Engineering Commons^™

Incident Duration Time Prediction Using A Supervised Topic Modeling Method, Jihyun Park

Theses

Precisely predicting the duration time of an incident is one of the most prominent components to implement proactive management strategies for traffic congestions caused by an incident. This thesis presents a novel method to predict incident duration time in a timely manner by using an emerging supervised topic modeling method. Based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, this thesis performs semantic text analyses with text-based incident dataset to train the model. The model is trained with actual 1,466 incident records collected by Korea Expressway Corporation from 2016-2019 by applying a Labeled Latent Dirichlet Allocation(L-LDA) approach. For the training, this thesis …

Recovery Of Valuable Metals From Spent Lithium-Ion Batteries Using Organic Acids: Assessment Of Technoeconomic Feasibility, Leqi Lin

Theses

Lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are used in diverse electronic products with anticipated over 500 thousand tonnes of the waste LIBs globally in 2020. To protect the environment and also recover valuable materials such as lithium (Li) and cobalt (Co), our research employed a hydrometallurgy method and demonstrated that exposure of spent LIBs to Organic Aqua Regia (OAR) could leach Li and Co without the pre-separation of cathode from Al foil using organic solvents such as Dimethylformamide (DMF) and N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP). The leaching efficiency of 99% and 94% for Li and Co were obtained with a leaching rate of 0.021, 0.167 …

Enhanced Removal Of Perfluorooctanoic Acid (Pfoa) Via Microwave-Fenton-Reactive Membrane Filtration, Fangzhou Liu

Theses

Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA), one of the common per- and poly fluorinated alkylated substances (PFASs), is increasingly detected in the environment due to the diverse industrial applications and high resistance to degradation processes. This study evaluated degradation of PFOA in microwave-assistant catalytic membrane filtration, a process that integrates microwave catalytic reactions into a ceramic membrane filtration. First, water permeation of the pristine and catalyst-coated membranes were examined under the influence of microwave irradiation to analyse the impacts of the coating layer and water temperature increase on permeate flux, which were well interpreted by three models. Then, the PFOA removal was first …

Sustaining Dockless Bike-Sharing Based On Business Principles, Neil Horowitz

Theses

Currently in urban areas, the value of money and fuel is increasing because of urban traffic congestion. As an environmentally sustainable and short-distance travel mode, dockless bike-sharing not only assists in resolving the issue of urban traffic congestion, but additionally assists in minimizing pollution, satisfying the demand of the last mile problem, and improving societal health. Despite the positives that this new transportation mode provides, currently there are few effective measures in place to make the development of dockless bike-sharing providers more sustainable.

This study endeavors in establishing a foundation for resolving this problem through developing business models of dockless …

Intense Ultrasonic Waves In Fluids: Nonlinear Behaviour, Jitendra Kewalramani

Theses

High-intensity ultrasonic wave has several engineering, biological, medical and chemical applications. High intensity acoustic waves can lead to a desired change in a medium by initiating one or more diverse mechanisms such as acoustic cavitation, heating, radiation pressure, or chemical reactions. Nonlinear nature of intense acoustic waves opens an entire new spectrum of applications. Hence there is need to understand and model the mechanism of nonlinear wave motion for practical applications of intense acoustic waves.

In this research, one-dimensional motion of shock waves in an ideal fluid is studied to include nonlinearity. In nonlinear acoustics, the propagation velocity of different …

Rca: Use And Future Possibilities, Bushra Marium Islam

Theses

Reuse and recycling of concrete is essential for construction purposes. There has been progressive development in construction projects but at the same time it has an inverse effect on the environment. Concrete structures are built and demolished continuously all over the world, generating tons of waste materials which are actually reusable in concrete production itself. This paper emphasis on recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and many characteristics of RCA. This paper studies RCA’s different properties. RCA’s replacement in the place of natural aggregate is discussed. The proper amount and researches done on RCA improvement have also been discussed for further in …

Effectiveness Of Water Quality Benefits Provided By Stormwater Management Facilities/Infiltration Basin, Vinicius Rodrigues De Mattos Barreto

Theses

Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMP) and devices are systems frequently built under assumed design performances, but rarely verified after construction. Their effectiveness in protecting the environment against pollutants carried by stormwater runoff has been extensively questioned and investigated. This research presents a case study of an infiltration basin in Medford, NJ to verify if the 80% expected Total Suspended Solids (TSS) removal as stated in the New Jersey Stormwater BMP Manual is actually achieved. A sampling pit was installed on the site and infiltrated water samples were collected during three rain events and TSS measurements were compared with the inflow. …

Structural Health Monitoring Of Bridges Using Wireless Sensor Networks, Seyed Behrad Ghazi Sharyatpanahi

