SUNY Canton Continues Concrete Experimentation, Innovation

A SUNY Canton Civil and Environmental Engineering Technology team has earned national recognition at the American Concrete Institute’s (ACI) Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) Composite Competition held March 29 in Chicago.

With guidance from Associate Professor Saied Haji Ghasemali, Ph.D., students Brett Miller of Potsdam and Seth Thomas of Canton traveled to Chicago to represent the college’s ACI chapter and compete with a custom sample of lightweight concrete. The event challenged teams to design and test a concrete beam optimized for strength, weight, cost efficiency, and predictability.

SUNY Canton’s submission earned first place in cost-to-load, second place among U.S. Institutions, and sixth place overall in the international competition.

“Out of 43 international teams, we finished first in one category, sixth overall, and second in the U.S.,” said Haji Ghasemali. “How could I not be proud of these students?”

The assistant professor said that the achievement exemplifies the potential of SUNY Canton’s Presidential Internship program and the extensive support from Instructional Support Associate Andrew Reiter, a staff member who helps mix and pour concrete. “We started this work in October through the Presidential Internship Program, and you can clearly see the results,” he said. “Our success relied on good organization, good scheduling and sustained effort.”

SUNY Canton’s success was especially notable given the contrast in team sizes, according to Miller. Some programs arrived with delegations of a dozen or more students. “We were just two students,” Miller said. “Some teams had been training and testing for an entire year. We had to make every decision count.”

Thomas said they spent two semesters on the project, with one semester designing the special concrete formula and another designing the sample they wanted to submit. Their efforts resulted in a sample roughly 2 inches thick and about 4 feet long. “We did it this way for weight and also for cost,” Thomas said. “They divide your cost by the load by the ultimate load, and the lowest score wins.”

SUNY Canton has been recognized as an Outstanding ACI Student Chapter for three years. Primarily composed of students from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Technology program, club members continually develop and test new iterations of lightweight concrete. Previously, the researchers have asserted that using fiber-reinforced lightweight mixtures in construction can enhance fire resistance and increase the overall longevity of a structure.

Chapter members are now preparing for upcoming competitions, including a brand-new challenge to create a lightweight concrete sphere that performs well in tests and functions like a bowling ball. “This is real, hands-on engineering,” Miller said. “And the fact that we can compete, and win, at this level says everything.”