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Engagement in Practice: Capstone Design of a Real-world Transportation Interchange Project

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Community Engagement Division Technical Session 6

Tagged Division

Community Engagement Division

Page Count

8

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37035

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37035

Download Count

558

Paper Authors

biography

Simon Thomas Ghanat P.E. The Citadel

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Dr. Simon Ghanat is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Citadel (Charleston, S.C.). He received his Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Arizona State University. His research interests are in Engineering Education and Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering. He previously taught at Bucknell University and Arizona State University.

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William J. Davis P.E. The Citadel Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-3812-8654

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William J. Davis is Dept. Head, D. Graham Copeland Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of Construction Engineering at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. His academic experience includes: transportation infrastructure planning and design, infrastructure resilience, traffic operations, highway safety, and geographic information systems. His research interests include: constructing spatial databases for better management of transportation infrastructure, improving transportation design, operation, safety and construction, understanding long-term effects of urban development patterns, and advancing active living within the built environment for improved public health. He teaches courses in interchange design, transportation engineering, highway design. engineering management, geographic information systems, and land surveying. He has served in numerous leadership positions in ITE, ASCE and TRB.

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Timothy W. Mays The Citadel

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Timothy Wayne Mays, Ph.D., P.E. is a Professor of Civil Engineering at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. Dr. Mays recently served as Executive Director of the Structural Engineers Associations of South Carolina and North Carolina. He currently serves as NCSEA Publications Committee Chairman. He has received three national teaching awards (ASCE, NSPE, and NCSEA) and both national (NSF) and regional (ASEE) awards for outstanding research. His areas of expertise are code applications, structural design, seismic design, steel connections, structural dynamics, and civil engineering aspects of antiterrorism.

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Rebekah Burke P.E. The Citadel

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Dr. Rebekah Burke is an Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering at The Citadel. She received her Doctoral degree from Arizona State University. She was previously the Director of Sustainable Design for Clark Nexsen, Architecture and Engineering, where she also began her career as a structural engineer. She was a founding board member, and the first chair elect of the Hampton Roads Green Building Council.

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Kweku Tekyi Brown P.E. The Citadel Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-6497-8479

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Dr. Kweku Brown is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Citadel. He received his Civil Engineering Master’s degree from the University of Connecticut and his Doctoral degree at Clemson University. He is active in the transportation engineering communities including the South Carolina Department of Transportation, Institute of Transportation Engineers, and Transportation Research Board. His research focuses on transportation safety utilizing geographic and spatial analysis methods.

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John C. Ryan The Citadel

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Dr. Ryan is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at The Citadel and a Professional Engineer with 18 years of building and foundation design experience. He studied Civil Engineering at Louisiana State University for three years prior to earning his Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. Upon moving to Charleston thereafter, he founded Ryan Structural Engineers, LLC and focused on development of innovative building systems and providing general structural and deep foundation design. His research interests include optimizing efficiency of deep foundations, improving the design process of deep foundations, seismic design of structures, finite element modeling, and innovative construction techniques.

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Abstract

Critical transportation and mobility needs led local authorities to establish a $200 million airport infrastructure improvement program, which was solely focused on increasing roadway network capacity. This program included three new interchanges and a realignment of the primary airport access road. The capstone design project at University “X” focused on determining an optimal solution for one of the new interchange locations. The use of this real-world assignment as a capstone project was enthusiastically supported by the region’s airport authority, presiding local jurisdictions, engineering and construction community. Students worked in teams of 5-6 to develop multi-faceted solutions to meet the needs of the larger community over course of two semesters of their senior year. A total of 19 practicing professional engineers worked with students and provided design guidance for each of the project’s sub-discipline areas. At the end of the spring semester, student teams presented their detailed interchange designs including traffic, roadway, structural, geotechnical, drainage, construction and project management. The professional engineer’s expert review panel asked questions indicative of public meetings, evaluated presentations, ranked winning presentations, and provided valuable feedback. Students learned how to synthesize real world design standards, the process to meet desired needs, and to deal with real world environmental, social, political, ethical, health and safety, constructability, and sustainability constraints. This project provided a great opportunity for academic enrichment and intellectual engagement where students applied their knowledge to benefit the community. This paper will discuss motivation for the project, student learning activities, assessment of educational outcomes, lessons learned, conclusions, and suggestions for future research.

Ghanat, S. T., & Davis, W. J., & Mays, T. W., & Burke, R., & Brown, K. T., & Ryan, J. C. (2021, July), Engagement in Practice: Capstone Design of a Real-world Transportation Interchange Project Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37035

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