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KU researchers strengthen American dams, levees with technological innovation
LAWRENCE — A team of researchers at the University of Kansas School of Engineering has partnered with U.S. federal agencies in a push to reinforce American dams and levees nationwide using fiber-reinforced polymers, sensors, artificial intelligence and drones. The $7.7 million, five-year project is a partnership between KU, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Study: ‘Spreadsheet wherewithal,’ life cycle of data key to preparing journalists, communicators
LAWRENCE — In the age of big data, information is everywhere. But it takes a skilled data interpreter and communicator to help people understand what information means and why it is important. To help ensure future journalists and communicators know how to find, make sense of and share data — and counter misinformation — two University of Kansas researchers have proposed a “data project life cycle” approach to preparing students. The research was published in the journal Science Communication.
April Red Hot Research sessions to highlight graduate research, racial equity projects
LAWRENCE — The Red Hot Research series returns in April with two sessions focused on graduate student research and racial equity. Red Hot Graduate Research, which showcases graduate students across a range of disciplines, will take place at 4 p.m. April 7. Later that month, a Red Hot Research event featuring recipients of the 2021 KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Awards will take place at 3:30 p.m. April 28.
Full stories below.
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Contact: Brendan Lynch, KU News Service, 785-864-8855, [email protected], @BrendanMLynch
KU researchers strengthen American dams, levees with technological innovation
LAWRENCE — A team of researchers at the University of Kansas School of Engineering has partnered with U.S. federal agencies in a push to reinforce American dams and levees nationwide using fiber-reinforced polymers, sensors, artificial intelligence and drones.
The $7.7 million, five-year project is a partnership between KU, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Work at KU is headed by Caroline Bennett, Dean R. and Florence W. Frisbie Associate Chair of Graduate Studies, Glenn L. Parker Faculty Fellow and professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering.
“The project focuses on developing repairs and retrofits for the inventory of concrete dams in the U.S., with an emphasis on efficient damage detection,” Bennett said. “In addition to repair methods, we’ll be using fiber-reinforced polymer materials, or FRPs, to address damage. Specifically, we’re targeting sliding at lift joints, restraining rocking between crest block and dam body during seismic loading, and damage on concrete spillways of dams. Our goal is to extend the usable lives of existing concrete dam infrastructure, which was mostly built in the 1930s and 1940s.”
These New Deal-era dams and levees aren’t just showing their age; several have experienced catastrophic failures in recent years due to disrepair. In 2005, New Orleans’ levees were breached with disastrous results during Hurricane Katrina, while levees in South Carolina were breached during Hurricane Matthew in 2016. A year later, relentless rain caused the Oroville Dam in California to fail. One recent assessment concluded the nation’s dams and levees need $93.6 billion in upgrades.
Before repairs are made, dams and levees must be assessed for repairs. KU researchers are developing new approaches for dam and levee damage-detection, which traditionally required people dangling from ropes. Their approach will rely on artificial intelligence, according to co-primary investigator Jian Li, Francis M. Thomas Chair’s Council Associate Professor of Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering at KU, who will lead much of that work.
“My main role is focused on using deep learning and computer vision to autonomously identify the location and severity of dam damage, such as concrete cracking and spalling, for which FRP repair is needed,” Li said. “Once the repair is done, these locations are no longer inspectable. Therefore, we’ll also develop self-sensing FRP repairs to enable continued monitoring of the repaired regions to ensure long-term safety. By leveraging emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, computer vision and advanced sensing, our research will greatly enhance timely repair, retrofit and maintenance of the nation’s large inventory of concrete dams.”
In the meantime, KU faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students and undergraduate research assistants work to identify appropriate fiber-reinforced polymer materials for a unique application in concrete gravity dams. This materials characterization and large-scale testing work will take place in three different KU laboratories where enormous loads will be applied in flexible and direct-shear tests to measure the performance of the FRP repairs: the West Campus Structural Testing Facility, the Learned Hall Structural Engineering Testing Laboratory and the Lutz Fracture and Fatigue Laboratory.
