Engineering Commons^™

Proposed Charlotte To Atlanta High-Speed Passenger Rail Line: An Economic, Infrastructural, And Developmental Analysis In The Upstate Of South Carolina, Ian C. Macurda, Kimberly Whitehead

SC Upstate Research Symposium

This research paper is an in-depth analysis of the high-speed passenger rail line proposed between Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA and its impact on the economy, infrastructure, and future development of the Upstate of South Carolina. Currently, passenger rail service between Charlotte and Atlanta is offered on Amtrak at late hours throughout the night on its long-distance passenger rail line The Crescent from New York City, NY to New Orleans, LA. The train is often delayed and is operating at a deficit for Amtrak, like most of their long-distance routes. Traffic on Interstate 85 through the Upstate is another issue …

Behavior Analysis Of Cement Concrete With Combination Of Waste Rubber And Glass, Abdulaziz Alebra

Symposium of Student Scholars

Glass and Rubber waste materials are valuable materials to use rather than throw which we have more than enough to use and recycle. Recycled glass and rubber materials can reduce and help major climate issues in our times based on the statistics reducing glass can bring down air pollution by 20% and also reduce water pollution by 50% as well as can reduce the use of landfill space. A laboratory study will be launched, and tests will be conducted following the ASTM standards, ASTM C143 for a concrete slump, and ASTM C31 for making and curing concrete specimens. Samples of …

Behavior Analysis Of Cement Concrete With Combination Of Waste Plastic And Glass, Mohamad Alamayreh

Symposium of Student Scholars

The waste stream in our society contains abundant plastic and glass waste, which can be effectively recycled to reduce the waste volume and save landfill space. Several studies have demonstrated that recycling glass can lower air pollution by 20% and water pollution by 50%, while recycling waste plastic can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save energy. To explore the potential use of recycled plastic and glass in concrete mixes, a laboratory investigation was conducted. Different percentages of plastic and glass waste will be tested as fine aggregates in cement concrete mixtures to evaluate their performance in terms of resistivity …

The Intersection Of Utility Coordination And Sue, Natalie Parks, Ken Kerr

Purdue Road School

ASCE recently released two new SUE standards—ASCE 38-22 is the updated SUE standard commonly used during the utility coordination process during design, and ASCE 75-22 is the new utility as-built standard that is essential for the accurate location of newly relocated facilities in construction. This presentation will illustrate the interaction and relationship between SUE and utility coordination to enhance project deliverables and reduce risk during construction.

South Bend Airport Tw B Realignment And Apron Project, Lisa Kinsman, Patrick Mac Carthaigh, Jeff Thoman, Ashley Thorsen

Purdue Road School

South Bend Airport is in the process of a major reconstruction project to realign Taxiway B to provide a Runway Incursion Mitigation (RIM), separate Taxiway B from the Terminal Apron, and make adjustments to the terminal apron to correct drainage. This presentation will provide a full review of the project.

Planning For Pedestrians And Bicyclists During Construction Projects, John Habermann, P.E.

Purdue Road School

This session will explore how the Texas Department of Transportation Waco District addressed pedestrian/bicyclist safety and mobility during a multi-year construction project along I-35. This presentation will demonstrate the value of online tools, field implementations, and data collection. Attendees will learn the value of assembling a stakeholder steering committee; counting pedestrian and bicyclists before, during, and after construction; effectively using pavement clings; and using a webpage dedicated to pedestrian/bicyclist updates.

Pedestrian Maintenance Of Traffic For Designers, Katherine Smutzer

Purdue Road School

This presentation with summarize current guidance being developed for the maintenance of pedestrian traffic during construction. The presentation will provide designers with guidance on INDOT’s decision-making hierarchy and expectations related to the documentation and development of pedestrian maintenance of traffic plans.

Full-Scale Testing Of Power Transfer Roadways, Oscar Moncada

Purdue Road School

A dynamic wireless power transfer roadway refers to the integration of wireless power transfer technology into a new and existing road infrastructure to provide motive power, battery charging, or both to electric vehicles. The objective of this presentation is to evaluate the mechanical and thermal performance of the system when incorporated in both flexible and rigid pavement structures.

