Geotechnical Engineering Commons^™

Multi-Modal Synthesis And Variable Modulus Effects In Resonant Column Tests By Random Excitations, Jeramy C. Ashlock, Ronald Y. S. Pak

Jeramy C. Ashlock

To extend current measurement and data synthesis techniques for resonant column testing, random vibration transfer functions measured using a modified 6 inch (152.4 mm) diameter Drnevich free-free resonant column device are evaluated against viscoelastic theories of homogeneous and heterogeneous soil models. By means of the transfer function approach, it is found that the first four resonant peaks of the soil column response can be captured experimentally with some instrumental adaptations. By calibration against theoretical transfer functions, the ability to characterize the modulus and damping properties of the soil samples over a broad range of frequencies is demonstrated. As a ...

Terrestrial Laser Scanning Roughness Assessments For Infrastructure, Ahmad A. Alhasan, David J. White

David J. White

Road roughness is a key parameter for controlling pavement construction processes and for assessing ride quality of both paved and unpaved roads. This paper describes algorithms used in processing three-dimensional (3D) stationary terrestrial laser scanning (STLS) point clouds to obtain surface maps of point wise indices that characterize pavement roughness. The backbone of the analysis is a quarter-car model simulation over a spatial 3D mesh grid representing the pavement surface. Two case studies are presented, and results show high spatial variability in the roughness indices both longitudinally and transversely (i.e., different wheel path positions). It is proposed that road ...

Report Of The 4th Workshop For Technology Transfer For Intelligent Compaction Consortium, David J. White, Pavana Vennapusa

David J. White

This document summarizes the discussion and findings of the 4th workshop held on October 27–28, 2015 in Frankfort, Kentucky as part of the Technology Transfer Intelligent Compaction Consortium (TTICC) Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF-5(233)) study. The TTICC project is led by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and partnered by the following state DOTs: California, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The workshop was hosted by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and was organized by the Center for Earthworks Engineering Research (CEER) at Iowa State University of Science and Technology. The objective of the workshop was to ...

Report Of The 4th Workshop For Technology Transfer For Intelligent Compaction Consortium, David J. White, Pavana Vennapusa

David J. White

This document summarizes the discussion and findings of the 4th workshop held on October 27–28, 2015 in Frankfort, Kentucky as part of the Technology Transfer Intelligent Compaction Consortium (TTICC) Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF-5(233)) study. The TTICC project is led by the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) and partnered by the following state DOTs: California, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The workshop was hosted by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and was organized by the Center for Earthworks Engineering Research (CEER) at Iowa State University of Science and Technology. The objective of the workshop was to ...

Terrestrial Laser Scanning Roughness Assessments For Infrastructure, Ahmad A. Alhasan, David J. White

David J. White

Road roughness is a key parameter for controlling pavement construction processes and for assessing ride quality of both paved and unpaved roads. This paper describes algorithms used in processing three-dimensional (3D) stationary terrestrial laser scanning (STLS) point clouds to obtain surface maps of point wise indices that characterize pavement roughness. The backbone of the analysis is a quarter-car model simulation over a spatial 3D mesh grid representing the pavement surface. Two case studies are presented, and results show high spatial variability in the roughness indices both longitudinally and transversely (i.e., different wheel path positions). It is proposed that road ...

Electrokinetic Consolidation Of Oil Sands Tailings: An Experimental And Numerical Study, Yu Guo

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The management of fine oil sands tailings, known as mature fine tailings (MFT), is a major challenge for the oil industry in the Northern Alberta, Canada. Dewatering and consolidation of MFT are slow and time consuming due to high water content and low permeability of MFT. The electrokinetic (EK) dewatering treatment has shown to be effective on oil sands tailings based on the results of previous researches. Therefore, this thesis is focusing on experimental and numerical studies of EK dewatering of oil sands tailings. The thesis includes three parts, i.e., EK dewatering of oil sands tailings and kaolinite slurry ...

