Raul Dominguez (Civil Engineering)
About DOE Fellow:
Raul is a first generation college student that graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. He has begun preparing for the FE, and plans to obtain a PE license in the near future. He is also highly involved with FIU’s American Society of Civil Engineers. In addition, he was also Captain of the FIU Wrestling team that competes in the National Collegiate Wrestling Association (NCWA). Raul is now working full time at Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.
DOE Related Projects:
Currently, Raul is working with Columbia Energy and Environmental Services Inc. under the supervision of Mr. Colin Henderson, on an assessment of alternative sealants and coatings that could be applied to commercial asphalt surfaces to be used for future interim surface barriers. These barriers will help prevent further spill and transport of high level waste plumes below tank farms at the Hanford Site. This research includes the study of alternative options, identifying criteria, industry survey, product testing and possibly the design of experiments.
Before this project, Raul completed an internship at Columbia Energy and Environmental Services in Richland, Washington during the summer of 2009, where he produced reliable temperature predictions of grout mass pours within single shell tanks (SST’s). Mr. Dominguez worked on the thermal analysis of the single shell tank closure process. He also took into account the variation of materials that compose the two layers of grout that will be used. His task also included gaining an understanding of the processes and calculations involved during the heat of hydration of the grout, understanding and preventing the issues occurring with elevated temperatures, and identifying and demonstrating a method to predict temperatures during the grout curing process that takes into account the grout formulations and the physical environment of the buried tank.
During 2008, Mr. Dominguez worked on uranium remediation of the 300 Area at Hanford Site. Raul’s contribution included site characterization and literature reviews related to uranium challenges with a focus on the 300 Area. Raul also conducted sorption experiments with sodium phosphate and Hanford soil. He also completed soil characterization and quantified the Hanford soil for physico-chemical parameters.