Background

Dr. Garber was awarded a PCI Design Studio in January 2020 in “Advanced Building and Bridge Construction with Precast Concrete.” The studio aims to do the following tasks:

    1. Create a video library of presentations, example problems, and demonstrations to be hosted on YouTube and used in a hybrid learning environment,
    2. Modify an existing course (Prestressed Concrete Design) to incorporate a hybrid learning style using the created videos and incorporate more hands-on activities, field trips, and in-class presentations from industry,
    3. Participate in the PCI Big Beam Competition each year of the studio, use the competition as the class project in Prestressed Concrete Design, and allow students to participate in an in-class design competition, and
    4. Create a new advanced course in Precast Concrete Design introducing students to fully precast solutions for buildings and bridges.

This webpage summarizes the activities conducted as part of this PCI Design Studio.

Advisory Committee

The Advisory Committee for this project consists of the following members:

  • Luis Compres, Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc.
  • Diep Tu, FPCA
  • Adel El Safty, University of North Florida
  • Glen Switzer, Durastress
  • Thomas Frank, FDOT
  • Ryan Cartwright, Standard Concrete Products

The Advisory Committee is updated at lease semi-annually and provides feedback on studio activities.

 

2021-2022 Activities

Precast Concrete Design

Precast Concrete Design was offered for the second time in Fall 2021 with 16 graduate and 2 undergraduate students. The previously developed course materials were reviewed and revised and additional materials developed. A total of 633 pages of types notes and 962 slides were created for this course. Two projects, 8 homework assignments, and a final exam were created to assess student learning. The two projects developed as part of the course require students to design a fully-precast building and a fully-precast bridge.

A sample of the notes and slides developed for the ABC Equipment and Techniques module are shown below.

Four guest speakers presented to the class remotely (via Zoom). These speakers were from JVI, Inc., Gate Precast Company, Sarens, and CHA Consulting Inc.

 

PCI Foundation Collaboration Meeting

A collaboration meeting was held at FIU on January 7th, 2022, with a faculty member from:

  • Sacramento State University (Eric Matsumoto),
  • New Jersey Institute of Technology (Mohamed Mahgoub), and
  • Florida International University (David Garber).

The faculty represented three different PCI Foundation Studios at different points in the studio and with different focuses. The faculty shared about their activities and experiences with their respective studios, offered encouragement, peer reviews, and suggestions for improvement, and discussed possible opportunities for collaboration.

 

Project Precast

Two students from FIU participated in the 2022 Project Precast competition at the 2022 PCI Convention.

 

Prestressed Concrete Design

Prestressed Concrete Design was developed to be an Online LIVE course to be taught in Spring 2022. An Online LIVE course is fully online, hybrid course with both asynchronous and synchronous learning experiences. The students work through lecture materials asynchronously and the 75-minute synchronous meeting can be used for group discussions, question and answer, and guest speakers. A total of 46 videos from 734 slides were developed and uploaded to YouTube® with a total of 23 hours of content for the asynchronous materials. A total of 543 pages of typed notes were reviewed and revised to meet current accessibility requirements; this included developing alternate text for all figures.

The course was offered in Spring 2022 as a cross-listed course with 17 graduate students and 21 undergraduate students.

There were seven guest presentations during the Spring 2022 semester for Prestressed Concrete Design. These presenters were from Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc., Eriksson Software and Eriksson Technology, Durastress, Finfrock, Sumiden Wire, Corven Engineering, a Hardesty & Hanover company, and FHWA.

The class was broken down into groups of 5-6 students (3 undergraduate and 2-3 graduate students each) for the final project, which was the PCI Big Beam Competition. The class project was designed so that the student teams present their projects to a panel of judges consisting of different engineers and fabricators to choose two winning teams whose beams would be fabricated by Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc. Teams submitted a preliminary report and presented their work virtually to the entire class and the panel of judges on 4/12/22. The judges for this year were from Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc., Kimley-Horn, Standard Concrete, CEG-FL, Pfeil Design, LLC, and FPCA.

