Engineering Commons^™

Landfill Elevated Internal Temperature Detection And Landfill Fire Index Assessment For Fire Monitoring, Aurora Musilli

Theses and Dissertations

Landfill fires are becoming a real threat to both people and environment due to lack of predictions and control methods. Processing of the infrared band from level-1 satellite images was employed and decades worth of archived data from USGS Earth Explorer databases were analyzed to obtain surface temperature values of Atlantic Waste Landfill, Virginia and Bridgeton Landfill, Missouri. Multitemporal thermal maps and frequency of maxima analysis maps of these two landfills showed the hotspots spreading through the waste site. A Landfill Fire Index (LFI) was created by investigating eight factors that give information about the hazardousness of the landfill conditions …

Nuclear Insurance Subsidies Cost From Post-Fukushima Accounting Based On Media Sources, John Laureto, Joshua M. Pearce

Department of Materials Science and Engineering Publications

Quantification of nuclear liability insurance is difficult without arbitrary liability caps; however, post-mortem calculations can be used to calculate insurance costs. This study analyzes the Fukushima (Daiichi) nuclear power plant disaster to quantify the cost per unit electricity ($/kWh) of nuclear energy from the lifetime of the plant after accounting for the true cost of the liability needed to cover the damages from the nuclear disaster determined from news reports. These costs are then compared to the cost of electricity currently paid by Japanese consumers, and then are aggregated to determine the indirect subsidy for nuclear power providers in both …

More Than Target 6.3: A Systems Approach To Rethinking Sustainable Development Goals In A Resource-Scarce World, Qiong Zhang, Christine Prouty, Julie B. Zimmerman, James Mihelcic

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development outlines 17 individual Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that guide the needs of practice for many professional disciplines around the world, including engineering, research, policy, and development. The SDGs represent commitments to reduce poverty, hunger, ill health, gender inequality, environmental degradation, and lack of access to clean water and sanitation. If a typical reductionist approach is employed to address and optimize individual goals, it may lead to a failure in technological, policy, or managerial development interventions through unintended consequences in other goals. This study uses a systems approach to understand the fundamental dynamics between the …

Alkali-Activated Natural Pozzolan/Slag Binder For Sustainable Concrete, Meysam Najimi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aimed to fully replace Portland cement (PC) with environmentally friendly binders capable of improving longevity of concrete. The new binders consisted of different proportions of natural Pozzolan and slag which were alkaline-activated with various combinations of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate. A step-by-step research program was designed to (1) develop alkali-activated natural Pozzolan/slag pastes with adequate fresh and strength properties, (2) produce alkali-activated natural Pozzolan/slag mortars to assess the effects of dominant variables on their plastic and hardened properties, and (3) finally produce and assess fresh, mechanical, dimensional, transport and durability properties of alkali-activated natural Pozzolan/slag concretes. The …

Effects Of Sustainable Materials In Construction, Environment And Health, Muhamet Ahmeti, Mimoza Sylejmani, Vlora Aliu

UBT International Conference

In this paper it is presented a definition of sustainable construction from ecological aspect, characterized by reducing the impact of different materials in the environment during construction, but also during the whole lifetime of use of buildings. To assess the impact of materials on health and environment is necessary to examine all phases from beginning of the materials manufacturing till the insertion to the construction, including the use of natural resources for the production of construction products, necessary energy for production, amount of release and CO2 emissions (carbon dioxide) in different stages, methods of construction, use of construction and in …

Realizing Urban Water Pollution Impact In Melbourne, Australia Through Painting, Gregory Suplinskas

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Throughout the month of November 2016, I undertook a creative environmental art project in Melbourne, Australia. I chose to create a water-soluble oil painting (dimensions 3 ft. x 4 ft.) that represents water pollution problems in the city of Melbourne, particularly in Port Phillip Bay. These problems include toxic stormwater runoff, plastics pollution and plastic nurdles, as well as nutrient buildup and algal overgrowth. The painting includes messages regarding sustainability; sustainable action limits the use of our natural resources so that humans can preserve the environment for future generations rather than degrade it. In the painting, I combine conceptual and …

