Facilities & Equipment

Facilities

Our department is housed in one of the most distinctive places on campus - the Swenson Civil Engineering building. It is a LEED Gold facility and was featured in Architect magazine when it first opened in 2010.

The building houses state-of-the-art classrooms and labs. Highlights include:

  • Labs in every focus area for hands-on training and student projects
  • Structural strong floor and reaction wall with two 15-ton gantry cranes
  • Extensive high bay area
  • Hydraulic lab with large-scale flume
  • Infrastructure materials lab
  • Pavement engineering lab
  • Geomaterials lab (soil and rock testing)
  • Environmental lab (water chemistry)
  • Computer lab with Civil Engineering software

A building that teaches:

  • Multiple visible structural systems
  • Sustainable and local building material focus

Equipment

We house a remarkable array of equipment. We can conduct large scale research projects thanks to much of the equipment mentioned above, a steel loading frame that allows for flexible testing configurations, and two fully fatigue rated 110 kip hydraulic actuators with a 20 inch stroke.

The equipment is used for research and in courses to demonstrate concepts and allow students to get hands-on experience working with the tools of our industry.