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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Unmanned Aerial And Traversing Vehicle -- A Mobile Platform For Bridge Inspections, Clayton A. Fritsche Jan 2019

Unmanned Aerial And Traversing Vehicle -- A Mobile Platform For Bridge Inspections, Clayton A. Fritsche

Masters Theses

“Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have been rapidly growing in popularity since their creation. This study aimed to create a robotic platform used to assist in the inspection process of the nation’s aging and deteriorating bridges. To this end, a multimodal inspection robot that utilized both flying and driving technologies, was designed, analyzed, and tested for aerial, traversing, and their transitional operability. The design, herein referred to as the “BridgeBot”, was evaluated both computationally and experimentally. A finite element model of the BridgeBot was established and analyzed under static loading scenarios to help determine stress distributions and …


Economic Impact Analysis Of Bridge Construction, Funda Yavuz Jun 2017

Economic Impact Analysis Of Bridge Construction, Funda Yavuz

Masters Theses

Traffic disruption due to bridge construction has been reduced to several hours with the development of methods characterized as Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC). Associated risks and additional activities involved with the accelerated construction result in an increased initial project cost. This additional cost is offset by the benefits of reduced mobility impact time such as maintenance of traffic cost, life-cycle cost, and economic impact on surrounding communities and businesses as well as the ability to address seasonal limitations. Traditionally, the savings in user cost from reduced mobility impact time is used to justify the additional cost of accelerated construction implementations. …


Bridge Deck Research At The University Of Tennessee: A Summary Thesis, Lindsey Brooke Phelps Aug 2016

Bridge Deck Research At The University Of Tennessee: A Summary Thesis, Lindsey Brooke Phelps

Masters Theses

Currently, there has been no compilation of all the research the University of Tennessee has completed on chloride ion penetration in concrete bridge decks. The following thesis is a brief summary of the work that has been completed under Dr. Edwin Burdette’s direction over the last six years along with some additional literature review. The testing consisted of Surface Resistivity and Rapid Chloride Ion Penetration testing. This testing showed that there is, in fact a correlation between the two test methods, though SR testing is much easier to conduct. Considerable testing was completed on bridge decks throughout the state of …


Integrated Solar Technologies With Outdoor Pedestrian Bridge Superstructure Decking, Richard K. Racz Mar 2016

Integrated Solar Technologies With Outdoor Pedestrian Bridge Superstructure Decking, Richard K. Racz

Masters Theses

Solar technology has been a major topic in sustainable design for many years. In the last five years, however, the solar technology industry has seen a rapid growth in installations and technological advances in cell design. Combined with a rapidly declining overall system cost, the idea of introducing solar technology into a wider range of applications is becoming a focus for engineers and scientists around the world. So many variables which alter solar energy production, such as the sun and surrounding environment, determine whether a solar design is beneficial. This thesis presents a bridge deck surface integrated with solar cells …


Field And Analytical Studies Of The First Folded Plate Girder Bridge, Man Hou Sit Aug 2014

Field And Analytical Studies Of The First Folded Plate Girder Bridge, Man Hou Sit

Masters Theses

Integral abutment bridges are very common for short span bridges in the United State due to their less construction and maintenance cost and generally good performance. This thesis studies the first integral abutment bridge using Folded Plate Girder (FPG) Bridge System. The bridge is instrumented with a variety of gauges to capture the behavior of the bridge, and a total of two year and one month [11/2011~12/2013] of data are collected and long-term data monitoring is performed. Live load test and long term temperature effect on the bridge are studied using finite element modeling and compared with actual field data. …


Structural Health Monitoring Of A Bridge Structure Using Wireless Sensor Network, Cheekian Teng Jun 2012

Structural Health Monitoring Of A Bridge Structure Using Wireless Sensor Network, Cheekian Teng

Masters Theses

Bridge Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has rapidly become one of the main interests in civil engineering field. Inexpensive and efficient SHM method utilizing Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is helping to facilitate the selection of the bridges that require maintenance. The changes to structural properties (i.e. stiffness) caused by damage (i.e. corrosion) will change the structural responses (i.e. acceleration responses) to ambient motions. Modal analysis algorithms applied to the vibration responses acquired through WSN provide the modal properties (i.e. natural frequency, modal shape and damping ratio) that will change with the changes in stiffness indicating possible existence of damage. Three output-only …


Dynamic Characteristics Of An Frp Deck Bridge, Jing Song Aug 2010

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 …