Innovating Two-Stage Concrete With Improved Rheological, Mechanical And Durability Properties, Manal F. Najjar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Two-stage concrete (TSC), also known as preplaced aggregate concrete, is a special type of concrete that is produced using a unique procedure which differs from that of conventional concrete. TSC is distinguished by its high coarse aggregate content and exceptional placement technique, whereby aggregates are first pre-placed in the mold then injected with a special grout. The preplacement of aggregates saves substantial energy since only the grout needs mechanical mixing; the grout is self-leveling and needs no vibration and no mechanical compaction. However, TSC applications are still limited despite substantial advancement of modern concrete technology. Therefore, there is a need …

Pyrolysis Of Dried Wastewater Biosolids Can Be Energy Positive, Patrick J. Mcnamara, Jon Koch, Zhongzhe Liu, Daniel Zitomer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Pyrolysis is a thermal process that converts biosolids into biochar (a soil amendment), py-oil and py-gas, which can be energy sources. The objectives of this research were to determine the product yield of dried biosolids during pyrolysis and the energy requirements of pyrolysis. Bench-scale experiments revealed that temperature increases up to 500 °C substantially decreased the fraction of biochar and increased the fraction of py-oil. Py-gas yield increased above 500 °C. The energy required for pyrolysis was approximately 5-fold less than the energy required to dry biosolids (depending on biosolids moisture content), indicating that, if a utility already uses energy …

Improving Carbon Efficiency Through Container Size Optimization And Shipment Consolidation, Nang Laik Ma, Kar Way Tan, Edwin Lik Ming Chong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: Many manufacturing companies that ship goods through full container loads found themselves under-utilizing the containers and resulting in higher carbon footprint per volume shipment. One of the reasons is the choice of non-ideal container sizes for their shipments. Consolidation fills up the containers more efficiently that reduces the overall carbon footprint. The objective of this paper is to support decisions on selection of appropriate combination of container sizes and shipment consolidation for a manufacturing company. We develop two-steps model which first takes the volumes to be shipped as an input and provide the combination of container sizes required; then …

From Disaster To Development: Finance Provides A Platform To Empower Technology For Resilience To Climate Change, Daniel B. Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction emphasizes four principles: understanding risk; strengthening governance; investing in resilience; and building back better. Parametric insurance, offered to nations, provides a financial platform to pool and transfer risk from the regional to the global marketplace. The Caribbean Ocean Assets Sustainability faciliTy (COAST) expands upon the prior success of parametric insurance by providing a new platform to more fully link policy and technology with the aim of increasing disaster resilience. COAST focuses upon the nexus among food and nutrition security, the health of the ocean, and the occurrence of severe weather in the Caribbean …

Soil Aquifer Treatment For Wastewater Reclamation In A High Water Demand Society, Diego J. Velasquez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Water resources around the world are under increasing pressure from the rapidly growing demands of rising population and industrialization. Furthermore, changes in global weather patterns are expected to intensify its current and future stresses. In the present study, knowledge and perceptions towards wastewater reclamation for potable and non-potable uses were investigated by the used of an on-line survey distributed amongst the university community at Western university. Subsequent statistical analysis of the results was performed using IBM-SPSS software. Survey results show that member of the university community are more likely to accept reclaimed wastewater for applications that do not involve drinking …

Systems Approach To Link Big Socio-Ecological Geo-Data To Food Systems Sustainability, Quang Bao Le, Chandrashekhar Biradar, Enrico Bonaiuti, Richard Thomas

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Rapid development of multi-dimensionally, multi-scale, timely updated socio-ecological geo-data presents an opportunity as potential information resource for supporting effective decision- making of stakeholders involved with food systems, from daily routines of individuals to strategic decisions of manager and policy-makers. However, the use of this type of big data toward supporting the sustainability of food systems at different scales still fall short of (i) what information commonly needed by food system actors to response and adapt to socio-ecological change and enhance the system performance, (ii) interoperability between different types of data across scales, and (iii) sufficient guidance to utilize big data …

Methodological Abilities Of Integrated Models To Support Agricultural Landscape Resilience: Current Status And Research Perspectives, Quang Bao Le

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

It is important to increase the resilience of rural landscapes in the face of global changes. It is widely recognized that integrated modeling is often a methodological choice to study landscape resilience because the task is often beyond the ability of direct, empirical studies. However, so far there has not yet been a systemized, critical review on methodological abilities current modeling approaches can have for supporting management for agricultural landscape resilience. This review study (i) highlighted the methodological abilities of integrated system modeling ideally needed for agricultural landscape management for resilience, (ii) reviewed strengths and weakness of common integrated modeling …

The Role Of Social Institutions In The Resolution Of International Conflicts Over Shared Fishing Resources, Cezara Păstrăv, Frank Dignum

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

International conflicts over shared fishing resources may rise in numbers in the context of climate change, which has lead, and will continue to lead, to changes in behavior patterns and geographic distribution of fish and other marine resources of interest to the fishing industry. Under these circumstances, being able to quickly adapt to unexpected changes becomes a very desirable trait for the fishing industry. Unfortunately, the current conflict resolution processes are often difficult, time consuming and sometimes not maintained.