Rémy Lequesne, associate professor of civil, environmental & architectural engineering, will lead large-scale experimental testing of simulated joints in concrete dams, both with and without repairs.
“As America’s infrastructure ages, it’s important we become better at assessing whether structures can continue to serve safely and also develop improved methods to repair and extend the service-life of structures,” Lequesne said. “This project does just that. We’re developing more efficient methods for dam inspection and, through data collection and model development, providing tools that engineers can use to make decisions about whether and how to repair existing dams. Results will lead to recommendations and new modelling tools that engineers can use for assessment and design of repairs.”
Meantime, investigators at KU will conduct a scholarly review of all research into FRP materials, information that will guide their own testing of the promising materials. Carbon-fiber materials, lightweight and stronger than steel in strength-to-weight ratio, hold potential to address the enormity of repairing and retrofitting many of the 700-plus dams and related structures the USACE operates and maintains.
“These materials typically begin as fabric and are commonly made of a matrix of glass or carbon fiber, along with an epoxy or resin material,” Bennett said. “This unique matrix gives the material great strength-to-weight properties, resistance to corrosion and the ability to be formed into various geometries to match the substrate being worked with. As a result, FRP materials offer a cool opportunity to create overlays that follow the geometry of the structure while remaining strong and lightweight.”
According to Bennett, the goal of the work at KU is to boost American transportation and commerce, as well as safeguard nearby communities.
“Our systems of dams and levees is responsible for ensuring we have navigable waterways and that we have reliable water sources for drinking water as well,” she said. “This is hugely important infrastructure. We’re not really building new dams anymore, so it has become critical to maintain our existing inventory of dams from both a safety perspective, for drinking water, as well as navigability of our waterways. It’s very important to the safe functioning of our infrastructure, from a life-safety standpoint, but also from an economic and transportation standpoint.”
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Contact: Mike Krings, KU News Service, 785-864-8860, [email protected], @MikeKrings
Study: ‘Spreadsheet wherewithal,’ life cycle of data key to preparing journalists, communicators
LAWRENCE — In the age of big data, information is everywhere. But it takes a skilled data interpreter and communicator to help people understand what information means and why it is important. To help ensure future journalists and communicators know how to find, make sense of and share data — and counter misinformation — two University of Kansas researchers have proposed a “data project life cycle” approach to preparing students.
Peter Bobkowski, Clyde M. Reed Professor of Journalism, and Christopher Etheridge, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications, conducted a study in which they interviewed 24 professionals in journalism and strategic communications about what kind of data skills students need to succeed in the disciplines. The findings show data literacy should guide efforts, and the authors present a model for instructors to ensure students have the necessary skills, such as what they call “spreadsheet wherewithal.” The piece was published in the journal Science Communication.
“The reality is for a lot of programs, the sub-fields like advertising, public relations, science communication and other areas are in classes together with journalism students,” Etheridge said. “Our premise is to take what data journalism is and apply it across disciplines, and then look at how we can help students apply those skills in the field.”
In science communication or in a project such as reporting on a school district’s budget, practitioners need to be able to look at numbers and tell an audience what they mean. The same is true for strategic communications disciplines, and the authors proposed a “data project life cycle” for educators to equip students with those skills. The model advances the idea that not every storyteller will be a computer coder, but all communicators need to be comfortable looking at data and pulling out the important information, or spreadsheet wherewithal. Educators should design courses that teach students to plan, then acquire, organize, analyze and interpret data in simple spreadsheets, then develop strategies to explain the data through text, audio, images and graphics. The “life cycle” approach is common in statistics but could be beneficial for communicators as well.
