Engineering Commons^™

An Assessment Of The Effects Of Desertification In Yobe State, Nigeria, Jibril Musa Phd

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Desertification is one of the most serious environmental and socio-economic problems of our time. Desertification describes circumstances of land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from the climatic variation and human activities. The fundamental goal of this thesis was to assess the effects of desertification in Yobe State, Nigeria. The present threat of desertification in the sahel has reached an alarming stage where crops cultivation and animal rearing/grazing are no more productive, soil has lost its nutrient/fertility, various infrastructure had given way because of windstorm from the neighbouring Niger Republic and sand dunes had taken over. The …

Using Remote Sensing Data To Improve Rice Production In Kutigi, Niger State, Nigeria, Jibril Musa Phd, M B. Yunusa

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

This research work looked in the used of Remote Sensing to improve Agricultural production in Kutigi, Niger State. The aim of the study is to use remote sensing to improve rice farming activities in Kutigi, Niger State. It is very important to identify such methods to improve Agricultural production because experts are always interested in new researches and findings to better the standard of living in any environment. In view of this, Remotely-sensed data could be used or employed to elevate most of these agricultural problems in Kutigi through the following objectives: Using Landsat imagery to assess the present landuse …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly.

Based on review of climate projections for the …

Mixed Method Collaboration In The Built Environment, Dermot Kehily

Conference papers

The built environment discipline or inter-discipline is a relatively new field in academic research. Its subject matter however is based on the traditional disciplines of the construction and property industries. Determining your ontological position and epistemological approach based on the researchparadigm of one of these fields’ may not provide an adequate solution to your research objectives.This paper outlines that framing your research within the broader confines of the built environment; drawing from related fields in an integrated manner may provide a more successful outcome.Arguments whether the built environment is an academic discipline or even the range of subjects thatmake up …

Bond Between Self-Compacting Concrete And Reinforcement, Marian Sabau, Traian Onet, Ioan Pop

Marian Sabau

This paper study the bond behaviour of self-compacting concrete (SCC) in comparison to normal vibrated concrete (NVC). In this paper are presented the following parameters: the influence of bar diameter, the influence of concrete quality, the top-bar effect, the influence of active and passive confinement. In literature, different test results are found for the bond strength in SCC, which deliver contradictory results, but internationally it seems to be agreed that bond strength in SCC is slightly higher than NVC.

Hardened Properties Of Self-Compacting Concrete, Marian Sabau, Traian Onet, Ana Ioana Petean

Marian Sabau

This paper presents the properties of hardened self-compacting concrete (SCC) and compare them to those reported for normally vibrated concrete (NVC). The mechanical properties evaluated are: compressive strength, modulus of elasticity, tensile strength, creep, shrinkage and bond with reinforcement. The very wide range of materials and mixes already used for SCC produced a significant scatter of data, but clear conclusions have been obtained. The compressive strength of SCC was likely to be the same or greater than that of NVC by using the same content of cement and water. Modulus of elasticity of SCC was lower than that of NVC …

Bs News November/December

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Lifecycle Energy Consumption Prediction Of Residential Buildings By Incorporating Longitudinal Uncertainties, Endong Wang, Zhigang Shen

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Accurate prediction of buildings’ lifecycle energy consumption is a critical part in lifecycle assessment of residential buildings. Longitudinal variations in building conditions, weather conditions and building’s service life can cause significant deviation of the prediction from the real lifecycle energy consumption. The objective is to improve the accuracy of lifecycle energy consumption prediction by properly modelling the longitudinal variations in residential energy consumption model using Markov chain based stochastic approach. A stochastic Markov model considering longitudinal uncertainties in building condition, degree days, and service life is developed: 1) Building’s service life is estimated through Markov deterioration curve derived from actual …

Variations In Climatic Parameters And Food Crop Yields: Implications On Food Security In Benue State, Nigeria., Emmanuel Adamgbe, Fanan Ujoh

Confluence Journal Environmental Studies (CJES), Kogi State University, Nigeria

Agricultural production in Nigeria like in other developing countries is highly vulnerable to variations in climatic parameters which may have inverse or direct effect on the performance of food crops. This paper examines the patterns and trends of the variations in the climatic parameters and the implications of such variations on efficient yield rates of some food crops in Benue State using data on climatic variables (rainfall, temperature, sunshine) and the yield of some crops per hectare for 25 years (1986-2010). Data on the climatic variables were collected from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency, AirForce Base, Makurdi while the data on …

