Dr. Y. (Grace) Hsuan; Associate Director
Dr.
Y. (Grace) Hsuan is a Professor of Civil, Environmental and Architectural
Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. She is also the Associate Director of the
Geosynthetic Research Institute and her career spans twenty-five years of
research and development experience.
Grace
was born in China and grew up in Hong Kong, and then she went to United Kingdom
for her undergraduate and graduate graduate
studies. In 1981 she was awarded a B.Sc.
in Materials Engineering, followed by a Ph.D. in 1985, also in Materials
Engineering at Imperial College of the University of London. She did post-doctoral research for
one-year. She immigrated to America
where she began her geosynthetic experiences in 1986 with the Geosynthetic
Research Institute. She has continued
this activity to date and is currently the Associate Director of GRI (in
addition to being a full professor with teaching, advising and service
activities). Some of her R & D
activities are as follows:
·
Evaluation
on stress crack resistance of high density polyethylene (HDPE) corrugated pipe
resins
·
Investigation
on the field performance of HDPE corrugated pipes
·
Evaluation of
the effect of post consumer recycled polyethylene resins on stress crack
resistance of virgin high density polyethylene resins and other material
properties
·
Depletion
mechanisms of antioxidants in HDPE geomembranes under different environmental
conditions
·
Lifetime
prediction of HDPE geomembranes and HDPE geogrids
·
Evaluation
and lifetime prediction on the hydrolysis resistance to polyester (PET)
geotextiles
·
Viscoelasticity behavior of geomembranes, including creep and stress
relaxation
·
Ultraviolet
degradation of geomembranes, geotextiles and geogrids
·
Freeze-thaw
effects of geomembrane sheets and seams
·
Cold
temperature tensile behavior of various polymeric types of geomembranes
·
Failure
analysis of geomembranes (including PVC, CSPE, HDPE and fPP
materials)
·
Development
of a specification for HDPE geomembranes
·
Evaluation
on the long-term chemical resistance of Poly terephthalated
(PET) based on their molecular weight and carboxyl end group. Establishing standard test method for these
two projects by working with PET resin and geogrid manufacturers.
·
Established
the ASTM test method, the notched constant tensile load (NCTL) test, to assess
the stress crack resistance of HDPE geomembranes
·
Setup
and organization of GRI’s Home Page on the Internet
·
Development,
setup and implementation of a polymer identification laboratory
·
Developing
and implementing test methods and standards involving geosynthetic materials
The above activity has lead to over
100 publications.
Dr.
Hsuan has been active in a number of professional organizations
·
North
American Geosynthetics Society (NAGS)
·
International
Geosynthetics Society (IGS)
·
American
Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM)
·
Materials
Research Society (MRS)
·
Society
of Plastics Engineers (SPE)
·
Member
of TRB-AFF7O (Culverts and Hydraulics Structures)