Engineering Commons^™

An Analysis Of The Barriers To And Drivers Of Green Public Procurement In Achieving A More Sustainable Construction Industry, Myles Keaveney, Paul Butler

Conference papers

The public sector in Ireland possesses enormous purchasing power which has the strength to affect production and consumption trends in all market sectors. Environmental purchasing tools such as Green Public Procurement (GPP) are seen by many as the solution to greener purchasing decisions in order to obtain and maintain not only a more sustainable construction sector but also a more sustainable economy. The purpose of this research is to determine and examine the key barriers to and drivers of implementing GPP in public procurement departments in order to reduce the effect construction works have on the environment. There was limited ...

Stability Analysis Of A More General Class Of Systems With Delay-Dependent Coefficients, Chi Jin, Keqin Gu, Islam Boussaada, Silviu-Iulian Niculescu

SIUE Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This paper presents a systematic method to analyse the stability of systems with single delay in which the coefficient polynomials of the characteristic equation depend on the delay. Such systems often arise in, for example, life science and engineering systems. A method to analyze such systems was presented by Beretta and Kuang in a 2002 paper, but with some very restrictive assumptions. This work extends their results to the general case with the exception of some degenerate cases. It is found that a much richer behavior is possible when the restrictive assumptions are removed. The interval of interest for the ...

Slip Of Shuffle Screw Dislocations Through Tilt Grain Boundaries In Silicon, Hao Chen, Valery Levitas, Liming Xiong

Aerospace Engineering Publications

In this paper, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of the interaction between tilt grain boundaries (GBs) and a shuffle screw dislocation in silicon are performed. Results show that dislocations transmit into the neighboring grain for all GBs in silicon. For Σ3, Σ9 and Σ19 GBs, when a dislocation interacts with a heptagon site, it transmits the GB directly. In contrast, when interacting with a pentagon site, it first cross slips to a plane on the heptagon site and then transmits the GB. The energy barrier is also quantified using the climbing image nudged elastic band (CINEB) method. Results show that Σ3 ...

Critical Analysis Of Case Law: Are Partnering Charters Binding?, Milagros Pinto Nunez, Douglas D. Gransberg

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

Construction project partnering in the United States has been used successfully for nearly 30 years in reducing disputes. Most partnered projects are characterized by the joint development of a nonbinding partnering charter between the owner and the contractor, which encapsulates the project’s goals and lays out the desired process for resolving issues at the lowest level. This paper explores the outcomes when partnered projects fail and the parties involved must turn to the courts to settle their disputes. The paper evaluates the case law for 16 partnered projects through content analysis and cross-case comparison. The paper explores the question ...

Validating The Opa Cascading Blackout Model On A 19402 Bus Transmission Network With Both Mesh And Tree Structures, Benjamin A. Carreras, Jose M. Reynolds-Barredo, Ian Dobson, David E. Newman

Electrical and Computer Engineering Conference Papers, Posters and Presentations

The OPA model calculates the long-term risk of cascading blackouts by simulating cascading outages and the slow process of network upgrade in response to blackouts. We validate OPA on a detailed 19402 bus network model of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) interconnection with publicly available data. To do this, we examine scalings on a series of WECC interconnection models with increasing detail. The most detailed, 19402 bus network has more tree structures at the edges of the main mesh structure, and we extend the OPA model to account for this. The higher-risk cascading outages are the large cascades that ...

Thin-Film Sensor For Fatigue Crack Sensing And Monitoring In Steel Bridges Under Varying Crack Propagation Rates And Random Traffic Loads, Xiangxiong Kong, Jian Li, Caroline Bennett, William Collins, Simon Laflamme, Hongki Jo

Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Publications

Fatigue cracks are critical structural concerns for steel highway bridges, and fatigue initiation and propagation activity continues undetected between physical bridge inspections. Monitoring fatigue crack activity between physical inspections can provide far greater reliability in structural performance and can be used to prevent excessive damage and repair costs. In this paper, a thin-film strain sensor, called a soft elastomeric capacitor (SEC) sensor, is evaluated for sensing and monitoring fatigue cracks in steel bridges. The SEC is a flexible and mechanically robust strain sensor, capable of monitoring strain over large structural surfaces. By deploying multiple SECs in the form of dense ...

Grain Boundary Induced Deformation Mechanisms In Nanocrystalline Al By Molecular Dynamics Simulation: From Interatomic Potential Perspective, Liang Zhang, Yasushi Shibuta, Xiaoxu Huang, Cheng Lu, Mao Liu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Nanocrystalline metals exhibit many excellent mechanical properties and their underlying deformation mechanisms have been studying widespread. The well-designed atomistic simulations can predict the mechanical behavior of materials ahead of experiments and provide sufficient information on the atomic scale. The choice of appropriate interatomic potential is one of the main concerns of any atomistic simulation that needs to be seriously considered in order to obtain reliable results. In this study, we investigated the mechanical response and the deformation mechanisms of nanocrystalline Al under uniaxial loading by molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with different embedded atom method (EAM) interatomic potentials. The selection of ...

