Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering

Raju Datla, research associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, is leading Stevens’ research contributions to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Liberty Lifter — a United States military seaplane that can work efficiently at just above the water surface and can sustain flight as high as 10,000 feet above that. This new vessel will be able to transport larger payloads at higher speeds and for a lower cost than existing sealift platforms.

The seaplane is an innovative vessel that compromises between the capabilities of ships, which can carry larger loads at slower speeds, and traditional aircraft, which can move faster but are expensive and need runways.

In designing these vessels, Datla and his team must consider how to overcome both hydrodynamic and aerodynamic challenges.

Datla said, “I am particularly excited that our students get to see and participate in this test program, as these unique experiments are conducted rarely, and they get to experience them firsthand.”

The high-speed towing tank at Stevens’ Davidson Laboratory was built during World War II to study the takeoff and landing characteristics of flying boats and hull forms. With the tank’s high-speed capabilities and corresponding expertise, the legacy of the Davidson Laboratory uniquely positions Stevens to conduct complex model tests on vessels such as seaplanes.

Dibyendu (Dibs) Sarkar, environmental engineering professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, recently received a $1.292-million Department of Defense grant for his project “Green Remediation of Per-and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in Soil and Water.”

Due to their high stability, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are difficult to break down and can accumulate and persist in soil and sediments, aquatic environments, plants, animals and humans via the food and water supply. PFAS contamination has been reported in numerous military sites in the United States.

Sarkar’s research seeks to repurpose drinking water treatment residuals (Al-WTRs), a non-hazardous solid waste generated during alum coagulation in drinking water treatment plants, to develop a cost-effective, environmentally friendly method of treating soil and water contaminated with PFAS and other common contaminants (such as lead and antimony) at military sites.

Marouane Temimi, associate professor, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Ocean Engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology, has received a $437,000 grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for his project, “Advancing Research in Cold Regions Hydrology to Support the Modeling and Mapping of Ice-induced Flood Inundation.” The study is being conducted as part of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research to Operation in Hydrology, of which Stevens is a founding university.

Temimi and his team will model the static thermodynamic formation of ice for integration into the National Water Model (NWM). This, in turn, will support the comprehensive modeling of ice formation and transport, integrated with flow routing schemes.