Major Highway Structures

Texas A&M Transportation Institute
199 Spence Street
Room 710
College Station, TX 77840
(979) 862-6603
[email protected]

Dr. Anna Birely has been an Assistant Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University since December 2012. She is responsible for teaching undergraduate and graduate classes on design of reinforced concrete structures, and undergraduate classes on classical and matrix methods for structural analysis.

Dr. Birely recently served as research supervisor for Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) projects that included full-scale testing of pretensioned bent cap under realistic demands, recommended new connections for TxDOT precast bent caps, and developed a suite of design examples. She was also principle investigator for recently completed Arizona DOT Project SPR-705, which used design examples and full-scale experimental tests to investigate the use of steel fiber reinforced concrete in bridge decks to improve the service level performance of fully cast-in-place bridge decks. This project led to her membership on ACI Committee 544 (Fiber Reinforced Concrete).

Dr. Birely’s research interests cover a broad range within design and performance of concrete structures subjected to ordinary and hazardous loads, but a consistent theme connecting these topics is a desire to impact everyday practice. This is evident through her past and current research and on-going involvement in national committees. Dr. Birely’s graduate student research had an emphasis on evaluation and design tools used by design engineers. She has previous experience with larger-scale testing of structural systems, including extensive post-processing of experimental data. She worked with design engineers while serving as a consultant on an Applied Technology Council project to study reinforced concrete buildings damaged in the 2010 Chilean earthquake and determine implications for U.S. building codes and standards.

Dr. Birely is currently serving on i) the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) advisory committee for the California Earthquake Clearinghouse, which consists primarily of practicing engineers in California, and ii) the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Seismic Repair and Rehabilitation Committee, for which she led a task group, consisting of a mix of academics and design engineers, focused on improving ASCE 41 evaluation criteria for existing concrete structural walls. ASCE 41 wall acceptance criteria are an issue of critical importance to engineers in California who use the document on a regular basis.