A New Method For Direct Tensile Testing Of Concrete, Faez Alhussainy, Hayder Alaa Hasan, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part B

Different testing methods were used in previous studies to measure the direct tensile strength of concrete. However, these methods experienced several major deficiencies such as stress concentration at the end of the specimens because of inadequate gripping and loading eccentricity and nonuniform fracture plane because of difficulties in aligning and centering the specimens during testing. This study presents the details of a new method of testing concrete under uniaxial tension. The method was developed to overcome the difficulties associated with testing methods adopted in the previous research studies. A full description of the wooden molds used in casting the specimens ...

Csar 62 Spin Curve, Mohsen Azadi, Georgia Griggs, Glen De Villafranca, Gerald Lopez

Protocols and Reports

No abstract provided.

Creating Holistic Engineers To Solve The Grand Challenges Of The Future, Una Beagon

Articles

Una Beagon writes that continued growth in construction depends on third level Institutions securing a talent pipeline of Civil & Structural Engineers with suitable skill sets to bring about, maintain and operate large multidisciplinary projects.

Analysis And Simulation Of Convolution Reverb Using City Tech’S New Auditorium, Tian Leng

Publications and Research

In digital signal processing, convolution reverb can simulate the reverberation of a real acoustic space. The acoustics of different seating areas in an auditorium can vary from each other. To determine the reverberant characteristics of City Tech new building’s auditorium, impulse response (IR) signals are recorded in five key locations of the auditorium.

Directly recorded balloon burst is chosen as the source of impulse source. An omnidirectional and a cardioid microphone with flat frequency response curves are used to record IR signals to 24-bit monophonic wav files. Each IR signal, along with a vocal, is convoluted in MATLAB through ...

Economic Potential For Distributed Manufacturing Of Adaptive Aids For Arthritis Patients N The U.S., Nicole Gallup, Jennifer Bow, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

By 2040, more than a quarter of the U.S. population will have diagnosed arthritic conditions. Adults with arthritis and other rheumatic conditions earn less than average yet have medical care expenditures that are over 12% of average household income. Adaptive aids can help arthritis patients continue to maintain independence and quality of life; however, their high costs limit accessibility for older people and the poor. One method used for consumer price reduction is distributed manufacturing with 3-D printers. In order to assess if such a method would be financially beneficial, this study evaluates the techno-economic viability of distributed manufacturing ...

Quantification Of Voc Emissions From Carbonized Refuse-Derived Fuel Using Solid-Phase Microextraction And Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, Andrzej Białowiec, Monika Micuda, Antoni Szumny, Jacek Łyczko, Jacek A. Koziel

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications

In this work, for the first time, the volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from carbonized refuse-derived fuel (CRDF) were quantified on a laboratory scale. The analyzed CRDF was generated from the torrefaction of municipal waste. Headspace solid-phase microextraction (SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to identify 84 VOCs, including many that are toxic, e.g., derivatives of benzene or toluene. The highest emissions were measured for nonanal, octanal, and heptanal. The top 10 most emitted VOCs contributed to almost 65% of the total emissions. The VOC mixture emitted from torrefied CRDF differed from that emitted by other types ...

Smart Iot Sprinkler System, Galib F. Rahman

Publications and Research

The average family spends more than $1000 in water costs per year. One-way water is commonly wasted in many households is via inefficient sprinkler systems for lawns. Current technology has enabled the development of automatic sprinkler systems, which can be preconfigured to operate at desired times of day and intervals. Although these systems may reduce the amount of water utilized overall, they are not weather forecast aware. In situations when rainfall is upcoming the systems still water the lawn. In this project, we plan to implement a smart sprinkler system that has full awareness of upcoming weather and take account ...

Teen Driver System Modeling: A Tool For Policy Analysis, Celestin Missikpode, Corrine Peek-Asa, Daniel V. Mcgehee, James Torner, Wayne Wakeland, Robert Wallace

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Motor vehicle crashes remain the leading cause of teen deaths in spite of preventive efforts. Prevention strategies could be advanced through new analytic approaches that allow us to better conceptualize the complex processes underlying teen crash risk. This may help policymakers design appropriate interventions and evaluate their impacts.

Methods: System Dynamics methodology was used as a new way of representing factors involved in the underlying process of teen crash risk. Systems dynamics modeling is relatively new to public health analytics and is a promising tool to examine relative influence of multiple interacting factors in predicting a health outcome. Dynamics ...

