CE senior trip covers cement plant, lock, bridge project

Nine Trine University seniors from the Reiners Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, accompanied by three department faculty, took part in a senior trip to southern Indiana that included visits to a cement plant, a lock on the Ohio River and a project connecting Interstate 69 with a future bridge into Kentucky.

The group left campus Nov. 14.

Erin Downing said that, in addition to being interested in the projects and facilities toured, she was drawn to the experience by the opportunity to connect with other seniors and faculty outside of the classroom.

Reece Soel looked forward to seeing what he learned in the classroom applied on real-life job sites, as well as the opportunity to interact with faculty in a more informal setting.

“Personally, I think this is a pretty unique opportunity that other schools do not offer to be more personable with your professors and share experiences outside the walls of the classroom,” he said.

Heidelburg cement

The morning of Nov. 15, the group visited the Heidelburg cement plant in Mitchell, Indiana.

The students and faculty toured their fully automated testing lab, the plant control room, the automated bagging factory and the cement kiln.

Gary Greene, Ph.D., department chair and one of the faculty who went on the trip, said the automated bagging factory can fill one 60-pound bag per second, stack the bags on a pallet and weatherize the pallet.

The group also got to travel to the top of the kiln’s 400-foot-tall preheat tower.

“The exhaust from the kiln is used to dry and heat the ground limestone, clay, and mill scale to improve plant efficiency,” said Dr. Greene. “We walked along the kiln and peered through a portal into the end of the kiln to see the finished clinker that was produced by the kiln as it cooled. The plant produces 4,000 railcars of cement per month.”

Newburgh Locks and Dam

In the afternoon, the group traveled to Evansville and visited the Newburgh Locks and Dam, the busiest lock on the Ohio River.

They were able to visit the control tower and watch an empty 15-barge tow move downstream through the lock. Both Downing and Soel said the tour was the highlight of their trip.

“I had never visited a Lock and Dam myself so that was a new experience for me,” Soel said. “The in-depth specifications and stories that the tour shared were very helpful. The gentleman that showed us around the dam was the lead maintenance man on-site. He had extensive knowledge of the machinery's inner workings and day-to-day operations. He also shared many stories about the dam over the years that gave context to what we were looking at.”

Bridge over the Ohio River

The next morning the group met with representatives from the Indiana Department of Transportation, Walsh Construction and Traylor Brothers, all of which are working on the first four Indiana bridges that are part of the interchanges connecting I-69 with a future bridge over the Ohio River into Kentucky. 

“Initially, we met at their local project office in Evansville,” said Dr. Greene. “They explained the history of the project and the details of the bridges they were building. All of the bridges are in the flood plain and the foundations are expected to be submerged when the Ohio floods over the winter.”

The Trine group then traveled to the project site and saw the excavated areas where workers were driving steel pipe piles, some around 80 feet long, and constructing the concrete footing and columns.

“My career will begin in the roadway industry,” said Soel. “This helped me see how calculations from the classroom are carried out in the soil on the job site. This visit brought imagination to life.”

Trine alumnus Ethan Davenport, who graduated in 2020, works for Walsh Construction as an assistant project manager and was part of the contractor team that showed the group around the construction site.

Downing said the trip reinforced the importance of lifelong learning for her.

“Each tour guide was skilled in the profession but still emphasized how they continue to learn each day on the job,” she said.

Downing and Soel also said they enjoyed connecting with faculty and fellow seniors.

“My best memory from the trip is playing euchre with all the professors,” Soel said. “This was a fun environment to connect with them outside of the traditional desks of the classroom.”