Prelude To A Master Plan: Ware, Massachusetts, Belen Alfaro, Bruno Carneiro, Margaret Engesser, Kathryn E. Fox, Evadne R. Friedman, Timothy Inacio, Anita Lockesmith, Christina Mills, Stephanie Molden, Meagen Mulherin, Russell Pandres, Vinicius Pereira, Brian Reid, Pedro Soto, Jennifer Stromsten

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Prelude to a Master Plan offers ideas, recommendations, and a toolkit to help the town chart its own path towards that future. While the teams and individual students worked to ‘drill down’ into specific topic areas, the Studio defined three basic areas in order to think about how the various assets, challenges and ideas undermine or reinforce one another. The report is loosely organized in those terms: addressing the outlying rural areas and issues specific to these places, considering one of the key growth areas that has extended from town and the conflicts that arise from the many uses occurring …

The Current State Of Wireless Information Technology Among Employers Of Bowling Green State University Construction Management Students, Aaron Seymour

Master of Technology Management Plan II Graduate Projects

Successful implementation of wireless technology in the construction industry has the potential to streamline the building process and improve the service that is delivered to the owners of projects. A need exists for improving access and transfer of digital communication and documentation, regardless of the time or location. Recent developing trends in technology promise to introduce efficiencies that were not previously available within the industry. This study seeks to identify the current state of wireless information technology among employers of Bowling Green State University Construction Management students. The research design analyzed quantitative data from a web-based survey that presented results …

Intelligent Shelter Allotment For Emergency Evacuation Planning: A Case Study Of Makkah, Kwangsoo Yang, Faizan Ur Rehman, Hatim Lahza, Saleh Basalamah, Shashi Shekhar, Arif Ghafoor

Cyber Center Technical Reports

Given maps of an evacuee population, shelter destinations and a transportation
network, the goal of intelligent shelter allotment (ISA) is to assign routes, exits and shelters to evacuees for quick and safe evacuation. ISA is societally important due to emergency planning and response applications in context of hazards such as floods, terrorism, fire, etc. ISA is challenging due to conflicts between movements of evacuee-groups heading to different shelters and transportation-network choke-points. State of the practice based on Nearest Exit or Shelter (NES) paradigm addresses the former challenge but not the latter one leading to load-imbalance and slow evacuation. Recent computational …

Developing A Restorable Wetland Index For Rainwater Basin Wetlands In South-Central Nebraska: A Multi-Criteria Spatial Analysis, Zhenghong Tang, Xu Li, Nan Zhao, Ruopu Li, F. Edwin Harvey

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

It is always challenging for decision makers to prioritize wetland conservation programs at the landscape scale. This study employed a GIS-based multi-criteria spatial decision support tool that identified locations with the highest restoration potential for wetland conservation programs in the Rainwater Basin in south-central Nebraska. Five indicators were considered to assess wetland restoration potential: (1) Vegetation characteristics; (2) Soil characteristics; (3) Water volume released from hydrological modification of agricultural irrigation pits; (4) Topographical depression status; and (5) Habitat condition. The results suggested 192 (1.6% of the total) hydric soil footprints as the highest prioritized locations for future wetland restoration programs. …

The Bridge Newsletter Winter 2012, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

The Bridge Newsletter

-Creating bridge beams that will last 100 years
-Great school, great price
-Recruiting technical minds
-Combatting obesity, diabetes

Investigating Self-Cooling Effects Of Ventilated Attics Under Different Roof And Ambient Temperatures In Summer, Zhigang Shen, Shimin Wang

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

An unsteady computational fluid dynamics model is employed to simulate summer-time buoyancy-driven turbulent ventilation in gable-roof attics of residential buildings. The energy performance of vented attics is assessed by comparing their performance to sealed attics with the same geometry and insulation configurations. The simulated boundary conditions of the roof-top temperature ranging between 295.15 K and 345.15 K, coupled with an ambient temperature ranging between 295.15 K and 315.15 K, resemble the summer attic conditions with effects of solar irradiance on the roofs. Simulation results indicate that both the vented and sealed attics are dominated by thermal stratification. The cooling load …

