Engineering Commons^™

Seismic Performance Assessment Of Building Contents: Monetary Losses And Injuries, Sereen Majdalaweyh

All Dissertations

Building contents include all the components that are not attached to the building which the owners place after the construction phase, such as furniture, electrical equipment, glassware, and other personal items. Loss and damage assessment of building contents proved to be challenging in performance-based earthquake engineering frameworks because of the data sparsity. Damages to building contents during an earthquake not only cause monetary losses; tumbling and over-toppling of heavy building contents could result in injuries and even deaths of occupants. While major advancements have been made in performance-based earthquake engineering; however, the focus is mainly on damages and collapse risk …

An Experimental And Computational Study Of 3-Dimensional Compact Windborne Debris Flight, Ta'jon Jordan

All Theses

In this thesis, the stochastic nature of 3-dimensional compact windborne debris flight is investigated experimentally and computationally. Previous literature (Holmes, 2004) analyzed the impact of strong winds on compact debris with applications to windborne debris flight. Baker (2007) derived the 2-dimensional equations of motion into a generalized dimensionless form that reveals the fundamental controlling parameters of compact debris flight. However, these models assume that compact debris is spherical, and the flight is, therefore, 2-dimensional. However most compact debris is not spherical, and its flight is 3-dimensional. Herein a previously developed model for free-falling compact windborne debris flight (Ahsanulllah et al., …

Development And Promotion Of Mass Timber Noise Barrier For Highways, Harsh Bothra

All Theses

Highways are some of the biggest causes of noise pollution in the United States of America. To deal with the traffic noise coming from these highways, noise barriers have been erected across major highways. The goal is to reduce as much noise as possible through a sustainable solution. Unfortunately, the use of steel and concrete, commonly used materials, have undesired environmental impacts. A suggested sustainable alternative material would be mass timber. Mass timber products such as cross-laminated timber (CLT) and mass plywood panels (MPP) has attracted the attention of the construction industry in the U.S, as they are sustainable, light, …

Deriving Generalized Temperature-Dependent Material Models For Masonry Through Fire Tests And Machine Learning, Aditya Avinash Daware

All Theses

Masonry is one of the oldest and commonly used building materials in the construction industry. Among a variety of benefits, masonry provides low-cost construction, fire, and weather protection as well as thermal and sound insulation. In addition, masonry has superior material properties at elevated temperatures which is reflected by its slow degradation of its mechanical and thermal properties. Literature shows that we do not have a uniform material model that describes the mechanical degradation of masonry under fire conditions. As such, this limits the use of masonry in fire-based performance design of masonry structures. To bridge this knowledge gap, this …

Development Of Lambda Factors For Masonry Design With Lightweight Grout, Rumi Shrestha

All Theses

Reduction in structural mass, improvement in thermal performance, and reduction in shrinkage cracking through internal curing are some of the reasons that lightweight (LW) aggregates have been used in structures and pavements for decades. However, lightweight grout is still not permitted for use in reinforced masonry construction by the TMS 402/602-16 code. In order to realize the benefits of lightweight grout in U.S. reinforced masonry construction, a codified procedure for its use is required which must be informed by experimental testing.

This research is a pilot project directed to characterize the performance of LW grout in comparison to normal weight …

Chasing Target Zero: Contributing Factors Of Fatal Crashes In South Carolina, Matthew Stanley

All Theses

South Carolina consistently ranks in the top-10 in fatal crashes per 100,000 capita and 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This thesis summarizes an analysis of contributing factors for fatal crashes in South Carolina. A primary objective of this thesis is to investigate differences in contributing factors for fatal crashes as compared to all crashes in South Carolina. 2018 South Carolina fatal crashes (N=970) and all crashes (N=152,973) were analyzed and compared using classic Venn diagrams to compare differences in contributing factors between fatal crashes and all crashes. Fatal, non-fatal, and all crashes were aggregated into one of seven possible contributing …

Quantification Of Compound And Cascading Hydroclimatic Extreme Events, Sourav Mukherjee

All Dissertations

Compound and cascading hydroclimatic extreme events have garnered much attention in recent studies. The combined effects of interconnected extremes can cause widespread damage, with a higher potential impact than individual extremes. Both anthropogenic warming and natural climate variability affect these extremes, which is why detecting past extreme events, understanding the underlying mechanisms, and assessing their future impacts can aid in mitigation efforts to reduce their overall impact. However, thus far, identifying such events is oversimplified and the propagation of their impact as cascades from the physical to human systems remains partly explored.

The overreaching goal of this thesis is to …

Adaptive Signal System Safety Impacts Final Report, Mashrur Chowdhury, Weiman Jin, M. Sabbir Salek, Sakib Mahmud Khan, Katherine Brunk, Patrick Gerard, Nathan Huynh, Mohammad Torkjazi

Publications

The research team conducted a literature review and a nation-wide survey at the beginning of the research. The literature review revealed that Adaptive Signal Control System (ASCS) was effective in reducing crashes in some studies, while in other studies, the crash reduction due to ASCS was not statistically significant. Twenty-eight states participated in the nation-wide survey and helped the research team identify corridor characteristics, such as the design speed and Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) of an ASCS corridor, which would allow for the best operational and safety outcomes. Then, to determine the safety effects of ASCS, the research team …