Trine CE students claim second

First appearance in ASCE wall competition

 

A team of Trine University civil engineering students captured second place in the mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall building competition during the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Great Lakes Regional Conference at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. in mid-April.

Trine University civil engineering students, from left, Aaron Brazier, Nick Savage, Matt Shergalis and Joe Fulcher show off their second-place award from the American Society of Civil Engineers mechanically stabilized earth wall competition in April.

This was the first year a Trine team entered the competition, and the team of Aaron Brazier, Nick Savage, Matt Shergalis and Joe Fulcher competed against four other Trine teams to determine whose wall would represent the university at the competition. The process required dozens of hours designing, testing, redesigning and retesting, said Reiners Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering chair Dr. Tim Tyler.

Trine’s team competed against nine universities in the Great Lakes district of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin in the MSE wall competition. In the competition, students designed, constructed and load-tested a small-scale MSE retaining wall, with Trine taking first in the design paper, second overall and ranking higher than any other Indiana school. “The team wants to go to the national competition in Texas next year, if we can find the funding for them,” Dr. Tyler said.

Around 30 Trine civil engineering students attended the Great Lakes ASCE conference to compete in the concrete canoe, steel bridge and MSE wall competitions. The Great Lakes ASCE conference is an annual event for Trine students, who traditionally haul home one or more awards.