Digital Commons Network^™

In-Plane Loading Of Brick Veneer Over Wood Shear Walls, Elias Anis Toubia, James M. Lintz

Elias Toubia

In the design of wood stud walls with brick veneer, current design building codes specify that the wood stud wall should resist all in-plane and out-of-plane loads (IBC 2009). For out-of-plane loads, this assumption is entirely justified as the brittle brick veneer will crack and lose its capacity to resist bending. For in-plane loads, the brick veneer is significantly stiffer than the wood shear wall, and the veneer is unlikely to crack before the wood shear wall reaches its allowable capacity. The assumption that the wood shear wall resists the entire load is based on the further assumption that the …

Assessment Of Surface Soil Moisture Using High-Resolution Multi-Spectral Imagery And Artificial Neural Networks, Leila Hassan-Esfahani, Alfonso Torres-Rua, Austin Jensen, Mac Mckee

Leila Hassan-Esfahani

Many crop production management decisions can be informed using data from high-resolution aerial images that provide information about crop health as influenced by soil fertility and moisture. Surface soil moisture is a key component of soil water balance, which addresses water and energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface; however, high-resolution remotely sensed data is rarely used to acquire soil moisture values. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to quantify the effectiveness of using spectral images to estimate surface soil moisture. The model produces acceptable estimations of surface soil moisture (root mean square error (RMSE) = …

Assessment Of Surface Soil Moisture Using High-Resolution Multi-Spectral Imagery And Artificial Neural Networks, Leila Hassan-Esfahani, Alfonso Torres-Rua, Austin Jensen, Mac Mckee

Leila Hassan-Esfahani

Many crop production management decisions can be informed using data from high-resolution aerial images that provide information about crop health as influenced by soil fertility and moisture. Surface soil moisture is a key component of soil water balance, which addresses water and energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface; however, high-resolution remotely sensed data is rarely used to acquire soil moisture values. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to quantify the effectiveness of using spectral images to estimate surface soil moisture. The model produces acceptable estimations of surface soil moisture (root mean square error (RMSE) = …

The Impact Of Slit And Detention Dams On Debris Flow Control Using Gstars 3.0, Leila Hassan-Esfahani, Mohammad Ebrahim Banihabib

Leila Hassan-Esfahani

Sedimentation, Modeling, GSTARS3.0, Debris flow, Slit dam, Detention dam

Assessment Of Surface Soil Moisture Using High-Resolution Multi-Spectral Imagery And Artificial Neural Networks, Leila Hassan-Esfahani, Alfonso Torres-Rua, Austin Jensen, Mac Mckee

Leila Hassan-Esfahani

Many crop production management decisions can be informed using data from high-resolution aerial images that provide information about crop health as influenced by soil fertility and moisture. Surface soil moisture is a key component of soil water balance, which addresses water and energy exchanges at the surface/atmosphere interface; however, high-resolution remotely sensed data is rarely used to acquire soil moisture values. In this study, an artificial neural network (ANN) model was developed to quantify the effectiveness of using spectral images to estimate surface soil moisture. The model produces acceptable estimations of surface soil moisture (root mean square error (RMSE) = …

High Resolution Multi-Spectral Imagery And Learning Machines In Precision Irrigation Water Management, Leila Hassan-Esfahani

Leila Hassan-Esfahani

The current study has been conducted in response to the growing problem of water scarcity and the need for more effective methods of irrigation water management. Remote sensing techniques have been used to match spatially and temporally distributed crop water demand to water application rates. Remote sensing approaches using Landsat imagery have been applied to estimate the components of a soil water balance model for an agricultural field by determining daily values of surface/root-zone soil moisture, evapotranspiration rates, and losses and by developing a forecasting model to generate optimal irrigation application information on a daily basis. Incompatibility of coarse resolution …

Thermal And Fatigue Testing Of Fiber Reinforced Polymer Tie Connectors Used In Concrete Sandwich Walls , Anthony William Post

Anthony Williams

The purpose of this research program was to determine the strength, strain, fatigue, temperature, and other corresponding behavioral characteristics of concrete sandwich wall panels containing the new Delta TieRTM fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) tie connector produced by Dayton/Richmond, a brand of Dayton Superior. The scope of this program included a matrix of three full-scale 40'-0'' wall panels subjected to a 100°F temperature differential, and a matrix of six elemental specimens, three with the ties oriented in the strong direction (parallel tie orientation) and three with the ties oriented in the weak direction (perpendicular tie orientation), subjected to cyclic load tests …

Scene Projection By Non-Linear Transforms To A Geo-Referenced Map For Situational Awareness, Kevin C. Krucki, Vijayan K. Asari

