Bridge safety is a national topic of discussion today.  SCE’s  ZhiQiang Chen, assistant professor of civil engineering,  has received a $25,900 grant from the University of Missouri Research Board for “Design-oriented Scoured Foundation Modeling for Bridge Performance Analysis”. Slated to receive funding for a year, the project will officially begin during the summer.  “The design, analysis and performance evaluation methods for scoured bridges significantly lag behind in our community,” Chen said. “One of the reviewers of this proposal actually commented that the proposed research is very timely. The long-term goal, beyond this pilot project, is to establish UMKC as a national center focusing on scoured bridge system research.” For more details see the UMKC Press Release.