Research Labs

Students using research equipment.

Our collection of lab facilities for environmental, soil and strength, fluids, and surveying lets you get firsthand experience using research equipment to understand the technical principles you’re learning in class. The Russ College also maintains lab facilities for studying pipes and pavements, which offer students another venue for acquiring technical experience.

Environmental Lab

The Civil Engineering environmental lab gives you hands-on access to both conventional and state-of-art equipment for the study of the physical, chemical, and biological analysis of water and soil. The lab is used extensively for environmental courses where water and wastewater experiments are performed, including coagulation, solids analysis, metals and ion analysis, adsorption, titrations, oxygen demand, and bacterial culturing. Also home to some faculty research, the lab is a testing ground for production of biofuels, treatment of storm flow runoff, use of nano-particles in groundwater remediation, phytoremediation of soil pollutants, treatment of acid mine drainage, arsenic treatment in drinking water, and identification of microbial communities through DNA analysis.

Equipment

  • Atomic adsorption spectrometer
  • High performance liquid chromatographer
  • Ion chromatographer
  • Particle size analyzer
  • Scanning spectrophotometer
  • Microscopes, autoclave, centrifuges, water baths, and incubators for microbiological analysis
  • PCR bench, thermocycler, electrophesis apparatus, transilluminator, and photodocumentation system for DNA analysis

Strength and Soils Lab

The strengths lab is equipped with testing systems for learning principles of strength of materials, observing mechanical behaviors of common engineering materials under various loading conditions, and becoming familiar with modern sensors.

The strengths lab shares space with the soils lab, consisting of universal laboratory equipment for learning and practicing industry-standard soil test methods.

Equipment

  • Tensile strength test system
  • Torsion machine
  • Digital direct shear test machine
  • Unconfined compression machine
  • 1-D consolidometer

ORITE Research Facilities

Mobile Civil Infrastructure Lab

Accelerated Pavement Load Facility

Advanced Asphalt Research Laboratory

Safety and Human Factors Lab

Lab Safety

The Russ College is dedicated to safe operation of research and academic laboratories. To ensure the safety of faculty, staff, students, and visitors, the responsible instructor/researcher or academic/research unit is required to define operational, hazard identification, and incident response procedures for each laboratory. Ohio University’s Office of Environmental, Health and Safety can provide additional information.

For emergencies, call Ohio University Police Department at 740.593.1911. Russ College contacts are listed outside of each laboratory.

Procedural templates:

Russ College Lab and Health Safety Policy

Russ College of Engineering and Technology Procedure for Oversight of Laboratory and Research Activities Oversight responsibility for each laboratory or research space will be assigned to a Department, Center, or Institute. Oversight is defined as the organizational level which has the responsibility to review the specific safety plans and procedures for that research space. Any Department/Center/Institute assigned oversight responsibility will have a member on the Russ College Safety Committee. The specifics of overseeing research spaces are up to the Department/Center/Institute, within the framework presented below. This could be through a Department/Center/Institute Safety Committee, a Departmental Safety Officer, or through the Chair/Director’s office. It is emphasized that this oversight carries the backing of the Dean, and has the power to stop any activity deemed unsafe. Specific responsibilities are clarified below. The Department/Center/Institute may institute the safety oversight as they see fit, as long as the following general framework is applied.

  1. Each undergraduate lab will have a written and approved Safety Plan in place. The Plan will contain at least the following information: a a copy of the notification procedure. b If the laboratory contains chemicals, a Chemical Hygiene Plan. c A list of safety procedures specific to that laboratory. This information might be part of the Chemical Hygiene Plan. d A listing of the training required of any lab workers. This might include a combination of EHS courses and in-house training. e It is the responsibility of course instructors to ensure that students are trained properly for any lab work completed as part of a course.
  2. Each research space will have a written and approved Safety Plans in place for each research project prior to any experimental work being done. These plans are project specific. A lab might have several Safety Plans. These plans would include the following sections as a minimum: a A copy of the lab notification procedure. b For laboratories containing chemicals, a Chemical Hygiene Plan. This must be updated to include necessary content for the proposed work. c A listing of the training required by all lab workers. This might include a combination of EHS courses and in-house training. d A Safety Evaluation Report (SER) that summarizes the project (½ page), a description of the potential hazards of the project, monitoring to be done and actions to be taken if accidents occur. This would include a copy of the Notification List posted in the lab. If a piece of equipment or procedure is used as part of multiple projects, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) could be developed and included in any relevant Safety Plans. Any significant changes in a project will trigger an update of the Safety Plan requiring approval.
  3. The Safety Plan will be submitted to the overseeing Department/Center/Institute. The plan will be reviewed, and the PI will be consulted as to whether all reasonable hazards have been considered and the necessary safety equipment is present. EHS or relevant members of the Russ College Safety Committee should be consulted if necessary.
  4. The Safety Plan will be reviewed and approved through the overseeing Department/Center/Institute. While approval of each individual Safety Plans is not required by the Dean’s Office, Russ College Safety Committee, or EHS, it is understood that any of these groups have the authority to disapprove of the Plan. In the case where the PI and Safety Officer are one and the same, it is strongly encouraged that other people be brought in to review the plan. Review by three different individuals is suggested. The distribution would be as follows: Department Chair Department Safety Officer Center or Institute Director Dean’s Office (through the Associate Dean for Research) Environmental Health and Safety Landlord (if the facility is off campus).
  5. The Safety Plans will be posted in the lab, so that they are available for all interested persons to reference. It is suggested that this be the same location as the Chemical Hygiene Plan.

Statement of Responsibilities

Principal Investigator — The PI has the primary responsibility for all activities in the research space. He/she also is responsible for ensuring the Chemical Hygiene Plan and project-specific Safety Plans are kept up-to date.

Department / Center / Institute Safety Oversight — This organization will have the responsibility of reviewing the details of the individual safety plans. A periodic review of Safety Plans and research spaces should occur. Quarterly for lab space review, and annually for Safety Plans is suggested.

Russ College Safety Committee — This committee has the responsibility of developing the safety guidelines for the college. It has the responsibility of maintaining a list of research spaces and the Department/Center/Institute with oversight responsibility. It will also take the responsibility to ensure that safety plans are in place in all laboratories. Annual walk-through inspections will be made by a group of three members of the committee. The committee will also function as a resource that can be consulted by anyone, especially across research areas. They will also pass training information from EHS along to the affected departments. Periodic reports will be delivered to the Dean, identifying the current state of compliance of specific research spaces. An annual report is suggested. (last update - 21 February 2005)