Theses

Structural Health Monitoring, damage detection and localization of bridges using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are studied in this thesis. The continuous monitoring of bridges to detect damage is a very useful tools for preventing unnecessary costly and emergent maintenance. The optimal design aims to maximize the lifetime of the system, the accuracy of the sensed data, and the system reliability, and to minimize the system cost and complexity

Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is carried out using LUSAS Bridge Plus software to determine sensor locations and measurement types and effectively minimize the number of sensors, data for transmission, and volume of …

Fates Of Spilt Oil And Factors Affecting The Bio-Degradation Of Oil: A Review, Amogh-Ranganath Chakravarthy

Theses

The usage of crude oil and its products is increasing; in turn, the number of spills is also going up. The inland spills are the more recurrent spills in the U.S today. This review article deals with the weathering of oils, which commences just after oil spills into the environment with various processes such as evaporation, dissolution, photo-oxidation, dispersion, emulsification and bio-degradation along with other possible fates. Biodegradation is one of the most significant processes of weathering which depends on oil physical and chemical characteristics, environmental characteristics, pH, salinity and oil concentration. There is a range of oil concentration for …

Assessment Of Flood Protection Strategies For Combined Critical Infrastructure Failure And Hurricane/Storm Surge Events In The Meadowlands Area, Nisharg Dipakkumar Dalwadi

Theses

As a result of a wide-reaching comprehensive post-Sandy NJIT project entitled "Flood Mitigation Engineering Resource Center (FMERC)", a detailed investigation of alternative measures for flood mitigation in the Meadowlands area was completed in June 2014. The project involved the assessment of flood impacts, and the evaluation of a range of structural and non-structural capital improvement measures, maintenance, operations and regulatory measures, and broad system design and redundancy measures.

The basic objective of this thesis is to develop an innovative procedure for the enumeration and simulation of probability-weighted combined events, e.g., Oradell dam failure under various scenarios (sunny day, water level, …

Approach To Flood Mitigation - A Post Sandy Study In New Jersey Meadowlands Area, Banshari Datta

Theses

In the last decade the continuous change in the climate has resulted in an increased frequency of natural catastrophic events and the magnitude of their impact. The immense damage caused by such events brought to light the vulnerabilities of the impacted communities. Coastal communities are alarmingly vulnerable due to flood and storm surge impacts such as those caused by super storm Sandy in 2012. In order to mitigate this risk, the communities need to look beyond the short term recovery measures, and build a sustainable community by implementing long term mitigation measures. The objective of this thesis is to investigate …

Public Private Partnership In Transit Projects, Rashmita Daschaudhuri

Theses

The government is cutting down government impediments and entering into the market. One of the outcomes has been the rise of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). There have been a lot of information and transaction cost problems in government institutions. These issues can be sorted and mitigated if the risk is shared with the private sector.

Until 1990, there had been a monopoly of the public sector developing transit projects. Now with the PPP concept, the transit projects are slowly moving into public private partnership agreements. This study tries to identify the various approaches of public private partnership delivery system. A few …

Safety Performance Comparison Between Light Rail Transit And Subway, Nehemie Jasmin

Theses

Along with the expansion and addition of guide way transit systems, such as light rail and subway, there came the need to compare the safety performance of each mode. The multimodal transportation systems with many different technologies, operating characteristics and diversified environments made it more difficult to compare their safety.

In order to evaluate the potential for intermodal comparison of safety performance measures, the thesis has focused on the subway and Light Rail Transit (LRT) modes at the national level. Starting with clear definitions of each safety category, the analysis utilizes mostly the National Transit Database (NTD) from recent years …

Challenges Of Permitting Ballast Water Discharges From Commercial Vessels In U.S. Waters, Paul Rodriguez

Theses

On February 5, 2009, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) issued the Vessel General Permit (VGP), under the Clean Water Act (CWA), for discharges incidental to the normal operation of vessels, including ballast water discharges. This set forth permit requirements for most commercial vessel discharges within 3 nautical miles of U.S. shore. Since it will expire in December 2013, the US EPA recently issued a draft 2013 VGP. One of the significant changes is the proposal of numerical ballast water discharge standards requiring most commercial vessels to install ballast water treatment systems onboard.

The objective of this thesis is …

Development Of Gis Database For Hayward Fault, Olugbope Maku

Theses

Earthquake activity and its attendant effects on the earth surface have been a major concern for some time now, especially considering their negative effects in loss of human life, property damage including the emotional impact on witnesses. This study focuses on the Hayward Fault, located in the heart of population center in Contra Costa County of the San Francisco Bay Area, California.