 

Expansion of Video Library

A total of 8 videos were created for Precast Concrete Design and uploaded to YouTube®. These videos total over 4 hours of content and have over 10,837 views (as of 4/11/22).

 

2020-2021 Activities

Development and Delivery of “Precast Concrete Design” Course

A new course was developed called “Precast Concrete Design” in Spring/Summer 2020 and taught in Fall 2020. The course outline is shown below:

  1. Introduction to Precast Construction
  2. Codes and Loads used in Precast Building and Bridge Design
  3. Buildings – Design and Analysis of Precast/Prestressed Beams
  4. Buildings – Design and Analysis of Other Building Elements (e.g., columns, corbels, shear walls)
  5. Buildings – Connections Between Precast Elements
  6. Buildings – Case Studies
  7. Bridges – Precast Superstructure Design and Analysis
  8. Bridges – Substructure Design and Analysis
  9. Bridges – Connections Between Precast Bridge Elements
  10. Bridges – Construction Equipment used in Precast Bridge Construction
  11. Bridges – Case Studies
  12. Tolerances

The students completed two projects in the class designing fully precast buildings and bridges:

  • Project #1 – Precast Building Design
  • Project #2 – Precast Bridge Design

The course was taught as a synchronous, fully-remote course due to COVID-19. Because the course was taught fully remote, guest speakers could be invited from all over US (and Canada). Guest speakers came from JVI, Gate Precast, Sarens, and CHA Consulting.

 

Expansion of Video Library for Prestressed Concrete Design

A total of 46 videos have been created with PowerPoint presentations and example problems for Prestressed Concrete Design. These videos can be found on Dr. Garber’s YouTube page and on the Prestressed Concrete Design website.

 

Prestressed Concrete Design

Prestressed Concrete Design (CES 4711/5715) was taught as a remote course with both synchronous and asynchronous components. The lectures for this course were all prerecorded and posted on YouTube. The synchronous components for this course included answering student questions, class presentations, and an end-of-semester design competition where students presented their final project, which was based on the PCI Big Beam Competition. Guest speakers came from Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc., Eriksson Software, Durastress, Sumiden Wire, Corven Engineering, and FHWA. All presentations were made virtually.

The class was broken down into groups of 6-7 students (4-5 undergraduate and 2-3 graduate students each) for the final project, which was the PCI Big Beam Competition. The class project was designed so that the student teams present their projects to a panel of judges consisting of different engineers and fabricators to choose two winning teams whose beams would be fabricated by Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc. Teams submitted a preliminary report and presented their work virtually to the entire class and the panel of judges on 4/5/21. The judges for this year were from Coreslab Structures (Miami), Inc., Kimley-Horn, Standard Concrete, Finfrock, and FPCA.

 

 

2019-2020 Activities

The “Advanced Building and Bridge Construction with Precast Concrete” PCI Foundation Studio began in January 2020.

Prestressed Concrete Design

Prestressed Concrete Design was offered as an in-person course in Spring 2020. The course met for the first half in person and then transitioned to fully online after March 12, 2020 due to COVID-19. The original plan was to develop Prestressed Concrete Design as a hybrid course in later years of the studio. Videos were developed for the last few modules in this class to help with the online mode for this semester and planned hybrid format for future semesters. The class could not participate in the PCI Big Beam Competition this year due to restrictions at FIU.

Expansion of Video Library

19 videos were created with PowerPoint presentations and example problems for Prestressed Concrete Design. These videos can be found on Dr. Garber’s YouTube page and on the Prestressed Concrete Design website.

 

In-Class Presentations

Luis Compres from Coreslab Structures (Miami) Inc. came into Prestressed Concrete Design and presented on precast building products and the precasting/prestressing procedure. This was the last class before the course transitioned to fully online due to COVID-19.

 

Project Precast

One student from FIU (Isabella Zapata) participated in the PCI Foundation’s Project Precast.