Engineering Commons^™

The Characteristics Of Underground Utility Repairs Made In Asphaltic Roadways – Comparing The Use Of Grade D Aggregate As A Viable Backfill Option, Susan Gail Deland

Masters Theses

Abstract

Given that most utilities are located beneath public right of ways, it is difficult to perform repairs to the utility without significantly disturbing the existing roadway. Currently there are several standard orders of procedure that deal with small-scale repairs on asphaltic surfaces. This study investigates the use of Grade D Aggregate as a backfill during a utility repair versus the condition of the repair. Five East Tennessee utilities provided a total of 60 utility repair locations over three years of age; 30 of which incorporated Grade D Aggregate and 30 incorporated #57 Stone.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation specifies …

Seismic Analysis Of Integral Abutment Bridges Considering Soil Structure Interaction, Reza Vasheghani Farahani

Masters Theses

Integral abutment bridges are jointless bridges in which the deck is continuous and connected monolithically with the abutment walls supported typically by a single row of piles. This thesis focuses on the effects of two major parameters on the seismic behavior of an integral abutment bridge in Tennessee by considering soil-structure interaction around the piles and in back of the abutments: (1) clay stiffness (medium vs. hard) around the piles, and (2) level of sand compaction (loose vs. dense) of the abutment wall backfilling. Modal and nonlinear time history analyses are performed on a three dimensional detailed bridge model using …

Evaluation Of Moisture Damage In Warm Mix Asphalt Containing Recycled Asphalt Pavement, Emily D. Shrum

Masters Theses

Warm mix asphalt (WMA) has been used worldwide for many years, primarily in Europe. The National Asphalt Pavement Association first brought WMA to the United States in 2002. By using warm mix technology, the temperature of an asphalt mixture during production, transportation, and compaction decreases dramatically. Several concerns about WMA arise due to the reduced mixing temperature. One of the primary concerns in asphalt pavement is the moisture damage. The lower mixing temperature may not be high enough to vaporize all the moisture absorbed in the aggregate, and part of the moisture may be entrapped in the pavements during compaction. …

Matching Vehicle License Plate Numbers Using License Plate Recognition And Text Mining Techniques, Francisco Moraes Oliveira Neto

Doctoral Dissertations

License plate recognition (LPR) technology has been widely applied in many different transportation applications such as enforcement, vehicle monitoring and access control. In most applications involving enforcement (e.g. cashless toll collection, congestion charging) and access control (e.g. car parking) a plate is recognized at one location (or checkpoint) and compared against a list of authorized vehicles. In this research I dealt with applications where a vehicle is detected at two locations and there is no list of reference for vehicle identification.

There seems to be very little effort in the past to exploit all information generated by LPR systems. In …

Dynamic Characteristics Of An Frp Deck Bridge, Jing Song

Masters Theses

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) deck has some significant advantages compared to concrete deck in use of bridges, such as light self-weight, high stiffness and strength, good durability and easy to install. FRP deck has already been used in some bridge rehabilitation and short span bridges. But for widely used in bridges, FRP deck bridges still need further research. Currently many research efforts focus on the filed tests of FRP deck bridges. Compared to field tests, Finite element analysis also has great advantages, such as low cost and convenient to conduct. Therefore, in this thesis finite element analysis is conducted by …

Flow-Based Adaptive Split Signal Control, Airton G. Kohls

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the last 35 years many adaptive traffic signal control systems have been developed presenting alternative strategies to improve traffic signal operations. However, less than 1% of all traffic signals in the United States are controlled by adaptive systems today. The extensive infrastructure necessary including reliable communication and complex calibration leads to a time consuming and costly process. In addition, the most recent National Traffic Signal Report Card indicated an overall grade of D for the nation’s traffic signal control and operations. Recent economic adversity adds to the already difficult task of proactively managing aged signal timing plans.

Therefore, in …