V. Firat Sever, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, a civil engineer specializing in underground infrastructure construction, design, and rehabilitation, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Sever’s approximately 18 years of industry experience in the field spans a wide variety of projects, including small/large conventional, design/build, and high-profile international research projects. He joined QuakeWrap Inc. in 2018 and established the Pipeline Division at the company that specializes in infrastructure rehabilitation with fiber reinforced polymers and other advanced composites. He had previously worked as a consulting engineer for 13 years.
Before entering the consulting industry, he had worked as a graduate research assistant at Tulane University (New Orleans) and a resident project representative on design/build water and wastewater pipeline construction projects. His expertise in trenchless pipeline rehabilitation as well as new pipeline design has resulted in more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and a number of presentations at local, national, and international conferences.
Among the notable achievements in his career are co-leading a design team for a seven-year $80 million sewer (new construction and rehabilitation) project in Florida, serving as the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on seven research projects sponsored by federal agencies, developing a design equation for flexible liners based on Timoshenko’s beam buckling formula (published by Elsevier’s Journal of Tunneling and Underground Space Technology), and leading the development of the world’s first no-dig repair system water mains (project sponsored by USEPA).
Sever has also consistently volunteered for ASCE and its Pipeline Division throughout his career. His appointments for the Society include Technical Program Committee Co-Chair for the Pipelines Conference in 2015, associate editor with the Journal of Pipeline Systems Engineering and Practice, Central Ohio Section Board, and Utility Engineering and Surveying Institute (UESI) Chapter Boards in Ohio (founder) and Arizona.
He is a passionate civil engineer, and regularly offers his technical skills and mentoring in advancement of practice by serving on industry boards, giving speeches to civil engineering and other audiences, and participating in STEM/student events. Among those activities is leading the Industry Advisory Board for ABET accreditation of the Environmental Engineering Department of Central State University, a historically black university in Ohio.
Sever currently spends the majority of his time in the design, R&D, and marketing of QuakeWrap’s pipeline solutions.
