Engineering showcase under construction
Article written by Alec Harvey of Business Alabama
Now rising at Auburn University is a laboratory that will boost Auburn’s competitiveness with the best engineering schools in the U.S. It’s also a spectacular new gateway to the campus.
For the folks involved with Auburn University’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, the recent groundbreaking for a new advanced structural testing laboratory was a long time coming.
“The first planning for this began about 10 or 15 years ago,” says Andrzej Nowak, professor and chair of the structural engineering department. “We’ve needed a new lab for a long time, because the existing one is just too small.”
When the new, $22 million, 41,500-square-foot facility opens in the fall, it will be a showcase.
“It will be one of the, if not the, most modern labs in the world when it’s done,” Nowak says. “It’s not the largest in the world, but the size is really what we need, and the arrangement is really the best there is.”
According to the engineering department, the structure will include a high-bay lab with specialty engineered floors and walls capable of handling extreme structural testing loads; a geotechnical test chamber; a concrete materials research and testing laboratory; a wind testing facility, and faculty and graduate student spaces.
See updates on the Auburn University Advanced Structural Engineering Laboratory