Vijayan K. Asari

There are many transportation and surveillance cameras currently in use in major cities that are close to the ground and show scenes from a perspective point of view. It can be difficult to follow an object of interest across multiple cameras if many of these cameras are in the same area due to the different orientations of these cameras. This is especially true when compared to wide area aerial surveillance (WAAS). To correct this problem, this research provides a method to non-linearly transform current camera perspective views into real world coordinates that can be placed on a map. Using a …

Recent Progress In Wide-Area Surveillance: Protecting Our Pipeline Infrastructure, Vijayan K. Asari, Paheding Sidike, Chen Cui, Varun Santhaseelan

Vijayan K. Asari

The pipeline industry has millions of miles of pipes buried along the length and breadth of the country. Since none of the areas through which pipelines run are to be used for other activities, it needs to be monitored so as to know whether the right-of-way (RoW) of the pipeline is encroached upon at any point in time. Rapid advances made in the area of sensor technology have enabled the use of high end video acquisition systems to monitor the RoW of pipelines. The images captured by aerial data acquisition systems are affected by a host of factors that include …

Data Provisioning For The Object Modeling System (Oms), Jack R. Carlson, Olaf David, Wes J. Lloyd, George H. Leavesley, Ken W. Rojas, Timothy R. Green, Mazdak Arabi, Lucas Yaege, Hom Kipka

Wes Lloyd

The Object Modelling System (OMS) platform supports initiatives to build or re-factor agro-environmental models and deploy them in different business contexts as model services on cloud computing platforms. Whether traditional desktop, client-server, or emerging cloud deployments, success especially at the enterprise level relies on stable and efficient data provisioning to the models. In this paper we describe recent experience and trends with tools and services deployed to cloud platforms. Also, systematic, sustained data stewardship and alignment with standards organizations impart stability to data provisioning efforts.

The Virtual Machine (Vm) Scaler: An Infrastructure Manager Supporting Environmental Modeling On Iaas Clouds, Wes J. Lloyd, Olaf David, Mazdak Arabi, James C. Ascough Ii, Timothy R. Green, Jack R. Carlson, Ken W. Rojas

Wes Lloyd

Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) clouds provide a new medium for deployment of environmental modeling applications. Harnessing advancements in virtualization, IaaS clouds can provide dynamic scalable infrastructure to better support scientific modeling computational demands. Providing scientific modeling “as-a-service” requires dynamic scaling of server infrastructure to adapt to changing user workloads. This paper presents the Virtual Machine (VM) Scaler, an autonomic resource manager for IaaS Clouds. We have developed VM-Scaler, a REST/JSON-based web services application which supports infrastructure provisioning and management to support scientific modeling for the Cloud Services Innovation Platform (CSIP) [Lloyd et al. 2012]. VM-Scaler harnesses the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) …

Applications Of Computational Fluid Dynamics In Flow Measurement And Meter Design, Zachary B. Sharp

Zachary Sharp

Computational Fluid Dynamics is a very effective tool for understanding fluid flow and predicting how flow will respond to different boundary conditions. With this knowledge, the focus of this research is applying computational fluid dynamics to problems dealing with flow measurement in closed conduits using differential producing flow meters like Venturis. After discussion with many meter manufactures and a thorough literature review, specific areas of research were determined which will contribute to better understanding of differential producers and will add to the limited literature available on such meters. This research will present the findings of computational fluid dynamics coupled with …

Energy Losses In Cross Junctions, Zac B. Sharp, Michael C. Johnson, S. L. Barfuss, W. J. Rahmeyer

Zachary Sharp

Energy losses occurring in pipe junctions have been studied for many years. Head loss coefficients (KK) are commonly used to characterize losses across elbows, tees, crosses, valves, and other pipe fittings. When accurate values of KK are used, the flow rate and corresponding total head at any location in a pipe network can be calculated. While KK is well defined for most pipe junctions and fittings, the literature has limited documentations of KK for crosses. This study was commissioned to determine KK for a wide range of flow combinations in a pipe cross with equal diameter pipes and varied flow …

Energy Losses In Cross Junctions, Zachary B. Sharp, William J. Rahmeyer

Zachary Sharp

Solving for energy losses in pipe junctions has been a focus of study for many years. Although pipe junctions and fittings are at times considered "minor losses" in relation to other energy losses in a pipe network, there are cases where disregarding such losses in flow calculations will lead to errors. To facilitate these calculations, energy loss coefficients (K-factors) are commonly used to obtain energy losses for elbows, tees, crosses, valves, and other pipe fittings. When accurate K-factors are used, the flow rate and corresponding energy at any location in a pipe network can be calculated. K-factors are well defined …

Effects Of Pipe Wall Offsets On Differential Pressure Meter Accuracy, Zac B. Sharp, Jesse M. Pope, S. L. Barfuss, Michael C. Johnson

