Research Facilities
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering houses a variety of state-of-the-art laboratories and research facilities to meet experimental and computational needs.
The Building Enclosure Test Laboratory
The Building Enclosure Test Laboratory (BeTL), located at CATO Park in State College, was developed to conduct performance tests on building enclosure systems and their component parts. Test specimens may include complete wall or roof assemblies or sub-assemblies, windows, and joints.
Civil Infrastructure Testing and Evaluation Laboratory
The Civil Infrastructure Testing and Evaluation Laboratory (CITEL) is a world-class laboratory focused on improving civil infrastructure. CITEL utilizes advanced testing and computational systems housed within a 56,000-square-foot facility to examine numerous issues related to the performance of the world's civil infrastructure. Their capabilities include a concrete mixing area, environmental chambers that can simulate several of climatic conditions, a composite materials laboratory, an accelerated pavement testing facility, computational facilities for advanced infrastructure analysis, a housing research laboratory, and a 10,000-square-foot structures laboratory for large- or small-scale testing.
Hydraulics and Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory
The Hydraulics and Environmental Fluid Mechanics Laboratory is a facility for studies of sediment transport, scour, turbulence in stratified flows, turbulence studies in rivers and lakes, and other fluid phenomena and processes. Equipment includes a tilting sediment and water recirculating flume, venturi meter, manometer, acoustic doppler velocimeters, cameras and lasers for particle image velocimetry, an acoustic doppler current profiler, and microscale conductivity and temperature instruments.
Kappe Environmental Engineering Laboratories
The Kappe Environmental Engineering Laboratories cover an area of approximately 16,000 sq. ft., including a 2,000 sq. ft. laboratory at the University Wastewater Treatment Plant (less than one mile from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering). Kappe laboratories include general research lab areas, dedicated microscopy and dark rooms, multiple temperature control rooms, and general-use rooms for instrumentation and preparations.
Pavement Laboratories
The Pavement Laboratories include state-of-the-art pavement materials research facilities that consist of specimen fabrication, binder and mixture testing labs, accelerated testing and full-scale testing facilities. The labs are equipped with Universal Testing Machines, a Simple Shear Tester, Mobile Model Load Simulator with test-bed and slab testing configurations, in addition to a comprehensive setup of specimen- and full- scale instrumentation. Binder labs are equipped with Superpave grading equipment: BBR DSR, RV, and DTT. Marshall testing equipment and volumetric instruments are also available.
Penn State Experimental Forest
For more than 40 years, the Penn State Experimental Forest has been the site of water resource and environmental investigations focusing on sustainability of hardwood forests, water yield, and water quality. Penn State has played a key role in this effort by internally supporting the Leading Ridge, Shale Hills, and Shaver’s Creek experimental watersheds and outreach programs.
Test Track
A major research and testing facility of the Thomas D. Larson Pennsylvania Transportation Institute is the test track located in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. The 5,042-foot-long oval shaped track provides a place for a wide range of transportation related research.