“Our research underscores the benefit of walking students through an entire data project cycle so that they establish connections between collecting data, arranging it in a dataset, analyzing it and communicating it,” Bobkowski said. “This is something statistics educators have emphasized for years. Perhaps our paper can prompt more instructors to consider the entirety of the data project cycle as they design data learning experiences for their students.”
The data project life cycle was developed based both on academic literature and input from professional journalists and communicators. The latter — people working in fields as diverse as public relations, marketing and strategic communications — told the researchers about the specific skills and levels of expertise graduates entering the field should have. Top among the skills discussed is spreadsheet wherewithal, or the ability to navigate features and components of spreadsheet software and how information therein can be analyzed and organized to yield useful results.
Practitioners also expressed the importance of software over coding, noting it was more important to have familiarity with commonly used programs than a knowledge of coding. Humanizing data and being able to tell a story with information was also high on the list, along with the importance of being able to relay it to both external and internal audiences. Finally, respondents indicated journalists and mass communicators need to know how and when to visualize data, or what programs to use to make visual presentations of data, and that they should possess a drive for lifelong and self-directed learning. In essence, being able to share data in an understandable way is as important as knowing where and how to find it.
“We wanted to ask people in the field if the things we were thinking of matched what they are looking for and how intensely these data skills are involved,” Etheridge said. “Our conversations with practitioners confirmed the data life cycle approach makes a lot of sense. The top line is that people who are hiring want spreadsheet wherewithal.”
While the importance of knowing how to use technologies to interpret data and relate it in understandable ways is vital for journalists and mass communicators, the authors wrote that those training future professionals should prepare them not only in how to use relevant tools but to be proficient in finding, understanding, interpreting and communicating data to ensure accurate data finds its way to wide audiences.
“This study underscores the central role of data literacy in today’s communication strategies across disciplines and content areas. Given the widespread use of scientific tactics and processes to advance business and societal goals, knowledge of the scientific method and statistical reasoning are critical for communication practitioners throughout varying fields and industries,” Bobkowski and Etheridge wrote. “As data is the fundamental building block of science, increased data literacy and understanding of the data life cycle can support greater scientific literacy among both communication practitioners and the publics they serve.”
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Contact: Emily Ryan, The Commons, 785-864-6293, [email protected], @TheCommonsKU
April Red Hot Research sessions to highlight graduate research, racial equity projects
LAWRENCE — The Red Hot Research series returns in April with two sessions focused on graduate student research and racial equity.
Red Hot Graduate Research, which showcases graduate students across a range of disciplines, will take place at 4 p.m. April 7. Later that month, a Red Hot Research event featuring recipients of the 2021 KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Awards will take place at 3:30 p.m. April 28. Both events will take place at Jayhawk Ink on Level 2 of the Kansas Union. Drinks and snacks will be provided.
Red Hot Research is hosted by The Commons and features presenters from disciplines across the university sharing six-minute talks about their work as it intersects with core themes. The series opens new ways of understanding global and local challenges through discussion spanning methodological approaches and diverse perspectives.
The April 7 Red Hot Graduate Research session — curated and emceed by L Favicchia, a doctoral candidate in English — includes:
1. Jordan Cortesi, psychology
2. Darcy Sullivan, sociology
3. Camilah Hicks, social welfare
4. Kirsten Taylor, visual art
5. Sharif Tusuubira, ecology & evolutionary biology
The April 28 Red Hot Research session — curated by the Office of Research and emceed by Jennifer Ng, associate vice provost for faculty affairs — will feature a sampling of recipients of the 2021 Racial Equity Awards:
1. Yi-Yang Chen, music
2. Meagan Patterson, educational psychology
3. Jorge Soberón, ecology & evolutionary biology
4. Amy van de Riet, architecture
5. Maria Velasco, visual art
In keeping with the goals of this series, presenters are asked to consider how other disciplinary perspectives could contribute to their research, likely next steps for the research and challenges that they face in conducting the research. In turn, audience members are asked to offer insights, questions and ideas.
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