This year marks the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the covered bridge over the Sangamon River at Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve Park in Mahomet, Ill., and local officials plan to mark the event on Monday, Aug. 3, 2015, with a seminar about the bridge presented on the University of Illinois campus by the bridge’s structural designer and a dedication ceremony at the park.
The bridge was designed in the 1960s by German Gurfinkel, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gurfinkel has taught at Illinois for 53 years. Gurfinkel’s seminar, to be presented at 3 p.m. Aug. 3 at Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory on the University of Illinois campus, will be titled, “The Covered Bridge at Lake of the Woods: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask.”
“The objective is to learn more about a bridge that has served two generations of park visitors for all these years and to honor its designer,” said Fernando Moreu, a former student of Gurfinkel’s, who spearheaded the event in coordination with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Champaign County Forest Preserve District.
The public is welcome at both the seminar and the dedication ceremony.
Michael Wysockey received his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering at the Citadel, his Master’s degree in Civil Engineering at MIT, and earned a Doctorate degree in Geotechnical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the state of Illinois.
The lecture will discuss the renovations at 5757 S. University Ave. in Chicago and the State Farm Center in Champaign, IL from an underpinning and earth retention perspective. The work at 5757 S. University consisted of 3 internally braced earth retention systems, jacked piles, and permeation grouting. The State Farm Center consists of two types of micropiles, soil nails and shotcrete, and driven soldier beams inside of the stadium.
Foundation engineering and deep foundations in particular are two growing fields in the profession of civil engineering. Deep foundations are attractive elements that are used to provide support for high-rise buildings and bridge structures. Construction of deep foundations, specifically in the case of bridge structures, requires input from and close collaboration with different fields within civil engineering; namely geotechnical, structural, hydraulic, transportation, and construction management areas.
The geotechnical group at Illinois has always been home to leading experts in foundation engineering profession and has close ties to the DFI main chapter. The Deep foundation Institute (DFI) is devoted to promotion of the profession of foundation engineering and particularly deep foundation design and construction.