Dendrochemistry Of Multiple Releases Of Chlorinated Solvents At A Former Industrial Site, Jean Christophe Balouet, Joel Gerard Burken, Frank Karg, Don Vroblesky, Kevin T. Smith, Håkan Grudd, Anders Rindby, François Beaujard, Michel Chalot

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Trees Can Take Up and Assimilate Contaminants from the Soil, Subsurface, and Groundwater. Contaminants in the Transpiration Stream Can Become Bound or Incorporated into the Annual Rings Formed in Trees of the Temperate Zones. the Chemical Analysis of Precisely Dated Tree Rings, Called Dendrochemistry, Can Be Used to Interpret Past Plant Interactions with Contaminants. This Investigation Demonstrates that Dendrochemistry Can Be Used to Generate Historical Scenarios of Past Contamination of Groundwater by Chlorinated Solvents at a Site in Verl, Germany. Increment Cores from Trees at the Verl Site Were Collected and Analyzed by Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Fluorescence (EDXRF) Line Scanning. the …

Framework For Formative Assessment Learning Strategies In Built Environment Higher Education Programmes, Lloyd Scott, Christopher Fortune

Conference papers

Formative assessment has begun to be recognized as a driving force for enhancing student learning. This paper addresses the context of Built Environment (BE) undergraduate programmes and the findings from a research project in the context of the changing Higher Education (HE) environment. The analysis of the literature on formative assessment shows that there is a common concern among the educational researchers about the function and position of assessment in HE today. The overall aim of this research is to contribute to an improvement in the quality of student learning in BE undergraduate education through the development of a theoretical …

E-Mentoring For Employability, Andrea S. Wheeler, Simon Austin, Jacqui Glass

Andrea S. Wheeler

Recession and higher costs of higher education have over the past few years increased concerns over employability amongst engineering and construction students.

Bs News September/October

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Technology Portal For Energy Efficient Buildings, Larry D. Hermanson, Daniel Studer, Annie Mroz

STAR Program Research Presentations

Project: Technology Portal for Energy Efficient Buildings

Date: August 2, 2012

Author: Larry Hermanson

Mentor: Daniel Studer

Cohort: Annie Mroz

Lab site: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Buildings account for 71% of the electricity demand and 39% of the primary energy consumption in the United States. The Commercial Buildings Group at NREL provides builders, designers and building owners accurate information to significantly improve the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings. The Technology Portal for Energy Efficient Buildings will increase the accessibility of standardized and credible energy performance data for all building systems, thereby allowing building owners to better evaluate …

Effects Of Acoustic Environments On Speech Comprehension By Native-English-Speaking Listeners, Zhao Peng, Lily M. Wang, Siu Kit Lau

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

This study investigates the effects of acoustic conditions on speech comprehension, rather than speech intelligibility as often reported in existing literature. Sets of 15-minute-long listening comprehension tests were developed based on the format of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC). Each test set includes four types of tasks: matching aural phrases to photographs, selecting appropriate responses to aural questions, and answering questions after listening to conversations (between two talkers) and talks (single talker). Within the Nebraska acoustics test chamber, native-English-speaking participants are asked to perform these tests under 15 acoustic conditions, from combinations of three background noise levels …

Use Of Building Information Modelling In Responding To Low Carbon Construction Innovations: An Irish Perspective., Barry Mcauley, Alan V. Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

At present the Irish construction industry is facing one of its most uncertain and challenging periods and will see major cuts in all areas of the economy in 2012. Despite this, Ireland pushes forward in sustainability initiatives with the Government ruling that environmentally-friendly policies are to get priority in competing for State contracts worth up to €16 billion a year. This and further initiatives are in place, so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20% by the year 2020.By the end of 2018 the public sector must own or rent only buildings with high energy-saving standards and …

Implementing Building Information Modeling In Public Works Projects In Ireland, Barry Mcauley, Alan V. Hore, Roger West

Conference papers

The Irish State in recent years has suffered huge financial losses in the public works sector, which has now pushed the Irish Government to explore new ways of controlling cost. This background lead to the introduction of the Capital Works Management Framework in 2007 which aimed to support the certainty of outcome in terms of cost and quality, as well as improved risk management, through the implementation of fixed price contracts. In order to successfully compete within this framework it is recommended by the authors, that Irish Government moves towards the legal mandating of BIM. This can ensure a greater …

