Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge

The Kavita and Lalit Bahl Smart Bridge connects Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory with the newly constructed addition to the Civil and Environmental Engineering Building.

The bridge is a showcase for sustainable energy and environmental design options, a living laboratory featuring the latest innovations in structural health monitoring, and an instructional tool to teach about the effects of dynamic forces on the built environment. Data from all the sensors will be collected, stored for future reference, and graphically displayed on the bridge for viewing by visitors.

The bridge deck features 2,219 square feet of usable space. A mixture of lounge seating and tables are situated throughout the bridge, and glass walls on both sides will offer unique views of the engineering quad to the west and the campus to the east. The bridge features an upright piano, donated by CEE professor emeritus and former interim department head Albert J. Valocchi and his wife, Anne Silvis.

Geothermal Energy Foundations Installation

Geothermal energy foundations were installed in the summer as part of the Hydrosystems Laboratory addition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

This innovative method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions incorporated conventional geothermal heat exchanger loops in the foundation of the “smart” suspension pedestrian bridge that connects the Civil and Environmental Engineering Building to the Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory across Main Street in Urbana.

The construction method used 50-foot-deep drilled shaft foundations to reduce overall geothermal installation costs and provided for onsite research, as well as heating and cooling for a new instructional geotechnical laboratory in the building for faculty including Dr. Tugce Baser, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE).

“This project provided an invaluable opportunity for the university to conduct a scalability study from lessons learned during the installation and an excellent basis for a fundamental understanding of the operational response of the energy foundations,” Baser said.

Geothermal systems used the relatively constant underground temperature to provide heating and cooling at remarkably high efficiencies. The system functioned by circulating fluid through heat exchangers in the ground, leading to a heat pump in the building.

During installation, Baser instrumented the drilled shafts with thermistors and strain gauges to measure axial and radial strains, as well as temperature profiles, within the foundations. The data set from this installation enabled the evaluation of operational thermomechanical properties. Further, the data collected from this project was used as an input for analyses by students in the graduate-level CEE 585 Deep Foundations course.

Dr. Mohamed Attalla, executive director of Facilities & Services (F&S), said, “The outcomes of this project were converted into design guidelines for future installation of energy foundations, which will significantly contribute to the sustainability of the campus.”

The $240K project was funded jointly by F&S and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and the Environment (iSEE), using the Carbon Credit Sales Fund, CEE, and a grant from the Student Sustainability Committee.

Through the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP), the U of I committed to achieving carbon neutrality by no later than 2050, and geothermal energy was one of several strategies the university explored to reduce its environmental impact.

iSEE also seed-funded Baser’s scalability study as part of its Campus as a Living Laboratory Program. Her research data gained at the laboratory site further explored this state-of-the-art approach, informed the campus on the viability of geothermal, and helped lead to additional installations on campus.