Spatial Data Analysis For The Development Of Expected Adverse Weather Charts For Transportation Construction Projects, S M Rahat Rashedi, Akosua Ofosua Okyere-Addo

SDSU Data Science Symposium

Problem - Seasonal and daily weather events impact construction projects across the various climate regions of South Dakota in differing fashions. Additionally, the impacts for similar weather events can impact grading, surfacing, and structural construction activities in various ways. Adverse weather conditions can cause major delays which may lead to time extensions and increase project cost.

Purpose – To address these issues, South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) developed Working Day Weather Charts in 1998. However, advances in construction practices and weather prediction as well as climatic changes have occurred over the interim 25 years. This study is focused on …

Skilled Labor Challenges And Automation In The Construction Industry, Olugbenro Ogunrinde, Rapheal Ojelabi, Opeyemi Oyeyipo

Mountain Plains Business Conference

The construction industry remains one of the most labor-intensive industries worldwide, creating an average gross domestic product (GDP) of 8% for the global economy and helping reduce unemployment. However, the last few years have brought a plague of skilled labor shortage and retirement, the most recent pandemic also playing a part in hastening retirement due to the present age cohort (baby boomers). Therefore, the need to begin to source viable alternatives to mitigate these issues that could be catastrophic is critical. One possible option is automation, but the industry remains lethargic toward innovation adoption and its use. Past and present …

Evaluation Of The Chloride Ions Penetration Into Concrete Structure With The Surface Penetrants Served In Cold Marine Environment For 20 Years, Yanhua Kuang, Yuki Sakoi Associate Professor, Naoto Takashima Postgraduate, Minoru Aba Professor, Yoichi Tsukinaga Professor,

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

The intrusion of chloride ions in concrete served in the marine environment is the leading cause of corrosion of steel bars. This paper examined the result of a long-term survey on the actual structure (the Tomakomai breakwater) treated with a set of penetrants partly. The survey was conducted twice, in the 12th and 20th years after construction.

The results showed that the penetrants could effectively reduce the penetration of chloride ions into concrete. After using the penetrants, the calculated surface chloride ion concentration was decreased by 5.04%/72.18% (the 12th year/the 20th year). As the service years increase, surface chloride ion …

Life Cycle Integration Of Building Information Modeling In Infrastructure Projects, Xingzhou Guo, Chi Tian, Jinwu Xiao, Yunfeng Chen, Jiansong Zhang

Purdue Road School

No abstract provided.

Cognitive Attention And Its Application In Countermeasures On A Curve Section, Hongyue Wu, Yunfeng Chen, Junan Shen, Weinan Gao, Mohammad Ahad, Osahon Iroghama

Purdue Road School

No abstract provided.

Umass Amherst Case Studies – Campus Center Plaza & Lederle Graduate Research Center, Elliott Hambrook

UMassBRUT Community

This presentation discusses Gale’s recent experience with repair projects at two (2) brutalist structures on the Amherst Campus at UMass. A board-formed concrete retaining wall at the base of the Murray D. Lincoln Campus Center (Marcel Breuer, 1970) was tastefully modified, but retained, as part of a waterproofing replacement project, addressing water infiltration and improving sight lines across the Campus Center Plaza. The panelized precast concrete façades of the John W. Lederle Graduate Research Center (Campbell, Aldrich, & Nulty, 1969) received new exterior sealants, enlarged panel joints, PCB removal and encapsulation, supplemental panel anchorage, and a waterproof coating.

Challenges And Opportunities To Deep Retrofitting Of Traditional Fabric Buildings To Achieve Nearly Zero Energy Building (Nzeb), Maria Lopez Zambrano, Paul Kenny, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Many of our traditional buildings are disappearing or in danger of being under utilised because they are not comfortable for modern day living and do not meet our present day needs. If a building does not have a use, inevitably it deteriorates and eventually becomes a ruin or gets demolished. It is important to retrofit these buildings, which are part of our identity and can be powerful tourist attractions even though most of them are not listed. Some owners want to apply for retrofitting schemes and grants, but they are rejected because there are no standard solutions to achieve low …