Netpoint®, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

The vast majority of construction scheduling software uses a combination of spreadsheets and Gantt charts for developing and depicting Critical Path Method (CPM) schedules. While this paradigm works for the expert scheduler, it is not conducive to collaboration, and it is prohibitively difficult for non-scheduling experts to understand.

NetPoint® provides a dynamic, visual interface conducive to touch and gestural input. Activities are drawn directly on a time-scale and may be placed on the same row or arranged automatically using codes or the WBS. Such control of the presentation makes it easier to communicate the plan to any type of audience ...

Fluid Isolator, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

The reliability of concrete infrastructure is vital to ensuring daily life, as well as commerce, can progress without interruption. From the pavement of interstate highways to the driveways and sidewalks in a local neighborhood, concrete is expensive to install and often even more expensive, and intrusive, when it needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, to maintain functionality in winter climates concrete is heavily exposed to deicing salts. This not only affects the roads, driveways, and sidewalks where salt is applied directly, but many other areas such as parking and residential garages where vehicles (and people) will track salt along with water ...

Induced Earthquakes And Public Safety, Lyndsey L. Dickson

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Like the number of earthquakes felt in Oklahoma, the number of media reports regarding large-magnitude earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased in recent years. News headlines that mention property damage and question who is responsible have sparked heated debated. In this document, a discussion is presented over the responsibility of engineers for the public’s safety in relation to earthquakes. Input from various groups is discussed, the action taken in Oklahoma is outlined, and ethical obligations presented by the American Society of Civil Engineers are considered. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has reported a major grievance against building-code committees, but ...

Effectiveness Of Small Strain Shear Wave Velocity As A Property For Assessing Damage Associated With Alkali-Silica Reaction In Concrete, Dillon K. Self

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research paper details the monitoring of expansion and shear wave velocity for fifteen concrete prisms cast in accordance with ASTM C1293 utilizing five mix designs with varying levels of ASR reactivity. Jobe sand and sodium hydroxide pellets were added in various quantities to increase the reactivity of the prisms. Strain measurements of the prisms were taken according to ASTM C129 and the shear wave velocity of the prisms was measured using ASTM C215. These measurements were taken weekly, then monthly for over a year. It was determined that shear wave velocity of the prisms decrease linearly as strain in ...

Development Of A Multiband Remote Sensing System For Determination Of Unsaturated Soil Properties, Cyrus D. Garner

Theses and Dissertations

A multiband system including active microwave sensing and visible-near infrared reflectance spectroscopy was developed to measure unsaturated soil properties in both field and laboratory environments. Remote measurements of soil volumetric water content (θv), soil water matric potential (ψ), and soil index properties (liquid limit [LL], plastic limit [PL], and clay fraction [CF]) were conducted. Field-based measurement of θv was conducted using a ground-based radar system and field measurements within 10 percentage points of measurements acquired with traditional sampling techniques were obtained. Laboratory-based, visible and near infrared spectroscopy was found to be capable of obtaining empirical, soil specific regression functions (partial ...

Smartvid.Io, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

The collection, organization, and retrieval of industrial media is a pervasive challenge that is especially glaring for companies in the AEC industry. Construction projects often generate large volumes of pictures & videos from the field for tracking progress and communicating between engineers, contractors, and subcontractors. It is not uncommon for field personnel to capture hundreds of photos per week on any given jobsite.

Smartvid.io is a cloud-based software solution designed for the specific needs of industrial media. The application’s internal deep-learning engines, collectively nicknamed VINNIE (for ‘Very Intelligent Neural Network for Insight and Evaluation’), use speech and image recognition ...

Hillman Composite Beam (Hcb®), Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

The Hillman-Composite Beam (HCB®), is an innovative structural member for use in highway and railroad bridges as well as marine facilities. The HCB is essentially a lightweight reinforced concrete beam strengthened and protected by a corrosion-resistant and resilient Fiberglass Reinforced Polymer (FRP) shell.

The beam is comprised of three main components, a concrete arch (compression reinforcement), an FRP bottom flange encapsulating steel strands tying the ends of the arch together (tension reinforcement) and the FRP shell. Galvanized Rebar “shear connectors” are used to make the beam composite with the concrete deck in the same manner as pre-stressed concrete beams.

