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| Professor
Claudia Ostertag and her students take a close look at a concrete
sample about to be compressed to failure in a "split
in tension" device. Photos: Bart Nagel |
Getting down and
dirty in the concrete lab
By Nancy Bronstein
Professor Claudia Ostertag’s spring CE 60 class about the
structure and properties of building materials is one of the department’s
most popular undergraduate classes, despite the fact that it is
required.
Students learn how to analyze the fracture properties, elasticity,
and porosity of materials from concrete and asphalt to steel,
polymers, and wood. In hands-on lab experiments, students mix
their own batches of concrete, let them cure, then test their
specimens according to standard practice. Examining the broken
pieces provides the clues that explain why cracks propagate, how
failures begin, and how to develop new and improved materials
to prevent structural failures.
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| Natalia
Carse Pineda |
"The Romans used concrete to build their Coliseum,"
says Professor Ostertag. "Concrete is an ancient building
material that we are learning more and more about every day. We’re
looking at the tensile strength of concrete that has been reinforced
with hooked fibers to see, when it fails, where fractures occur
and why. Our new technology lets us push traditional materials
to their limits so we can understand why these materials behave
the way they do and how to enhance their performance."
"This class is small," says Natalia
Carse Pineda. "It is the most interactive of all my engineering
classes, and it was my introduction to civil engineering. I love
concrete, and here we make it and then we break it to test its
strength. We see the material’s whole life cycle, studying
its chemical reactions, learning how different aggregates behave."
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| Matt
Strother |
Matt Strother watches the load increase on
the lab’s universal testing machine, equipment that records
the maximum load applied to a 6" x 12" concrete cylinder
just before it bursts apart. "Here you get in and get your
hands dirty," says Strother. "It gives you a better
feel for what you’re studying."
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| Vanessa
Quinto |
"I really like working with concrete because
you actually feel it," says Vanessa Quinto. "There is
heat released when hydration occurs, and you can feel it with
your hands." Quinto came to Berkeley from her native Guatemala
to study bioengineering. She switched her major to CEE after taking
this class.
Author Nancy Bronstein
is co-editor of Forefront.
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