Can Deap Help Us To Predict The Energy Demand And Indoor Temperature Of Homes Before And After Renovation? A Case Study From Dublin, Paul Moran, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings via retrofitting is seen as one of the key mitigation measures to reducing the energy demand and carbon emissions of the built environment in Ireland. However, while energy efficiency retrofits for buildings are effective in theory, the energy savings estimated by statistical or engineering models can often be inaccurate. The Domestic Energy Assessment Procedure (DEAP) is the standard assessment procedure used for assessing the energy performance standard of residential buildings in Ireland. This paper examines the gas energy demand for space and water heating and the internal temperature profiles in contrast to DEAP estimates …

St. Mary And St. Anne Cathedral, Cork: An Optimum Heating Solution For Heritage Buildings?, Christopher Shiell, Roger P. West

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Cathedrals and most churches are characterised by having large internal, undivided spaces and permeable building envelopes. They are often used little, intermittently, but predictably and, in spite of the fact that they are unique in still being largely used for the purpose for which they were built many centuries ago, they are now often used for additional purposes, for which they were never designed. These uses include concerts, graduation ceremonies, filming and a host of other uses all of which require a level of thermal comfort not envisaged by the original builders. Research was undertaken by the authors into the …

Art In Engineering: Evoking A Creative Response From Engineering Students And More, Jamie Goggins, Marta Fuente, Eamonn Madden

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The concept of creativity being only associated with writers, painters, and artistic professions is outdated. The future engineer must embrace maths, art and creativity to unlock innovative solutions. Traditional engineering courses with an emphasis predominately on maths and science can produce graduates who are constrained in developing design solutions without creativity to unlock innovative solutions. This paper describes a short course introduced in the School of Engineering at NUIGalway in 2018 to expose students to creative thinking research and principles and engage in various forms of creative expression (photography, painting and essay writing) to articulate their response to a set …

Teaching Of Structural Analysis Into The Future, Dermot O'Dwyer

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The engineering curriculum has always been full. In the past civil and structural engineers studied a wide variety of technical subjects within the broad field of engineering science and spent many hours working on design projects. Modern engineering curricula try to cover these areas while also dedicating more time to structured group-work, report writing and communication skills. Although students spend longer in college the number and range of technical fields that students must master is considerably larger than in the past. As a result the time available to any one topic area has reduced. At the same time the work …

The Broader Development Of The Student Engineer Through Industry Based Experiential Learning, Donogh Coleman, Ted Mckenna, Mary Moloney

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The global drive for industry-aware and industry-ready engineering graduates, has led to the development and integration of experiential learning through work placements. Industry is looking to recruit graduates with not just the requisite technical engineering skills, but also graduates with inter alia high levels of teamwork and communications skills. This has been recognised by CIT with the integration of work placement in most of its undergraduate programmes. This paper provides an overview of the student placement process in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at CIT, includes the work placement alternative which was implemented due to the COVID-19 …

Operational And Embodied Energy Analysis Of 8 Single-Occupant Dwellings Retrofit To Nzeb Standard, Richard O'Hegarty, Shane Colclough, Oliver Kinnane, Donal Lennon, Etienne Rieux

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In line with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, Irish dwellings are being retrofit to near Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards - with a number of the deep energy retrofits classified as A-rated. As a result of the low operational energy, the embodied energy share of an nZEB's life cycle energy is significantly increased. Therefore, to obtain a holistic picture of the change in energy profile of buildings, the embodied energy of the material added to achieve that low performance should also be taken into account. This paper presents results from a case study of 8 single-occupant terrace bungalows retrofit …

Loading On Long Span Bridges In Heavily Trafficked Areas, Michael Quilligan, Eugene O'Brien

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The critical traffic loading condition for long-span bridges is congestion when vehicles may be closely spaced together. Data on very high traffic flows is limited however, as induction loops which are typically used to collect traffic data, are ineffective when traffic flow breaks down. A number of long span bridges are located in areas of high traffic with periods of recurring congestion occurring daily. While the inter-vehicle gap distances are greater than those occurring during non-recurring full stop accident type events, the high frequency of the recurring congestion events can increase the probability of a critical load case occurring.

A Numerical Study Of The Effect Of Wind Barriers On Traffic And The Bridge Deck, Yuxiang Zhang, Philip Cardiff, Jennifer Keenahan

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Wind actions can have a great impact on both bridges and traffic on bridges. However, structures designed to shelter the traffic from wind can influence the aerodynamic performance of the bridge deck, especially for long-span bridges. This study compares the effect of non-perforated walls and perforated walls used as wind barriers for traffic by conducting Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations on three-dimensional geometries of a four-lane bridge deck. Steady-state simulations employ the Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) method with the k-epsilon turbulence model and all simulations use parallel computing. An open-sourced software OpenFOAM is used.