Evaluating Fault Detection And Diagnostics Protocols Applied To Air-Cooled Vapor Compression Air-Conditioners, David P. Yuill, James E. Braun

David Yuill

Fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) tools are being increasingly applied in air-conditioning systems. There are many different protocols used in these FDD tools, so an important question to ask is: how well do the protocols work? This paper describes the ongoing development of the first standardized method of evaluation for FDD protocols applied to air-cooled vapor compression air-conditioning systems. The general approach is to feed a library of data – including temperatures, pressures, and humidity – to a candidate FDD protocol, and observe the responses of the protocol. The library includes data from units operating with no fault or with …

Sensitivity Studies Of A Low Temperature Low Approach Direct Cooling Tower For Building Radiant Cooling Systems, Medhi Nasrabadi, Donal Finn, Ben Costelloe

Conference Papers

Recent interest in cooling towers as a mechanism for producing chilled water, together with the evolution of radiant cooling, have prompted a review of evaporative cooling in temperate maritime climates. The thermal efficiency of such systems is a key parameter, as a measure of the degree to which the system has succeeded in exploiting the cooling potential of the ambient air. The feasibility of this concept depends largely however, on achieving low approach water temperatures within an appropriate cooling tower, at acceptable levels of energy performance. Previous experimental work for a full scale evaporative cooling system has shown that it …

Using Life Cycle Assessment Methods To Guide Architectural Decision-Making For Sustainable Prefabricated Modular Buildings, Jeremy Faludi, Michael Lepech, George Loisos

Dartmouth Scholarship

Within this work, life cycle assessment modeling is used to determine top design priorities and quantitatively inform sustainable design decision-making for a prefabricated modular building. A case-study life-cycle assessment was performed for a 5,000 ft² prefabricated commercial building constructed in San Francisco, California, and scenario analysis was run examining the life cycle environmental impacts of various energy and material design substitutions, and a structural design change. Results show that even for a highly energy-efficient modular building, the top design priority is still minimizing operational energy impacts, since this strongly dominates the building life cycle's environmental impacts. However, as an …

Bs News July/August

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Probabilistic Resilience Quantification And Visualization Building Performance To Hurricane Wind Speeds, Berna Eren Tokgoz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Natural and man made disasters are unpredictable and unavoidable in today's world. Their frequency of occurrence and damages keep increasing. Due to the efforts to reduce negative consequences from such disasters, the concept of resilience has gained so much popularity in disaster management area especially after disasters like the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. Complex systems of today are under operational risks because of increasing threats and their high level of vulnerability. Hence, such systems need to adapt the concept of resilience for continuous operations. Resilience is a proactive concept which should incorporate both pre-event (preparedness and mitigation) and …

Performance-Based Analysis Of A Reinforced Concrete Shear Wall Building, Garrett Richard Hagen

Master's Theses

PERFORMANCE-BASED ANALYSIS OF A REINFORCED CONCRETE SHEAR WALL BUILDING

Garrett Richard Hagen

In this thesis, a special reinforced concrete shear wall building was designed per ASCE 7-05, and then the performance was investigated using the four analysis procedures outlined in ASCE 41-06. The proposed building was planned as a 6-story office building in San Francisco, CA. The structural system consisted of a two-way flat plate and reinforced concrete columns for gravity loads and slender structural walls for seismic loads. The mathematical building models utilized recommendations from ASCE 41-06 and first-principle mechanics. Moment-curvature analysis and fiber cross-section elements were used in …

3d Digital Modeling For Urban Design + Planning, Emmanuel Velazco

City and Regional Planning

Cities throughout the country face a number of challenges in dealing with the changing development needs of the 21st century. In urban planning, the fusion of social, environmental, political, economic, and functional considerations are required. Today, local, state, and federal governments are experiencing an economic downturn, making resources scarce to plan for smarter development, attain greater public interest, and economic revival.

The primary objective of this project is to provide innovative solutions in city and regional planning using software applications, such as Google SketchUp, that enable assessment of various urban design projects. A second objective was to create a 3D …