Dr Baosong Ma from the China University of Geosciences (CUG) initiated the idea for the centre at the National Science Foundation workshop held at the CUG campus in Wuhan, during October 2007.
The centre will involve cooperation between CUG, Louisiana Tech University and University of Texas’ Centre for Underground Infrastructure, Research and Education.
A formal cooperation agreement between CUG and UTA has been signed and the cooperation agreements between CUG and Louisiana Tech and Purdue University are continuing.
After the success of October’s workshop, the joint centre was founded in order to foster continued dialogue and technology transfer between China and the US.
Article continues below…The workshop provided an opportunity for researchers from both the US and China to target critical areas specific for each country and capitalise on local resources. The critical technologies identified by researchers focused on trenchless methods, utility locating, freight pipelines, and asset management.
Topics included the evolution of Trenchless Technologies such as cured-in-place and horizontal directional drilling, geotechnical investigations, freight pipelines, pipeline assessments, the relationship of underground infrastructure in China and the USA, urban planning, risk assessment and asset management.
Those attending the workshop included 14 US professors and researchers and representatives of Chinese universities, municipalities, government agencies and industries.
The principal investigator Dr Mohammad Najafi was joined by Dr Tom Iseley (Professor and Department Chair at the Indiana University), Dr Ray Sterling (Louisiana Tech University), Dr Sanjiv Gokhale (Vanderbilt University), Dr Henry Liu (Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri-Columbia) and Dr Larry Slavin (President of Outside Plant Consulting Services) as co-investigators.
Representing CUG, Dr Baosong Ma, Dr Huiming Tang and Dr Guosheng Jiang served as principal investigator and co-principal investigators, respectively.
The US delegation included Dr Mark Hastak, Purdue University, Jim Rush, Benjamin Media, Dr Rayman Mohamed, Wayne State University, Dr Jey K Jeyapalan, PE Trenchless consultant, Shah Rahman, S&B Technical Products/Hultec, Dr Anil Misra, University of Missouri – Kansas City, and Pamela Salvador, graduate student at UTA.
