|
U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
|
|
|
A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
|
U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H |
|
|
|
A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
|
Instructional Shake Table
Kent Harries and Luis E. Vallejo, Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), have been awarded a 2007 Innovation in Education grant to develop, construct, and implement an instructional shake table and associated instructional modules for undergraduate and graduate civil engineering students. Civil engineers rely on their understanding of structural and soil dynamics as a crucial aspect of their daily routine. Through this project, Development, Construction and Deployment of Instructional Shake Table, Harries and Vallejo will create a tool to meet the curricular needs of civil engineering students at the University of Pittsburgh. Harries, a strong supporter of visual learning tools, or “toys,” as he calls them, believes that “one test is worth one thousand expert opinions.” In other words, seeing is believing, and in order for civil engineering students to understand how phenomena such as earthquakes and liquefaction affect the construction of buildings, they need to see these phenomena in action…or at least a simulation in the lab. This unique and experimental piece of equipment will enable students with access to the Watkins Haggart Structural Engineering Lab to test the dynamic behavior of small-scale model building structures, earthworks, and soil bodies. Water saturated sand bodies liquefy when subjected to earthquake loads and their bearing capacity loosens, causing buildings to tilt or sink if they are located on top of this soil. Thus, the analysis of liquefaction under earthquake loading conditions is important for the safe design of structures. Students will learn about this liquefaction phenomenon by conducting shake table tests on saturated sands. This will provide practical, hands-on laboratory experience that is often unattainable due to safety concerns associated with field trips to actual construction sites. Unlike most commercially built instructional shake tables, the custom-built Pitt Table will have a 1,500 pound capacity and be portable for use in classroom demonstrations. This instructional tool will have multiple applications within CEE. Aside from initially providing a practical method for undergraduates to learn about structural dynamics and earthquake engineering, it will also lend itself to long-term applications such as graduate-level investigation and demonstration of more complex problems of earthquake engineering. In addition, this tool will help facilitate benchtop research projects for undergraduate students in the Honors College, as well as being available to the School of Engineering and for use in CEE outreach programs for incoming freshman and Pittsburgh area high school students. The goal is to have the table assembled and the programming for the accompanying educational modules initiated by September 2007. In that way, it will be ready for pilot classroom demonstrations in the spring of 2008 and regular deployment by fall 2008. Once designed, the modules can also be used by colleagues within CEE for other educational applications. This tool will help instructors increase their ability to communicate the knowledge they wish to pass along to their students and will bring better understanding of complex concepts to the classroom.
| |||||||||||||||||
|
A newsletter devoted to the support of teaching and learning at the University of Pittsburgh |
||||||||||||||||||
| Center
for Instructional Development & Distance Education |
||||||||||||||||||