Macro-/Micro-Controlled 3d Lithium-Ion Batteries Via Additive Manufacturing And Electric Field Processing, Jie Li, Xinhua Liang, Frank W. Liou, Jonghyun Park

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a new concept for making battery electrodes that can simultaneously control macro-/micro-structures and help address current energy storage technology gaps and future energy storage requirements. Modern batteries are fabricated in the form of laminated structures that are composed of randomly mixed constituent materials. This randomness in conventional methods can provide a possibility of developing new breakthrough processing techniques to build well-organized structures that can improve battery performance. In the proposed processing, an electric field (EF) controls the microstructures of manganese-based electrodes, while additive manufacturing controls macro-3D structures and the integration of both scales. The synergistic control ...

Reactive Navigation In Partially Known Non-Convex Environments, Vasileios Vasilopoulos, Daniel E. Koditschek

Departmental Papers (ESE)

This paper presents a provably correct method for robot navigation in 2D environments cluttered with familiar but unexpected non-convex, star-shaped obstacles as well as completely unknown, convex obstacles. We presuppose a limited range onboard sensor, capable of recognizing, localizing and (leveraging ideas from constructive solid geometry) generating online from its catalogue of the familiar, non-convex shapes an implicit representation of each one. These representations underlie an online change of coordinates to a completely convex model planning space wherein a previously developed online construction yields a provably correct reactive controller that is pulled back to the physically sensed representation to generate ...

Research Incentive Programs For Closures Of Public And Private Grade Crossings, Julius Codjoe

Publications

Vehicle-train crashes that occur at highway-rail crossings result in injuries, fatalities, and damage to equipment. In order to reduce the number of vehicle-train crashes, Federal Railroad Administration requires states which have challenges with crossing safety, including Louisiana, to develop a State Action Plan to improve grade crossing safety. Consequently, identification of specific solutions for improving safety at crossings was included in the 2015 Louisiana Transportation Plan as one of its objectives. This study seeks to identify and evaluate current and new incentive programs that encourage closure of at-grade railroad crossings to reduce the number of potential vehicle-train collision points, and ...

Relationship Between Road Network Characteristics And Traffic Safety, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky

Publications

The Transportation and Capital Improvement of the City of San Antonio, Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and other related agencies often make several efforts based on traffic data to improve safety at intersections, but the number of intersection crashes is still on the high side. There is no one size fits all solution for intersections and the City is often usually confronted with doing best value option analysis on different solutions to choose the least expensive yet more advancements. The goal of this project was to obtain the relationship between road network characteristics and public safety with a focus on ...

Recruiting, Retaining, And Promoting For Careers At Transportation Agencies, Christofer Harper, Susan Bogus, Raghava Kommalapati, Doeun Choe

Publications

State transportation agencies currently face complex challenges in recruiting and retaining the workforce necessary to function effectively. The situation exacerbates due to the number of employees from different generations that have to coexist with varying values, expectations, and principles. These agencies are primarily comprised of two generational groups: the baby-boomers, who are approaching retirement and occupy many managerial positions; and the millennials, who are demonstrating their interest in technology and demanding dynamism in their careers. This multiplicity of interest represents a challenge for human resources (HR) in addressing workforce issues and providing the necessary means to recruit and retain qualified ...

Scale-Out Algorithm For Apache Storm In Saas Environment, Ravi Kiran Puttaswamy

Computer Science and Engineering: Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research

The main appeal of the Cloud is in its cost effective and flexible access to computing power. Apache Storm is a data processing framework used to process streaming data. In our work we explore the possibility of offering Apache Storm as a software service. Further, we take advantage of the cgroups feature in Storm to divide the computing power of worker machine into smaller units to be offered to users. We predict that the compute bounds placed on the cgroups could be used to approximate the state of the workflow. We discuss the limitations of the current schedulers in facilitating ...

Design And Analysis Of Binary Driven Coherent M-Ary Qam Transmitter For Next Generation Optical Networks, Naji Albakay

Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research from Electrical & Computer Engineering

This work presents a design for a binary driven optical square M-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) transmitter for high speed optical networks. The transmitter applies tandem quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) modulators to eliminate the need for linear broadband amplifiers and high-resolution digital to analog converters (DACs), which are both required by conventional transmitters. The transmitter design could be scaled to any order of square M-ary QAM by simply adding more QPSK modulators in tandem. It also provides a Gray coded symbol constellation, insuring the lowest bit error rate possible during symbol recovery. We also provide the design for the ...

