla La Torre Alvarez (MEng), Mua’yyed Malabeh (MEng), and John Anyanwu (MEng)
During the Fall Break, a group of MEng students led the site-civil design efforts in a “Charrette Project” at the University of Notre Dame in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The goal of the project was to create more affordable housing in the local community of Mishawaka. The team used engineering principles to evaluate and address the various challenges common with residential development projects, including site runoff and storage as well as transportation accessibility.
Project: Virginia Tech Trellis Structure
Industry Sponsor: Gannett Fleming
Course(s): CE 40701 & CE 40702 – Principles of Practice & Capstone Design
Students: Elena Poludnitcyna (MEng), Elizabeth DePaola, and Gregorio Sanz do Santamaria
Virginia Tech is designing a new mixed use development for its campus near the Potomac river in Alexandria, VA. The new development will include residential, office, retail, and educational facilities, and will replace an old retail development that previously existed in the area, which will generate a greater flow of wastewater. Therefore, per city requirements, the old wastewater will be replaced by a new pump station facility. The trellis structure that’s being designed will stand next to the pump station, integrating the structures into the new park and educational walkway. Our team, along with Gannett Fleming, will be focusing on the design of the structural elements of the trellis, particularly beams, columns, footings and battens. We also are going to design the frame connections using TEKLA Structures. During the Fall semester our team will focus on calculating the environmental loads acting on the trellis (gravity, seismic, ice, wind, wind on ice, etc.), modelling the trellis on SAP200, looking at load combinations to design the member sizes, and eventually design the foundation for the structure. Throughout the Spring semester, we will focus on designing the connections and going into the details of the overall trellis structure. We will also be using TEKLA and Revit for our design and cost estimation, as well as drawing our design in AutoCAD. We will be referencing IBC 2018, ASCE 7-16, and the Aluminum Design Manual2010 to perform our calculations throughout these two semesters. Along with all of these references and software, our team will be hand calculating everything. Our team plans on accomplishing all of these goals and if we have time, we may also begin working on shop drawings for our structure, cost estimation, and statement of special inspections.
