Engineers Tapped for U.S.'s First Graduate-Level Course on Concrete Pipe Design

Four experts were selected to lead University of Texas at Arlington’s new course on concrete pipe design, including Sam A. Arnaout, P.E., senior vice president of engineering with Hanson Engineered Products.

The first of its kind at the graduate collegiate level, “Structural Design of Concrete Gravity/Pressure Pipes” offered future engineers a look at the performance properties and structural design procedures for concrete pressure pipe, an engineered product used for water/wastewater applications in 90 of North America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas.

“We felt the time was right to introduce this important subject matter to our engineering students, given the key role concrete pipe plays in our national, state and local infrastructure,” said Dr. Ali Abolmaali, Tseng Huang Endowed Professor of Structural Engineering and Applied Mechanics at the university. “It is imperative that today’s engineers understand the fundamentals of concrete pipe and concrete pressure pipe design and installation, as well as the relative merits of competitive pipe products, so they enter the workforce with a solid grounding in today’s drainage and water conveyance systems.”

The course covered a wide range of topics specific to both gravity and pressure pipe, beginning with a historical perspective of pipe manufacturing and installation, and progressing to design theory and methods, software workshops and special topics such as thrust design, bends, curves and max flow velocity. Students were introduced to structural analyses of circular pipes, including the theory behind plates and shells, and received hands-on exposure to today’s production process on tours of local concrete pipe and concrete pressure pipe plants.