Geographical Information System (GIS) has proved to be a valuable tool in recent years in the study and analysis of earthquakes to complement emergency response efforts. GIS has been adapted to estimate the impact of the geologic hazards …

Issues Of Seismic Response And Retrofit For Critical Substation Equipment, Seyed Ali Hashemi Nezhad Ashrafi

Theses

This study focuses on means to reduce the seismic hazard for transformer-bushing systems and different issues of the response and rehabilitation of transformers. The primary means of seismic mitigation investigated is the use of the Friction Pendulum System (FPS) bearings to seismically isolate transformers. This is done by developing a finite element model representing the behavior of FPS bearings and implementing this model on to ADINA finite element package for further use in analytical studies. This model is used to study the behavior of isolated primary-secondary systems and the effects of parameters like different FPS radii or vertical excitations. Also …

The Consolidation Analysis Of A Clay Layer In The City Of Belem Do Para, Brazil, John Bezerra Jr.

Theses

In this study, an analysis was done on a particular clay layer found in the city of Belem do Para, Brazil. Various soil tests were conducted including a consolidation analysis. Data were gathered and analyzed in order to obtain a better understanding of how the soil responds under certain loading conditions. There have been no previous studies done on this material and so when it has been encountered in the field geotechnical engineers provide the safest, but not necessarily best design method possible. In the case of large buildings, piles are driven past this material to competent sand. There have …

Shape Finding Of Fabric Structures Using Grid Method, Armin Bischof

Theses

Fabric structures can span large distances with a very low self-weight, which makes them very efficient for covering huge areas. They have attractive shapes and an appealing architecture. These properties make them very popular and they are used in many different kinds of buildings. Airports, stadiums and halls are typical examples where the use fabric structures is often recommendable.

Fabric structures are built mainly out of fabric and cables; two structural members that can only take tension stresses. Therefore these structural members must be prestressed in such a way that their shape can carry all loads that might affect the …

Optimization Of Very Early Strength Concrete Mixes Using Maturity Method, Sun Punurai

Theses

Fast track concrete technology has been used over the past two decades for overnight highway repairs. Originally, fast track was concerned only with rapid strength gain and workability but little concern was paid to cost and durability of the concrete.

The purpose of this research study is to develop a current improved very early strength (VES) concrete mix, which was accepted by NJDOT in 1996. More than 50 concrete mixes were evaluated for strength, shrinkage, and curing rate (maturity), eventually leading to the development of an optimized VES concrete mix with improved performance characteristics.

The study has developed the new …

Hydrological And Geotechnical Investigation Of A Sparta, New Jersey Landslide, James Talerico

Theses

On August 13, 2000, a massive landslide occurred in Northern New Jersey following an extreme rainfall event during which 14.1 inches of precipitation fell locally during a 24-hour period. The slide, with an estimated volume of 22,000ft³, traveled up to 1,500ft in a short period. While landslides do occasionally occur along the coastal bluffs of the Atlantic Coastal Plain, slides of this magnitude are uncommon in the glacial soils of the New Jersey Highland section.

The investigation of this landslide was compiled through rainfall data and geotechnical data, which was used to determine the triggering mechanism of the …

Probability Of A Hazardous Material Truck Accident In New Jersey, Mahesh Damodaran

Theses

Accident prediction modeling is a powerful tool for determining the frequency of accidents under certain circumstances. Nationwide, direct damages from highway hazardous material spills for the year 2000 were tallied at over $31billion. This thesis determines the probability of an accident involving hazardous materials on the roads of New Jersey. The methodology is based on a British predictive equation used by their Highways Agency to determine the probability of a hazardous spill over a section of a roadway. The parameters used by the British's Highways Agency, which is obtained from their accident data, were modified to reflect conditions that best …

Impact Of Truck Regulation And 65mph Speed Limit On Truck Accidents In New Jersey, Rajat G. Rajbhandari

Theses

The state of New Jersey enacted two regulations with significant importance to the highway operations: 65 mph speed limit and truck restriction on the National Network. The speed limit of 65mph was used on limited sections of interstate system highways with an objective to reduce energy consumption by vehicles and truck restriction was used on the interstate system and other state highway system to reduce large truck accidents and thereby increase truck safety. In this research, the safety impacts of these two regulations on truck crashes were studied.

