Tag Archives: Ganesh Thiagarajan

Big Beam Team Places in Top 5 Nationally

The Official Results are in!  Our Big Beam team placed 5th at the 2014 National Big Beam Contest and 1st at the Zone 3 (Midwest Region) Big Beam Contest.   The contest is sponsored by PCI (Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute) and attracted many contenders.  Teams adhered to a strict set of rules to build an 18 foot long precast-prestressed concrete beam which was then tested as a 16 foot span.

Boasting a collaborative team of students from University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) and Missouri University of Science & Technology (MS&T), a great amount of effort went into achieving these results.  Our heartiest congratulations and “job well done” to team members Timothy Hines (UMKC), Kristen Reynolds (UMKC), Mayuri Patil (UMKC), Eli Hernandez(MS&T), Alex Griffin (MS&T), Hayder Alghazali (MS&T) and Kaylea Smith (MS&T) and to the team faculty advisors Ganesh Thiagarajan, Ph.D. (UMKC), John Myers, Ph.D. (MS&T).  Kevin Truman, Dean of UMKC School of Computing and Engineering, noted “It is great to see success such as this, but more importantly your commitment to work as a team, to collaborate between the campuses and to use your abilities to their fullest.  As a Dean I am most proud of the fact that you all have made these commitments and followed through; the success shown in the results is just icing on the cake as they say.”

We also want to thank Mr. Mark Simpson and his group at Coreslab Structures Kansas City office, who serve as the team’s PCI Producer.  Sponsorship by a PCI producer is a competition requirement and every year Coreslab Structures has enthusiastically sponsored our Big Beam Team.  Sponsorship is a lot of effort which includes the fabrication of the student team’s design, supplying both labor and materials, and then transporting the beam to Rolla from Kansas City.   Big Beam team member and civil engineering student Kristen Reynolds sums up the impact of their support, “I am so excited and feel so blessed to have been a part of this team and experience. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be included in the UMKC and MS&T family and I have loved every minute of it. Let’s keep it up for next year!”

We wholeheartedly agree!  Go Big Beam Team!

Blast Blind Simulation contest draws contestants worldwide

SCE Professor of Civil Engineering Dr. Ganesh Thiagarajan’s National Science Foundation (NSF) award (# CMMI 0748085, PI: Ganesh Thiagarajan) funded a Blast Blind Simulation Contest that attracted 40 worldwide entries. Continue reading →

SCE Supports Science Pioneers Science Fair

SCE is proud to support the Science Pioneers Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair as a Special Award organization.

Each year SCE provides a senior division award for the “best interdisciplinary use and application of computer science and engineering principles”. The 2014 winner is Madison Nasteff from Liberty High School. Madison designed a low cost device to help with parallel parking. She designed and built the hardware, wrote the software for the dashboard device and even tested it on a Honda Accord. Congratulations to Madison and her teacher mentor, Rebecca Groebe! Continue reading →

SCE Professors Praveen Rao and Ganesh Thiagarajan Promoted

Two very well-respected SCE professors will be promoted effective September 1, 2013. We congratulate Dr. Praveen Rao on his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in the Computer Science Electrical Engineering Department of SCE and Dr. Ganesh Thiagarajan on his promotion to full Professor in the Civil and Mechanical Engineering Department of SCE. Their promotions represent significant career milestones and we celebrate with them on achieving this well-earned recognition and acknowledgement of their excellence in teaching, research and service.

Jesse Sherwood & Ganesh Thiagarajan are 2013 SCE Good Teaching Award Recipients

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Each year two faculty from SCE, one from our Civil and Mechanical Engineering (CME) department and one from our Computer Science Electrical Engineering (CSEE) department, are selected for a Good Teaching Award by the School’s graduating seniors. Jesse Sherwood, Assistant Teaching Professor in CSEE, and Ganesh Thiagarajan, Professor of Civil Engineering in CME, were honored this year receiving the 2013 Good Teaching Awards at the all school faculty and staff meeting on May 3, 2013. According to their department chairs, their devotion to teaching and their profession is highly commendable. Both professors regularly receive comments for their students like “excellent instructor” or “great teacher, really makes sure we understand the material”. SCE gratefully acknowledges the SCE Alumni Association Board for their support of the Good Teaching Awards. The SCE AA Board established an endowed fund to support the Engineering Good Teaching award and works each year with the dean to review the SCE students’ nominations and ratify recipients.

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ASCE Selects Ganesh Thiagarajan as a 2012 Outstanding Reviewer

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has selected Associate Professor Ganesh Thiagarajan as an ASCE 2012 Outstanding Reviewer. The congratulations letter from ASCE noted, “The reputation that the journal has achieved in no small way reflects the impressive quality of the efforts of our reviewers.” SCE is proud of our faculty’s service to their profession and congratulates Dr. Thiagarajan on being selected. George Voyiadjis, editor of ASCE’s Journal of Nanomechanics and Micromechanics, recommended Dr. Thiagarajan for this honor.

