Written by: Sophie Herbut/Contributing Writer
Atorod Azizinamini said it’s a challenge to keep his students in class, while companies are already offering them jobs.
“These consulting offices try to hire them before they graduate,” said Azizinamini, chair of the University’s civil and environmental engineering department. “I’m trying to encourage [them] to finish [their] degree and then go and get the job.”
Azizinamini was recently named a 2015 White House Transportation Champion of Change.
He has focused his resources on bringing exposure to the University by starting conferences and creating a network within the bridge engineering industry. He said his strategy is appealing to his students, and it allows them to have a “well-rounded” education.
Azizinamini said that his graduate students work very close with the Department of Transportation and consultants. He said that his graduate students are at a very high demand.
“Some of my graduate students have been very influential in the way we design and build bridges in the U.S.,” said Azizinamini.
Jawad Gull is a bridge designer in Miami and one of Azizinamini’s graduate students.
“Azizinamini had a significant influence on my career. He involved me in a variety of research projects [that are] not conventional for [doctoral] students,” said Gull.
Graduate students usually work on only one research project, but Azizinamini allowed him to work on a “variety of topics [in bridge engineering].”
Gull worked on advances in steel bridge design. He focused on developing theories explaining their behaviors during construction.
He analyzed the “fit-up force” and simplified the method of calculating it to reduce construction delays. Fit-up is the measure of the closeness or degree of contact between mechanical parts.
Gull worked with a variety of consulting companies during his time with Azizinamini such as High Steel Structures Inc., Hirschfeld Industries, LP, Olson Engineering, Tampa Steel Erecting Company, and Quakewrap.
Gull said he was able to create a unified theory that explains the behavior of skewed steel bridges during construction.
This December, Azizinamini is hosting the National Accelerated Bridge Construction Conference in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Miami. It is scheduled to have workshops, networking and keynote speakers such as Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart and the Federal Highway Administration’s administrator Gregory Nadeau.
“Azizinamini brought visibility to the department,” said Berrin Tansel, CEE undergraduate program director.
Hansel has worked at FIU since 1990 and has seen Azizinamini expand the faculty in structural engineering, “especially in the Accelerated Bridge Construction area.” Azizinamini is the director of the Center for Accelerated Bridge Construction at the University.
The center is made up of a group of U.S. bridge engineering professionals gathered in Miami. It focuses on bridge replacements due to the need to replace substandard bridges in existence while maintaining traffic flows, according to its website.
The center also hosts a free monthly webinar that attracts an average of 4,000 participants, according to Azizinamini. He said he continues his research for personal curiosity and to create a more effective teaching method.
Azizinamini is not hesitant in involving his students into his research. He said that keeping up with research while educating his students is important, so that they get the most recent information on bridge engineering, rather than just what they find in textbooks.
“[It’s] going to take 10 years from now to get [some material] into the textbooks,” said Azizinamini.
“I believe the greatest lesson I learned from him was to criticize previous works and look at them with the eyes to improve them or create a better theory,” said Reza Ferimani, a University alumnus whom Azizinamini was an advisor for.
Originally, Azizinamini’s research was focused on earthquake and seismic engineering, which led him to chase earthquakes, like the Kobe earthquake of 1995.
Azizinamini’s focus on bridges came from an interest in structures. He said he felt the need to narrow his research to bridge engineering and lead his students by example.
“As you mature as a faculty, at some point in your life, you have to give it focus,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re going to make a contribution.”
Azizinamini said he found urgency in bridge reconstruction because of the closing gap of a bridge’s design life and the current life.
The U.S. is home to about 600,000 bridges and, out of those, 24 percent need replacement or renovation, according to the ABC center.
Azizinamini produced a possible solution for bridges under 60 feet long that need renovation called the, “Folded Plate Steel Bridge System.” The cost-efficient system uses steel plates bent into hollow tube sections.
The system provides the durability of steel in a lightweight form as a framework to incorporate concrete, the cheaper alternative for bridges. It is also one of the options described in the document, “Design Guide for Bridges for Service Life.”
Azizinamini was the principal investigator in the creation of the document. It is a guideline that provides different options and steps to create new bridges that have a longer span of service and that extend the life of the older ones. It has been implemented in Iowa, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Hawaii.
Azizinamini said the FPSBS is one system that incorporates the ABC philosophy by building a large component of the bridge off traffic site and piecing it together “like a puzzle” on site. He said this system can cut construction time to two days.
He also said it is an option for a “safe and cost-effective” way of building or rebuilding bridges.
“We are paying attention to the details but maintaining the same quality as if you build them the normal way,” Azizinamini said. “Our hope is that in 10 or 15 years, this technology will be the normal way bridges are built.”
He believes that the strategy is effective for both the public and agencies in preventing accidents and litigations.
“The number one reason why we need to shorten [the time] is not to shorten construction time, but to prevent accidents [caused by traffic changes],” Azizinamini said.
“The key to success is that we work as a team,” he said. “We are probably one of the top ten programs for bridge engineering in the U.S. FIU is the future face of what higher education is going to look like in the next 10 years.”
sophie.herbut@fiusm.com
Image by ash_crow, courtesy of Creative Commons
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