The research focused on monthly truck crashes along the highway sections where …

Mechanical Properties And Stress-Strain Behavior Of High Performance Concrete Under Uniaxial Compression, Pornchai Jiratatprasot

Theses

Many recent innovations in advanced concrete materials technology have made it possible to produce concrete with exceptional performance characteristics. High performance concrete (HPQ is defined as concrete that meets special performance and uniformity requirements that cannot always be achieved routinely by using conventional materials and normal mixing, placing, and curing practices. The importance of HPC to structural engineering is unquestionable. However, HPC is a relatively new material. Some results of research on conventional concrete are not entirely applicable. In this experiment, the main mechanical properties of HPC including compressive strength, modulus of elasticity, and Poisson's ratio were investigated and compared …

Shear Behavior Of Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams Strengthened With Cfrp Laminates, Jon Erik Moren

Theses

Considerable research has been performed using CFRP plates bonded to normal reinforced concrete beams, the objective being to improve shear and flexural strength. However, very few tests have been performed on reinforced concrete deep beams with CFRP as shear reinforcement. The purpose of this experiment is to investigate the behavior of the deep beam in shear with various arrangements of Sika CarboDur laminates bonded to the sides. The beams were designed to be shear deficient with stirrups omitted, except at the supports and directly under the load. In total eight beams were tested, four with one-point loading and four with …

Characterization Of The Dependant Pile Capacity In Glacial Deposits By Dynamic Load Tests, Upendra L. Karna

Theses

A study of the effects of time on axial pile capacity in glacial deposits is presented in this report. The dynamic and static load database test results of the Route 21, Viaduct Replacement project are studied and analyzed. In this project two sizes (18-inch and 24-inch dia.) of closed end pipe piles varying in length 100 to 150 feet driven through highly variable glacial deposits were utilized. Within a small reach the subsurface conditions and the behavior of pile capacity with time varied considerably. About 112 piles were tested dynamically by Pile Driving Analyzer. Restriking was performed on fifty-nine piles …

Reactive Media For Chromium Reduction Under Alkaline Conditions For Use In Permeable Reactive Barriers, Sachin V. Apte

Theses

The purpose of this study was to select the appropriate reactive media for chromate reduction to treat groundwater (high pH) with permeable reactive barriers. The study addresses groundwater contamination for three chromium refining sites located in Hudson County, New Jersey. The use of iron (Fe⁰) as a reactive medium was studied and found to be insufficient for use in permeable reactive barriers because of the high pH conditions of groundwater at these sites. Pyrite and iron (Fe⁰)-pyrite mixtures were studied as viable reactive media by considering their passivation kinetics, reductive capacities and solubility properties.

Column experiments …

Development And Application Of A Computer Simulation Tool For Ecological Risk Assessments, Haiyi Lu

Theses

In an effort to improve tools in ecological risk assessment (ERA), an ERA software tool was developed and applied. Based on a preliminary evaluation of existing ecorisk models, the relative deficiencies were identified and included the need for a user-friendly interface, an interactive database management system (DBMS), and a comprehensive evaluation of exposure pathways. In this research, Visual Basic (VB) 6.0 and Microsoft SQL server were selected for developing the Windows-based interface and local DBMS, respectively. For the exposure estimate, Yuma and Aberdeen Proving Grounds were identified as baseline ecosystems. Terrestrial and aquatic plant and animal receptor selection was based …

Optimization Of Nitrogen Removal In Sequencing Batch Reactor, Suppakit Poonyachat

Theses

Operating parameters for sequencing batch reactor have the influenceon each substrate concentration. Concentration profile changes as operationparameters are changed. The study was conducted to model the variationin effluent concentration from sequencing batch reactor. MLVSS and cycletime are the parameters that were varied. Concentration in Fill, React,and Settle Period were calculated by using kinetic equations.

The results can show that these parameters have effects on the concentrationprofile. The increase of MLVSS can lower the concentration of BOD andammonium concentration in React period. Increasing MLVSS can show thatmore substrate utilization and nitrification process occur more rapidly.Concentration of nitrate at the end of …

Post-Cracking Tensile Properties Of Advanced Cementitious Materials And Ductility Of High Performance Concrete Beams, Wonsiri Punurai

Theses

In present direct tension tests, the complete stress-deformation curves, the resulting energy dissipated by damage, and the fracture energy of different types of cementitious composites, namely plain concrete, high strength concrete, normal fibrous concrete, high strength fibrous concrete, are studied and a ductility factor is calculated. It has been found that with the increasing strength of concrete due to the addition of the pozzoians such as silica fume and fly ash and when changing from normal strength to high strength, concrete ductility decreases. However, when fibers are combined with these matrices, concrete ductility increases. It is because of ductile steel …

Intelligent Process For Uasb Reactors, Sita Mohan

Theses

The Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor is widely used for the anaerobic treatment of concentrated municipal / industrial wastewaters and sludges. Ability to handle high organic loading rates and cost effectiveness are often the most cited merits of the UASB process. Numerous mathematical models have been developed to describe the process and mechanistic phenomena in these systems. However, evidence in the literature of these models having been applied, either as control or diagnostic tools is limited. The use of intelligent process control mechanisms can greatly ease problems associated with operating these reactor systems.

The objective of this study is …