Repair & Rehabilitation Of Daly's (Shakey) Bridge, Cork City, Michael Minehane, John Gamble

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

This paper describes the rehabilitation of (Shakey) Bridge, an existing single-span suspension bridge crossing the northern channel of the River Lee in Cork City. The bridge was opened in 1927 to replace an earlier ferry crossing at the same location. Daly’s bridge is included on the Record of Protected Structures and the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. It remains the only suspension bridge in Cork City and is the only surviving bridge of its kind in Ireland. It is considered to be a significant contributor to the architectural heritage of the city. This case study describes the project development including …

Long-Run Traffic Simulations For Multi-Lane Road Bridges, Róisín Donnelly, Lorcan Connolly, Ilaria Bernardini

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The maintenance and repair of ageing bridges is a concern for road infrastructure managers. This issue is amplified by the increasing weights and frequency of travel of freight vehicles in recent times. In order to accurately assess the risk of damage for road bridges, it is essential to have knowledge of both historical and current bridge loading. When available, site-specific Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) data can be effective in creating representative load models for a structure. However, for cases where WIM data is not available and in cases where future damage must be predicted, it is necessary to simulate appropriate data using …

Simulation Of Traffic Loading On Long Span Bridges, Hang Zhang, Michael Quilligan

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Existing long span load models have typically been developed using a number of conservative assumptions, and as such are more applicable to the design of new bridges rather than the assessment of existing structures. Excessive conservatism in such assumptions can lead to expensive and unnecessary interventions in existing bridges. Furthermore, existing load models do not always allow for correlations in traffic weights and vehicle positions on the bridge.

Development And Testing Of A Deployable Double Layer Tensegrity Grid, Michael Quilligan, Valentin Gomez-Jauregui, Cristina Manchado, Cesar Otero

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Tensegrity is a structural principle based on the use of isolated or contiguous pin jointed components in compression inside a net of continuous tension. Although the concept has been studied for many decades, relatively few examples of tensegrity structures have been used for civil engineering purposes.

Reinforcement Of Timber Elements In Compression Perpendicular To The Grain Using Compressed Wood Dowels, Michael Conway, Conan O'Ceallaigh, Sameer Mehra, Annette M. Harte

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In the past decade, there has been an increased focus on the environmental impacts of construction and a movement towards more sustainable construction products. Timber is one such sustainable product that can achieve these environmental targets but, while timber has a high strength-to-weight ratio parallel to the grain, it demonstrates poor strength perpendicular to the grain. As a result, stress perpendicular to the grain is an important factor in the design of timber structures, especially in areas of concentrated loading, such as supports. This paper describes a study, which examines the use of compressed wood dowels as a sustainable alternative …

An Evaluation Of Design Issues Identified During Reviews Of Structural Designs Of Buildings From 2015 To 2020, Patrick Crean, Richard Osborne

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

A recent study on failures of structures in Ireland indicated that approximately 40% could be apportioned to designer error. A 2019 report into recent structural cracking of a high-rise building in Sydney Australia recommended that Independent third party checking by a Chartered Engineer should be a requirement on all major projects prior to construction. The report also stated that the critical elements of the design on these projects should be identified. It is obvious that a certain percentage of buildings constructed each year contain design flaws and only a small proportion of these ever result in a failure. However there …

A Review Of The Engineering Constraints And Project Management Challenges Involved In Utilising Scot’S Church As A Heritage Asset Through Responsible Adaptive Reuse And Conservation Strategies, Óisín Smith

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In the field of structural building, there has been a rising popularity in adaptive reuse of older structures, which stems from a variety of stimuli. Apart from preserving built heritage, providing old buildings with new functions promotes sustainability while preventing and containing urban sprawl. Target 11.4 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030 explicitly outlines that “more efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage” are required. In order to valorise and regenerate obsolescent structures, intervention is often required. The dissertation provides a comprehensive overview of conservation engineering and demonstrates the importance of an engineer’s …