Presenter and Bio:
Susan E. Burns, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE
Dwight H. Evans Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Interim Associate VP for Research Operations & Infrastructure
Georgia Institute of Technology
Susan E. Burns, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE is the Dwight H. Evans Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and interim Associate Vice President for Research Operations and Infrastructure at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. She previously served twelve years as Associate School Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering, in positions as undergraduate chair and as administration and finance chair. Dr. Burns earned a B.C.E. Civil Engineering (‘90), M.S. Civil Engineering (‘96), M.S. Environmental Engineering (‘96), and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (‘97), all from Georgia Tech. Dr. Burns’ research focuses on applications in geoenvironmental engineering including sustainability and beneficial use of waste materials, bio-mediated ground improvement and fundamental chemical and engineering behavior of soils. Dr. Burns is a past member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine standing Committee on Geological and Geotechnical Engineering, and has served on study two committees for the Academies: Assessment of the Performance of Engineered Waste Containment Barriers and Corrosion of Buried Steel at New and In-Service Infrastructure. She is a past president of the United States Universities Council on Geotechnical Education and Research and is the 2025 president-elect of the Geo-Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers, an organization of approximately 12,000 geoprofessionals working across the world.
Dr. Burns is a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, and she was named the 2020 Engineer of the Year by the Georgia Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE-GA). In 2021, Dr. Burns received the Class of 1940 W. Howard Ector Outstanding Teacher Award, which is Georgia Tech’s highest award for teaching.
Presentation title and abstract:
Insights into Mechanisms of Corrosion of Buried Steel: Impact on Civil Engineering Design
ABSTRACT:
Buried steel is a critical component of a wide range of geotechnical infrastructure, including deep foundations, earth retaining structures, ground anchors, soil nails, and rock bolts. However, soil environments are complex, with variability in both time and space, and changes in a soil’s mineralogy, water content, organic matter, microbiology, and pore fluid geochemistry contribute to conditions that render critical buried steel components susceptible to degradation over time. Across all categories of infrastructure, corrosion is estimated to cost the United States ~4 percent of its gross domestic product each year, with as much as $2.5 trillion lost to corrosion in the global GDP (Koch, 2017). In 2023, a consensus report was issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine titled Corrosion of Buried Steel at New and In-Service Infrastructure, and this talk will draw on the topics discussed and conclusions developed in that report. To set the stage for an inherently cross-disciplinary problem, this talk will discuss the fundamentals of steel corrosion that are relevant to geotechnical applications, including mechanisms and soil conditions that contribute to corrosion of the metal and how those interact with the infrastructure components and the soil environment, along with differences between the philosophies of corrosion design in the fields of civil infrastructure and the oil and gas industry. Finally, recommendations from the consensus report on remaining needs for the protection of in-service infrastructure will be discussed.