A composite view of two structural engineering students

Concrete Enthusiast

Erik Kittelson (BCE structural emphasis) came to the U knowing he liked bridges and structures but not much beyond that. “In my sophomore year, I lived with a couple of students in the health sciences/biology area where research experience is really important to get into med school and have access to other opportunities. So, I thought I was really behind, as I wasn’t even thinking about research. My roommate told me to email professors and ask. So, the first day of classes, I emailed Catherine French, a structures professor. It happened that she was just starting a new project and needed some undergraduate assistants. Perfect timing.”

“My introduction to concrete was doing research in the U of M’s Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing lab (MAST).”
Erik Kittelson

Erik Kittelson signed up for CEGE’s Internship Opportunity Program, and through that program was able to work in the MAST Lab. He spent his time bending rebar for the big concrete structures being built for testing. “I recall watching the large amounts of rebar get delivered. I thought, That is a lot of steel! I thought this was built out of concrete.” The pour day on that project was the first time he had really worked with concrete. He tamped down cylinders as well as the specimens. It was also the first time he met Professor Ben Worsfold.

That day he followed Worsfold around with a big concrete vibrator, making sure the concrete flowed exactly where it was supposed to. “At the end of the day,” Kittelson recalls, “I was absolutely exhausted, from just assisting, carrying the vibrator around, not doing the heavy lifting. It was so much more work than I thought it would be!”

Kittelson got involved with Concrete Canoe in his sophomore year. In his junior year, he worked on the concrete mix design. “I really enjoyed the work I did with the mix design. It is a lot of exposure to concrete that uses very different mixes than what is used for construction. What we design for the canoe is super light weight, less than half of regular concrete, which is 150 lb per square foot. Last year our mix ended up being less dense than water. Where a regular mix would sink to the bottom, ours would float. We used that demo to draw in freshmen students. We’d throw our cylinders in the water and they would float!”

Now in his senior year, Kittelson is the co-captain of the concrete canoe team. He is focusing on the project management role. “As captain, I have had a ton of fun. I and team member Kade Arms-Regenold presented at the Minnesota Concrete Council (MCC) about concrete canoe. It was cool to walk in with our big cross section of the canoe and show it off and answer questions from concrete professionals. The concrete we make is so unserious; you’d never use it for anything besides a canoe.”

Kittleson has completed two internships, one at MnDOT and one at SRF Consulting. He gained experience inspecting and rating concrete bridges. They would take measurements,
look for alignment, and look for any damage. Then they would go back to the office and enter the data into a bridge rating software, which enables understanding the safety of the bridge. He found this work to be “Super fascinating! It was a culmination of all the design classes I had taken to that point. Some things were over my head, but I had a chance to dive into AASHTO code, sometimes comparing it with the ACI code. Next summer, I will be working at TKDA, and will get some exposure on the non-bridge side of structures.” 

“I have been given so many opportunities to work with concrete. Finding all the nuances and especially designing a mix, like I got to do in concrete canoe last year, has been my all-time favorite part of structures! Finding out you can change one little bit in your concrete mix and then the compressive strength of your concrete is just gone completely! Or figuring out there are materials that you can put into concrete to make it more environmentally friendly, like reducing cement and putting in fly ash from coal burning or slag from steel production, it's been super interesting. And I feel good doing something that is better for the environment than the alternative.”

Erik Kittelson is the recipient of the Doug Barr Memorial Student Research Scholarship, a 3M/Coleman Family Foundation Scholarship, and a MSES Student Scholarship. After graduation, he will complete a one-year master’s degree and then pursue a job in consulting engineering, ideally he will be designing concrete bridges.