Experimental Study On The Influence Of Slickwater On Shale Permeability, Zhonghua Liu, Baojun Bai, Zheyu Zhang, Jing Tang, Shunpeng Zeng, Xiaogang Li

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

There are two diametrically opposite views of the influence of slickwater on shale permeability among scholars at home and abroad. We used the shale outcrops rock samples from the Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation in Sichuan Basin. The permeability of these dry samples before and after immersion in different solution systems were tested by pulse attenuation method. The experimental results show that the impregnation of different slickwater components and standard salt solution can promote the increase of the permeability of shale samples. The stress sensitivity of shale samples after liquid immersion is medium weak to weak. The sample stress sensitivity is ...

Spin-Controlled Wavefront Shaping With Plasmonic Chiral Geometric Metasurfaces, Yang Chen, Xiaodong Yang, Jie Gao

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Metasurfaces, as a two-dimensional (2D) version of metamaterials, have drawn considerable attention for their revolutionary capability in manipulating the amplitude, phase, and polarization of light. As one of the most important types of metasurfaces, geometric metasurfaces provide a versatile platform for controlling optical phase distributions due to the geometric nature of the generated phase profile. However, it remains a great challenge to design geometric metasurfaces for realizing spin-switchable functionalities because the generated phase profile with the converted spin is reversed once the handedness of the incident beam is switched. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate chiral geometric metasurfaces based on ...

Inspire E-News 12 2018, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences Newsletter

• Holiday greetings from the Dean
• Simulating flight
• Join us for Innovation EXPO
• Students attend Society of Women Engineers annual conference
• Last roll
• Ph.D. student joins board of industrial engineering institute
• College Snapshot: Industrial and Entrepreneurial

Variable Rate Irrigation Using A Spatial Evapotranspiration Model With Remote Sensing Imagery And Soil Water Content Measurements, Sandeep Bhatti

Biological Systems Engineering--Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Variable rate irrigation may help in intensification of agriculture by producing more yield per unit inputs. Real time spatial information about water balance components is important for designing VRI prescription maps. This work involved use of a spatial evapotranspiration model for studying spatial variability in an agricultural field at the Eastern Nebraska Research and Extension Center near Mead, Nebraska. Imagery from unmanned aerial systems and Landsat were used as input for the spatial evapotranspiration model. Other inputs into the model were soil water content measurements from neutron probes, weather data, crop data, previous irrigation prescriptions, and soil properties for the ...

Analyzing Large Workers’ Compensation Claims Using Generalized Linear Models And Monte Carlo Simulation, Fatemeh Davoudi Kakhki, Steven A. Freeman, Gretchen A. Mosher

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Publications

Insurance practitioners rely on statistical models to predict future claims in order to provide financial protection. Proper predictive statistical modeling is more challenging when analyzing claims with lower frequency, but high costs. The paper investigated the use of predictive generalized linear models (GLMs) to address this challenge. Workers’ compensation claims with costs equal to or more than US$100,000 were analyzed in agribusiness industries in the Midwest of the USA from 2008 to 2016. Predictive GLMs were built with gamma, Weibull, and lognormal distributions using the lasso penalization method. Monte Carlo simulation models were developed to check the performance ...

Sustainable And Equitable Financing For Pedestrian Infrastructure Maintenance, Gregory Rowangould

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17PPUNM01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"In many communities, pedestrian infrastructure is discontinuous, inaccessible to those with physical disabilities, and poorly maintained. Correcting these problems would be a first step in providing infrastructure to achieve the active travel and related transportation goals of many communities. One nearly universal challenge to maintaining sidewalks in a state of good repair and addressing environmental justice concerns is an adequate, sustainable, and equitable source of funding. Municipal governments across the country maintain and repair their streets and roadways; however, most require residents ...

Research Incentive Programs For Closures Of Public And Private Grade Crossings, Julius Codjoe

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17PPLSU13. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Vehicle-train crashes that occur at highway-rail crossings result in injuries, fatalities, and damage to equipment. In order to reduce the number of vehicle-train crashes, Federal Railroad Administration requires states which have challenges with crossing safety, including Louisiana, to develop a State Action Plan to improve grade crossing safety. Consequently, identification of specific solutions for improving safety at crossings was included in the 2015 Louisiana Transportation Plan as one of its objectives. This study seeks to identify and evaluate current and new incentive ...

Use Of Nanoclays As Alternatives Of Polymers Toward Improving Performance Of Asphalt Binders, Zahid Hossain, Ashraf Elsayed

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 17BASU01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"The main goal of this study is to assess the feasibility of the use of nanoclay as an alternative to commonly used polymers such as styrene-butadiene-styrene (SBS), which are used to modify the performance grade (PG) of asphalt binders. Three types of nanoclay and two types of neat binders were selected for laboratory investigation. Different amounts (1, 2, and 3%) of nanoclays were used. A blending protocol has been developed to mix the nanoclay with the asphalt binder. Rotational Viscosity (RV), Dynamic ...