The ...

Mathematical Model Of The Shell With The Infill For Retaining Structures, Alexander T. Bekker, Nikita Ya. Tsimbelman, Dmitriy A. Potyanikhin, Andrey I. Mamontov, Ömer Bilgin, Tatiana I. Chernova

Ömer Bilgin

A description of finite element model and analysis of a shell with an infill is performed. A large diameter thin cylindrical shell structure with the edge leaning against compressible foundation soil is analyzed. Different materials are considered individually for the models of each structure shell and infill component (metal or reinforced concrete shell, and granular or elastic infill in a shell and foundation soil loaded by the structure). Contact conditions between 1) the infill and the shell’s inner surface and 2) between the foundation material and the shell edge are analyzed. An example of calculating strain conditions in the ...

Industrial-Grade Monitoring Solution: Hoistcam, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

Safety and productivity are top priorities for contractors and industrial operations. Improving either makes a company more profitable and competitive. Technology advancements that can do both are important for every company to consider. HoistCam^TM industrial-grade video monitoring solutions can improve employees’ productivity and workplace safety in the construction industries. HoistCam also improves efficiency of operations and reduces job site accidents resulting in substantial cost savings to a contractor.

HoistCam™ is an integrated, wireless video system. The use of HoistCam eliminates blind lifts, blind spots and can share the live video with anyone, anywhere with solid security and easy control ...

Purdue Ect Report - Fourth Quarter 2016, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

Fourth Quarter 2016

This is a quarterly report from the Purdue ECT.

Contractual Approaches To Address Geotechnical Uncertainty In Design-Build Public Transportation Projects, Carla Lopez Del Puerto, Douglas D. Gransberg, Michael C. Loulakis

Douglas D. Gransberg

Geotechnical uncertainty may be the most difficult risk to manage in construction. In design-build (DB), where the project’s price is fixed before design and in many cases the subsurface investigation is complete, the risk profile is fundamentally changed and the owner must address it. This paper assesses the potential of DB as a tool for addressing geotechnical uncertainty in public transportation projects by comparatively evaluating three successful approaches. The first case study involves the use of a geotechnical baseline report as a subsurface condition risk allocation tool. The second uses unit price pay items inside the larger lump sum ...

Bicp Global Bim Study - Lessons For Ireland’S Bim Programme, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Reports

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) has been promoting the benefits of digitisation in the construction and engineering industry in Ireland since its formation back in 2002. Whilst the Alliance has always strived to ensure that its members are exposed to a wide spectrum of contemporary digital tools and processes, the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has dominated the focus of its activities over the past five years.

BIM can be described as a digital tool that facilitates everybody to better understand a building or structure through the use of a digital model which draws on a range of data ...

Road Zipper™, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets

Construction work zones are growing in number around the world. The natural aging of existing roadway infrastructure ensures that more and more maintenance and rehabilitation will be required. Work zones, by their very definition, create two major problems that must be addressed in some way: safety and mobility. In the United States, highway work zones are responsible for almost 25% of all non-recurring congestion and 10% of overall congestion. Vehicle accidents are more common in work zones, and traffic congestion through work zones on urban arterials and freeways is often considered to be “unavoidable." To address these issues, ROAD ZIPPER ...

Contractual Approaches To Address Geotechnical Uncertainty In Design-Build Public Transportation Projects, Carla Lopez Del Puerto, Douglas D. Gransberg, Michael C. Loulakis

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

Geotechnical uncertainty may be the most difficult risk to manage in construction. In design-build (DB), where the project’s price is fixed before design and in many cases the subsurface investigation is complete, the risk profile is fundamentally changed and the owner must address it. This paper assesses the potential of DB as a tool for addressing geotechnical uncertainty in public transportation projects by comparatively evaluating three successful approaches. The first case study involves the use of a geotechnical baseline report as a subsurface condition risk allocation tool. The second uses unit price pay items inside the larger lump sum ...