We are interested in whether more sustainable mechanisms, that act from the bottom up and are easier to enforce by the …

Exploration Of The Long Term Sustainability Of The French Risk Management, Frédéric Grelot, Bruno Bonté, Zhongyang Fang

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Public flood risk management (FRM) in France, as in other countries like USA, Great Britain, relies on a combination of tools dealing with the negative consequences of flood. Spatial scale of those tools differs: insurance is defined and managed at national scale, land use regulation is defined at national scale but implemented at local scale, protection against flood may be implemented at local or even individual scales. The objective of this communication is to build a model for the analysis of the sustainability of the French FRM. For this, we used a simple but contextualized agent-based model (Cat-Nat ABM).

In …

Eliciting Drivers Of Community Perceptions Of Mining Projects Through Effective Community Engagement, Liang Wang, Kwame Awuah-Offei, Sisi Que, Wei Yang

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Sustainable mining has received much attention in recent years as a consequence of the negative impacts of mining and public awareness. The aim of this paper is to provide mining companies guidance on improving the sustainability of their sites through effective community engagement based on recent advances in the literature. It begins with a review of the literature on sustainable development and its relationship to stakeholder engagement. It then uses the literature to determine the dominant factors that affect community perceptions of mining projects. These factors are classified into five categories: environmental, economic, social, governance and demographic factors. Then, we …

Calcium Phosphate As A Key Material For Socially Responsible Tissue Engineering, Vuk Uskoković, Victoria M. Wu

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Socially responsible technologies are designed while taking into consideration the socioeconomic, geopolitical and environmental limitations of regions in which they will be implemented. In the medical context, this involves making therapeutic platforms more accessible and affordable to patients in poor regions of the world wherein a given disease is endemic. This often necessitates going against the reigning trend of making therapeutic nanoparticles ever more structurally complex and expensive. However, studies aimed at simplifying materials and formulations while maintaining the functionality and therapeutic response of their more complex counterparts seldom provoke a significant interest in the scientific community. In this review …

Reservoir Sedimentation: The Economics Of Sustainability, Matthew William George

Theses and Dissertations

Despite mounting demand for a more sustainable worldwide water supply system, available reservoir capacity is relentlessly diminishing due to sedimentation. This fact, coupled with a decrease in the rate of dam construction, indicate an impending water supply dilemma. In the future, dams should be designed following a life cycle management approach rather than the typical short-sighted design life technique.Neither sustainable reservoir lifespans nor intergenerational equity is achieved through conventional cost-benefit analyses (CBA), which render all benefits and costs projected to occur more than several decades into a project as negligible. Consequently, future expenditures, including dam decommissioning or retrofitting with sediment …

Dynamic Pricing And Inventory Management: Theory And Applications, Renyu Zhang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We develop the models and methods to study the impact of some emerging trends in technology, marketplace, and society upon the pricing and inventory policy of a firm. We focus on the situation where the firm is in a dynamic, uncertain, and (possibly) competitive market environment. The market trends of particular interest to us are: (a) social networks, (b) sustainability concerns, and (c) customer behaviors. The two main running questions this dissertation aims to address are: (a) How these emerging market trends would influence the operations decisions and profitability of a firm; and (b) What pricing and inventory strategies a …

Numerical And Experimental Studies Of Atomic Layer Deposition For Sustainability Improvement, Dongqing Pan

Theses and Dissertations

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is an approved nano-scale thin films fabrication technique with remarkable uniformity and conformity in surface geometry. This dissertation presents numerical and experimental studies to investigate the transient physical and chemical ALD process in order to improve its sustainability performance in terms of throughput, wastes and emissions.

