By La Monica

Everett-Haynes

The Beaumont Enterprise 

December 17, 2005

Sitting on a concrete foundation that rises from a bed of pansies at Lamar University is a seeming incomplete 2,760 pound mass of steel. Look closely. The 8-foot-tall sculpture reveals far more variations then the purple, fuchsia and white pansies surrounding it. The "steel teaching model" –as university official call it- looks something like an iron tree. Stretching upward and outward from its column are more then 20 different connections used in steel construction.

"It's more of a teaching model than a sculpture," said Leroy Fagg, vice president of Larco Industries in Beaumont. Fagg's company built the model –a three-dimensional conglomeration of teaching tools, a deviation from text-book learning for engineering students, he said. "We're here in Beaumont, and Lamar's here, so we felt that this was our project," Fagg said. "The graduates who come out of Lamar come to work with us."

Several companies were involved in the model's construction. American Institute of Steel Construction provided the drawing. The structure includes bolted and welded moment, joist girder, beam splice, skewed hanger and wishbone connections. Each of these connections can be found in commercial, industrial, or bridge construction.

For the last two years, Jonathan Davis and several other students have worked with a number of companies to bring the model to Beaumont. "We mainly want to help civil engineering students," said Davis, 23 who graduates from Lamar's program Saturday. "A student will never see a lot of these connections –just read them in a book," said Davis who is also a member of the local chapter of American Society of Civil Engineers. "It gives a real-life view of what is out there." The Texas Structural Steel Institute, a non-profit organization, footed the bill for the model. The Institute has also donated models at Texas A&M and University of Texas campuses in El Paso and Austin. At Lamar, Mason Construction, Ltd. Workers in Beaumont donated their time Tuesday morning and installed the piece.

"It's a very interesting piece of art as well as an educational teaching sculpture," Robert Yuan said as the model was being installed near Lamar's civil engineering lab at Rolfe Christopher Drive and Georgia Street. "Any engineering student could use it because one of the most important elements in construction is the connection," said Yuan, professor and chair of the Department of Civil Engineering. "If the connection fails, the construction fails," he said. "Students can learn by looking at it. It will be a nice piece of work for our campus."