Exciting news comes out of Arizona this month, with the announcement that Arizona State University has landed over $18 million in grant money from the National Science Foundation to found a five-year Engineering Research Center which will specialize in geotechnical engineering. Because innovative breakthroughs often come out of such research centers—and because only 17 ERCs have been funded by the NSF so far, which makes them relatively rare—Thorcon Shotcrete and Shoring is interested to see what comes from ASU’s new project. We’re always excited about the latest progress happening in the civil and geotechnical engineering fields.
According to the ERC Association, the goal of these research centers is to pursue “advances in complex engineered systems …that could spawn whole new industries or radically transform the product lines, practices, and processes of current industries.” The center at ASU will specifically be addressing “bio-mediated and bio-inspired” geotechnical engineering meaning the focus will be on engineering which is inspired by the way the earth already works, and on developing new methods which will be more environmentally sound and cost-effective. According to an article by The Arizona Republic, this research will include studying ways to decrease damage from seismic events, and even to encourage dust reduction.
- To learn more about ASU’s new Engineering Research Center, visit the Center for Bio-mediated & Bio-inspired Geotechnics.
To us, it sounds as if this new center will create even more opportunities to save our customers money with increasingly reliable, cost-effective geotechnical engineering solutions. At Thorcon, we put safety first when designing our custom solutions, so we are glad to welcome any advances in the field which will help us design better and safer civil engineering projects. From our headquarters here in Littleton, Colorado (near Denver), we provide shoring, shotcrete and stabilization services to all of Colorado as well as states in the surrounding region. Get in touch with us today to get started on your own project, and feel free to visit our gallery and watch our latest video to see examples of our work!