Engineering Commons^™

Investigating The Impacts Of Conventional And Advanced Treatment Technologies On Energy Consumption At Satellite Water Reuse Plants, Jonathan Roy Bailey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With the ever increasing world population and the resulting increase in industrialization and agricultural practices, depletion of two of the world's most important natural resources, water and fossil fuels, is inevitable. Water reclamation and reuse is the key to protecting these natural resources. Water reclamation using smaller decentralized wastewater treatment plants, known as satellite water reuse plants (WRP), have become popular in the last decade. With stricter standards and regulations on effluent quality and requirements for a smaller land footprint (i.e. real estate area), additional treatment processes and advanced technologies are needed. This greatly increases the energy consumption of an …

The Impact Of Advanced Wastewater Treatment Technologies And Wastewater Strength On The Energy Consumption Of Large Wastewater Treatment Plants, Timothy Stephen Newell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Wastewater treatment is an energy intensive process often requiring the use of advanced treatment technologies. Stricter effluent standards have resulted in an increase in the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) with advanced treatment over time. Accordingly, associated energy consumption has also increased. Concerns about lowering operating costs for WWTPs and reducing associated greenhouse gas generation present an incentive to investigate energy use in WWTPs. This research investigated the impact of wastewater strength and the introduction of advanced treatment technologies, to replace traditional technologies on energy use to treat wastewater in WWTPs. Major unit processes were designed for a 100 …

Statistical Analysis Of A Vehicle Miles Travled Fee For Nevada, Andrew Nordland

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Increases in the number of electric, hybrid-electric, and other alternative fuel vehicles, combined with increasing vehicle fuel efficiency present problems with the ability of the fuel tax to collect sufficient revenue. A Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Fee is being considered as an option to replace the existing fuel tax for the collection of revenue for road maintenance, reconstruction and expansion. This study provides an analysis about costs, preference of a potential billing cycle, level of comfort with a mileage collection device, potential changes in transit use, and the effectiveness of a VMT Fee for Nevada. Multinomial logit models are developed …

Investigating The Use Of Pozzolans In Portland Cement Concrete And Inorganic Polymer Mortar, Omar Abdelmalek Saleh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The use of pozzolans offers promising signs for a change in the cement industry. Pozzolan in its natural and artificial forms can be used to improve cement properties or to synthesize new cement. This study investigates the use of pozzolans in portland cement concrete and inorganic polymer mortar (geopolymer mortar).

This thesis is divided into two phases. Phase 1 investigates the use of natural pozzolan as a partial replacement of portland cement in concrete. In this phase two types of class N pozzolan are used separately to develop concrete mixtures contain different percentages of class N pozzolan. Fresh concrete properties …

Legal Issues In Green Construction, Namrata Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The most recent "green construction movement", made a significant impact on the design and construction industry in the United States. Organizations such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) have lobbied governmental entities to provide financial incentives to promote green construction. The green construction community also promotes the notion that a healthier working and living environment is achieved. Due to finical incentives coupled with projected long-term energy cost savings, many owners of new construction are considering green construction as an option. Accompanying the "green construction movement", new kinds of legal issues, particularly relating to green aspects such as certification, energy …

Structural Performance Of Reinforced Concrete Flat Plat Buildings Subjected To Fire, Sara Jean George

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Reinforced concrete structures are typically considered to have inherent resistance to fire. However, several concrete structures around the world have experienced partial or total collapse under fire. Reinforced concrete flat-plate is a type of structural system widely used for office and residential buildings. Flat plate construction is prone to punching shear failure at slab-column connections which may lead to a catastrophic progressive collapse. The slabs of flat-plates generally have very thin concrete cover leaving steel reinforcement more sensitive to thermal loads. Little is known in the engineering community about the structural performance of flat-plate structures subjected to fire. Through a …

Framework Development For Construction Safety Visualization, Kishor Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Throughout the history of the construction industry, many fatalities and injuries have occurred in construction sites. One of the major causes of accidents is unsafe site conditions; basically, this is due to inadequate supervision. To improve upon the traditional supervision approach, this study proposes a `Framework Development for Construction Safety Visualization' approach. In addition to this, a computer vision Edge Detection Algorithm was developed and tested to convert construction site still images into edges of the objects in the images. The framework development of this study uses computer vision, robot vision, image compression, pattern recognition, internet transmission, network communication, and …

Las Vegas Strip Odor Remediation, Francell R. Rodriguez, Daniel Hoskins, Guadalupe Gutierrez

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

The project described in our report looks at four alternatives to eliminate odor from the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd and Flamingo Rd: biofiltration, Granulated Activated Carbon (GAC) filtration, nitrate addition and the alternative of doing nothing. The odor is caused mainly by hydrogen sulfide, which escapes from the sewer system in this area. Each alternative was evaluated based on effectiveness, land usage, energy consumption, water and material usage, and cost. Cost was further broken down into initial costs and annual costs, and then a cash flow analysis was performed to evaluate the cost over a 30 year timeframe.

Nitrate …