UMKC recognized as an ACI Excellent University

UMKC has been recognized by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) as an ACI Excellent University. Only 16 universities received this award in 2012! The congratulations letter from ACI notes that the award “was initiated to recognize universities that have participated in ACI-related activities.” CE faculty Ceki Halmen, John Kevern and Ganesh Thiagarajan are ACI student chapter faculty advisors. The ACI student chapter received awards at the ACI Missouri Concrete Conference in April 2012 and has been very active throughout the year.

SCE Students Help with Model Bridge Building Contest

January 26, 2013 marked the tenth year that SCE engineering students, Professor Ganesh Thiagajaran and Engineering Research Technician Pat O’Bannon have happily provided logistics and volunteers for the 30th Annual Model Bridge Building Competition which is organized and sponsored by the Western Chapter of the Missouri Society of Professional Engineers (MSPE). SCE engineering students Tim Hines, Bhargav Javvaji, Clark Johnson, Bhavani Ramneedi, Sean Rivers and Jerome Shin loaded and measured each of the 11 model bridge entries and carefully recorded results. Under the direction of Contest Chairperson Jim Guthrie, DE, PE, bridges were tested while their high school student builders and their teacher mentors experienced memorable demonstrations on how truss-type bridge design must include attention to individual member and global requirements, and the economics of the lightest bridge for the largest applied load.

Everyone found out the maximum load their bridge could withstand as weight was added until the bridges broke. The purpose of the testing was to determine the most efficient bridge as all were constructed per the contest rules and specifications provided by the 2013 International Bridge Building Contest. The winning bridge spanned 300 mm, weighed 22.3 grams, and supported 62.5 pounds of sand (28,349.4 grams) for an efficiency rating of 1,271.3. Cash prizes of $150, $75 and $50 will be awarded to the builder and teacher mentor of the three most efficient bridges at the 2013 Engineers Week Luncheon which is attended by hundreds of practicing engineers.

CE422 Reinforced Concrete Design lab featured on YouTube

Each fall, our Reinforced Concrete Design Lab provides our civil engineering students hand’s on experiences in the design, construction and testing of concrete beams. This year the experience was captured and posted to YouTube by civil engineering senior Scott Jackson. Scott’s lab mate civil engineering senior Antonio Sanchez described the insights they obtained from the experience. “By going through the entire process from making the forms to pouring the concrete, we learned to appreciate the procedure that goes into making a designed beam become real. The testing also allowed us to experience what we’ve been looking at in our books with regards to the different types of cracks that may appear on the concrete beam throughout its service life and analyze the causes of why they appear. It is a very useful experience to have when contrasted to the constant classroom environment.”

Scott shot the video to show it “to others who post SolidWorks and CAD designing projects online” and to capture and share with classmates, family and friends the work he and his classmates have done on projects like this one. Featured in the video is CE422 Reinforced Concrete Design Professor Ganesh Thiagarajan, GTA Gunjan Shetye and civil engineering students Scott Jackson, Antonio Sanchez and Brandon Sisk as the class is divided into 5-6 small groups with each laboratory group responsible for the construction of one of the several beams that will be tested. The student projects are designed to give students insight into the fundamental concepts and effects of reinforcement in concrete flexural members, specifically 1) flexural behavior in terms of reinforcement ratios and its effect on ductility and 2) shear behavior and the role of shear reinforcement (stirrups). The beam shown in the video was one of three different types constructed by the class with each type differing in the amount of steel that was placed to resist the tension forces when pressure loads were applied. Deflection was measured and calculations were based on 150 lbs/cf. We think it’s safe to say, “Beam us up, Engineer Scott”.

SCE ECE Student Tim Sylvester featured in Wall Street Journal

Tim Sylvester, a SCE electrical computer engineering senior and founder of Integrated Roadways, LLC, was featured in the Wall Street Journal article, Entrepreneurs Dream of Jumping on Super-Fast Network. Tim is one of several KC entrepreneurs that are poised to capitalize on the installation of Google Fiber in Kansas City. Using Google fiber capabilities, Tim’s company plans to embed sensors in the modular pavement slabs they produce in order to capture data related to roadway conditions such as traffic jams, potholes, cracks in addition to measuring vehicle type and throughput. Tim credits his success to the support of the SBTDC, UMKC E-Scholars program, UMKC Entrepreneurial Legal Services Clinic, and other small business & entrepreneurial services provided by the University system. He feels blessed to have had the support of so many individuals working tirelessly to help grow new businesses. Tim is currently working to get a contract to build new Bloch Executive Hall parking lots using the IR system and will, in part, be used as a research site for SCE professors Dr. Ganesh Thiagarajan, Dr. John Kevern, & Dr. Ceki Halmen.