Offshore oil production is an exercise in extremes. Widely varying temperatures, very high pressures and extremely corrosive seawater – all are challenges that producers must tackle when drilling and installing wells in ultra-deep water offshore.

Add to this list the basic inaccessibility of the wells themselves. With the top of these wells often sitting thousands of feet under water, monitoring their overall health is another major challenge.

Mina Dawood, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, has published a report outlining factors that contribute to cracking of high mast illumination poles during fabrication. The report also provides strategies to prevent these cracks and potential failures from occurring.

With a surface area of approximately 2.3 million square miles, the Congo River Basin is the second largest river basin in the world, surpassed only by the Amazon.

A researcher with the Cullen College of Engineering has helped create a nanotechnology-based material that is extremely effective at killing E. coli and other pathogenic bacteria.

When concrete on a bridge or building deteriorates, cracks or is weakened, the structure doesn’t need to be torn down and replaced. Instead, it can be repaired and strengthened with advanced materials such as carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP) that are more than five-times stronger than steel when placed under tension.

Mina Dawood, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering with the Cullen College of Engineering, recently received a three-year, $300,000 grant from National Science Foundation to develop a new method of repairing cracks in steel structures such as bridges.

A major underground construction technology association has honored UH civil engineering professor Cumaraswamy “Vipu” Vipulanandan for his outstanding contributions in education and research related to underground infrastructure construction and maintenance.

Drawing top researchers to its already outstanding faculty roster is an ongoing effort at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering. These professors help grow the university’s overall research expenditures and improve the success rates of its undergraduate and graduate students – both essential to UH’s drive to earn recognition as a Tier One research university.

Researchers at the University of Houston have developed a new model they hope will accurately predict the number of hurricanes that could strike the state during this year’s Atlantic Hurricane Season.

The model, which researchers hope to help verify through this season’s prediction, indicates there is an increased potential a storm will make landfall in Texas.