{"id":35436,"date":"2019-10-24T21:06:19","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T16:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-uw-engineering.pantheonsite.io\/?p=35436"},"modified":"2023-09-25T09:42:29","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T14:42:29","slug":"college-opens-jun-sandra-lee-structures-lab","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/news\/college-opens-jun-sandra-lee-structures-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"College opens Jun and Sandy Lee structures lab"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A big new structures lab, formally opened this week, represents a leap forward for the University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s structural engineering program. The College of Engineering held an official opening ceremony for the Jun and Sandy Lee Wisconsin Structures and Materials Testing Laboratory on October 23, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab will serve the structural engineering program, which is a part of the college\u2019s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering<\/a>. College of Engineering Dean Ian Robertson<\/a> said the new facility\u2014a 2,500 square-foot addition to the structures lab in Engineering Hall\u2014will ensure UW-Madison continues its long history as a leader in the structural engineering field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis will be a new era for our structural engineering program here at UW-Madison,\u201d says Robertson. \u201cIf you look back through the history of the College of Engineering, you will find that we\u2019ve been conducting pioneering structural engineering research on our campus for more than 100 years. With this new facility and our faculty, we anticipate you\u2019ll be hearing about new advances in the field of structural engineering coming from the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jun
College of Engineering alumnus Jun Lee speaks during the opening ceremony for the new Jun and Sandy Lee Wisconsin Structures and Materials Testing Laboratory. Photo: Alex Holloway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The new structures lab cost roughly $3.2 million. It came to fruition through gifts from CEE friends and alumni, including a $1 million lead donation from Jun (BSCE \u201968, MSCE \u201969, PhDCE \u201973) and Sandy Lee (BA \u201969).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jun Lee, president of the SRI Design, Inc. engineering firm, often tells students, coworkers and engineers who work under him that it\u2019s vital for structural engineers to visualize what they\u2019re doing\u2014beyond simply knowing formulas or theoretical knowledge of how a structure should perform under certain conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis lab will provide for that kind of visualization, which is very important for students,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gustavo Parra-Montesinos<\/a>, the C.K. Wang Professor of Structural Engineering and structures lab director, notes the new lab will greatly improve the college\u2019s ability to carry out full-scale testing. The old lab, which opened in 1984 and will remain in use as part of the new larger facility, was sometimes limited due to space constraints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new lab includes an L-shaped concrete post-tensioned reaction wall that is 26 feet tall with 10 feet deep buttresses, and a 6 \u00bd-feet-thick post-tensioned strong floor. The wall and floor are lined with gridded high-strength anchor points, which are used to connect test specimens and fixtures such as hydraulic actuators for application of a wide variety of forces and displacements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lab also has a 20-ton overhead crane and opens up to allow access to the outside and the old lab, and enough space to test specimens as long as 40 feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parra-Montesinos says the extra space and greatly bolstered capabilities\u2014the 20-ton crane has a loading capacity double that of the old lab\u2019s crane\u2014will make a big difference for students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey will be able to really feel how structures behave,\u201d Parra-Montesinos says. \u201cSometimes we show them photos or videos, but it\u2019s never the same as witnessing a structural member failing, for example\u2014having that true experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat will position them among the best in the nation, not only in terms of structural design, but for things like forensic engineering\u2014how to understand what happened when a failure occurs, how to interpret cracks and skills such as that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Blum<\/a>, an assistant professor who specializes in structural engineering, said the new lab\u2019s larger floor allows for full-size model testing, while its height will let engineers test multi-story structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“You can create and run models, but how do you know if the model results are correct if you don’t have some initial test results to compare them against?” Blum says. \u201cTo really understand what\u2019s happening in a structure and how all the elements interact together, you need to do a large-scale test.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lee says the lab addition puts the College of Engineering in prime position to conduct research that few other institutions can match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is, if not the most capable, one of the most capable research labs in the entire United States,\u201d he says. \u201cIt gives us an opportunity to do research projects that very few universities can do, which will deepen the knowledge of structural engineering beyond what we know now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":35437,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_mbp_gutenberg_autopost":false,"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"department":[2387],"focus_area":[],"news_category":[37,38],"news_tag":[],"class_list":["post-35436","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","department-civil-environmental-engineering","news_category-faculty","news_category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88956,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/35436\/revisions\/88956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/department?post=35436"},{"taxonomy":"focus_area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/focus_area?post=35436"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=35436"},{"taxonomy":"news_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engineering.wisc.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_tag?post=35436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}