Zachary Sharp

Accurate flow measurement is essential for the management of any type of fluid system. This research investigated the effect on accuracy that five types of 12-in. differential-pressure flow meters have as a result of being installed in pipelines of differing inside diameter. The types of meters chosen for this research were the classical Venturi meter, Halmi Venturi Tube, wedge meter, V-cone meter, and the X-meter. Each meter was tested for accuracy with 10 pipe wall offsets varying from a 0.125-in. sudden contraction to a 0.937-in. sudden expansion of the pipe radius. The meters' reading during each test series was compared …

Interdisciplinary, Collaborative International Service Learning: Developing Engineering Students As Global Citizens, Anthony D. Songer, Karen R. Breitkreuz

Karen R. Breitkreuz

Recent calls to reform engineering education place emphasis on applied math and science within the broader context of globalization, economics, the environment, and society. This broad and complex challenge necessitates the investigation of new interdisciplinary education approaches for engineering education. This paper presents a formal approach for developing engineering students as global citizens. The 360 Degree Model for Educating Socially Responsible Global Citizens (360 Global Ed model) presented herein includes a framework for foundational theory, educational environment, academic coursework, and outcomes. At the core of the emerging model is an international service learning experience called the Village Network. The Village …

How To Establish Successful Cooperative Student Learning Centers For Stem Courses, Ronald James Bieniek, Douglas R. Carroll, Cesar Mendoza, Oran Allan Pringle, Ekkehard Sinn, Kai-Tak Wan, Donald C. Wunsch

Oran Pringle

Students learn more if they are actively involved in the learning process, particularly in a cooperative manner. Several UMR faculty have operated course-based learning centers (LCs) as part of the campus-wide Learning Enhancement Across Disciplines (LEAD) Program of student learning assistance and enhancement. LCs are designed to assist large numbers of students in a cost- and time-efficient manner that promotes student engagement without requiring undue amounts of faculty time. Course instructors spend time in the open learning environment of the LC, in lieu of office hours, guiding students to master course material and skills in their evolution from novice to …

Comprehensive Framework For Speed-Zone Guidelines, Joseph Shrestha, Pramen P. Shrestha

Joseph Shrestha

Metadata For Describing Water Models, Mohamed M. Morsy, Jonathan L. Goodall, Christina Bandaragoda, Anthony M. Castronova, Jane Greenberg

Anthony Castronova

Computer models are widely used in hydrology and water resources management. A large variety of models exist, each tailored to address specific challenges related to hydrologic science and water resources management. When scientists and engineers apply one of these models to address a specific question, they must devote significant effort to set up, calibrate, and evaluate that model instance built for some place and time. In many cases, there is a benefit to sharing these computer models and associated datasets with the broader scientific community. Core to model reuse in any context is metadata describing the model. A standardized metadata …

Civilizing The Civil Engineer: How A History Course Can Serve As A Curriculum Capstone, John Alfred Heitmann

John A. Heitmann

Beginning in 1989 and then every other year thereafter, a unique course dealing specifically with the history of civil engineering has been taught to all civil engineering majors at the University of Dayton. What has evolved over time -- in response to student feedback, ongoing reform in the curriculum, and a maturing of faculty expertise -- is a course in the history of civilization that has as its major focus the discipline of civil engineering. In reality, what happens in the classroom is a far broader learning experience than either the disciplines of history or civil engineering could provide standing …

Session E8: Can We Measure Cumulative Effects Of Hydro-Power On Migratory Fish? Development Of A Cumulative Effects Model Framework, Iain Stewart-Russon, Simon Palmer, David Fraser

David Fraser, PhD

Abstract: The Environment Agency provides guidance for run-of-river hydropower schemes in England, but concerns about small effects from multiple single schemes led to a project to determine how these can be assessed and to test an approach on migratory fish populations. We developed a model to assess the impact of multiple hydropower schemes. The model forecasts catchment-scale cumulative effects using three elements: hydropower scheme, spatial fish population and fish life cycle. The scheme element includes effects that are important to migratory fish and those that can be quantified. These are: 1) impediment to up- and downstream migration; 2) alleviation of …

A New Framework For Evaluating Public-Private Partnerships, Junxiao Liu, Peter Love, Jim Smith, Michael Regan

Michael Regan

Since the global financial crisis limited funds have been available for major infrastructure projects. Many governments and other agencies have had great difficulty in promoting and financing infrastructure development using public private partnerships (PPPs). Therefore, it is essential that supporting agencies and financiers conduct effective pre-design and pre-construction analysis and evaluation of the proposed projects. Traditional approaches have tended to focus on the meeting budget and project duration targets, but these single dimension evaluations may not take account of the more complex legal, organisational and financial interfaces created by multiple stakeholder interactions. More effective approaches, mechanisms and frameworks are essential …

Daveluofa_Cv.Pdf, David G. Lautenschleger

David Lautenschleger

No abstract provided.