To be specific, in this dissertation, the transient process of ALD is studied extensively through both numerical and experimental approaches to find the influential factors on the two main critical sustainability issues: low throughput and negative environmental impacts. Different numerical schemes are developed and studied for ALD process simulations. In …

Municipal Composting And Organic Waste Diversion: The Case Of Fayetteville, Arkansas, Michael E. Hoppe

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

It is estimated that 40% of food is wasted in the United States; representing $165 billion in wasted resources. A vast majority of that wasted food is ultimately placed in landfills where it decomposes and releases harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs). In fact, food waste alone is responsible for 23% of annual methane emissions for the US. This has a huge impact on global climate change due to the potency of methane as a greenhouse gas. Currently only 5% of the food waste produced is recovered across the nation. Source reduction would be the best solution to reducing this food waste, …

Development Of Solar Experiments With Remote Laboratory Capability For Engineering Education Of The Future, Otto Kyle Neidert

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Educating future engineers will be handled differently as this modern society has various methods of doing so and a plethora of knowledge to pursue. The availability of computers and internet has changed many things. A subject that is relevant in today’s world but not common to most people and some engineers is solar energy. As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation that was awarded to Louisiana State University (LSU), Florida State University (FSU), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the UNLV Center for Energy Research partnered with them to create solar application based learning modules. …

A Life Cycle Assessment Of A Diesel Generator Set, Kelly Benton

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Today, nearly every industry needs a continuous power supply, as data loss can be more expensive than the capital expenditure for the backup power equipment. The demand for emergency standby power (ESP) generator sets is on the rise because of increasing industrialization. With increased industrialization comes a societal concern about the issue of natural resource depletion and environmental degradation. In response, manufacturing companies are providing more sustainable solutions in their products and processes. In this work, the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been applied to quantify the energy demands of each life cycle stage of an ESP generator set …

Sustainable Architecture Design: Environmental And Economic Benefits, Michael Babcock

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the movement of environmentalism, and its impact on architecture and construction. During an interview with a professional architect, a basis for research of sustainable design was devised, when he explained that “good” architecture attempts to holistically integrate the external and built environment. Presently, the main measurement for sustainability is energy efficiency. Therefore, architects constantly implement new technology in an attempt to unify both the external and built environment in an energy efficient manner. Furthermore, this thesis provides an environmental and financial cost analysis of implementing sustainable design and build. Research shows that the life cycle and up-front …

Maximizing Environmental Sustainability And Public Benefits Of Highway Construction Programs, Charinee Limsawasd

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transportation agencies face a challenging task to repair damaged roads in an aging transportation network with limited funding. In addition, the funding gap is forecasted to continue widening, which has direct impacts on the performance of surface transportation networks and the nation’s economy in the long run. Recently, transportation agencies were required by a newly enacted law to include national performance-based goals, such as environmental sustainability, in their programming and planning efforts for highway repair and rehabilitation. Therefore, the current practice in the area of highway rehabilitation planning is inadequate to handle this task and new practices are needed to …

Drivers Of Food Wastage And Their Implications For Sustainable Policy Development, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

There has been growing interest in establishing food waste prevention and recovery programs throughout the world. The drive to target food waste stems from increasing concerns about resource conservation, food security, food waste’s environmental and economic costs, and a general trend in the waste management industry to transition to more sustainable practices. Here the drivers of residential, institutional, and commercial food waste generation in developed countries, particularly in the U.S., are explored. The impacts of food system modernization on food waste generation are examined, particularly impacts related to food system industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and economic growth. Socio-demographic, cultural, political, and …

Sustainability: Reusing Data Center Waste Heat, John Boushra, Kyle Duncan, Aleksandr Kogan, Giang Pham

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Data Centers are facilities used to house a large number of computer systems and their associated components, such as telecommunications and data storage systems. Nowadays many organizations depend on the reliable operation of their data centers for their day to day business operations. Data centers are designed with redundant and backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, robust cybersecurity protocols and very strict environmental controls. The many computer systems held in a typical data center generate large heat loads that need to be continuously removed with high grade air conditioning systems. Anthem currently owns a large corporate data center in …

Exploring Agricultural Production Systems And Their Fundamental Components With System Dynamics Modelling, Jeffrey P. Walters, David W. Archer, Gretchen F. Sassenrath, John R. Hendrickson, Jon D. Hanson, John M. Halloran, Peter Vadas, Vladimir J. Alarcon

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Agricultural production in the United States is undergoing marked changes due to rapid shifts in consumer demands, input costs, and concerns for food safety and environmental impact. Agricultural production systems are comprised of multidimensional components and drivers that interact in complex ways to influence production sustainability. In a mixed-methods approach, we combine qualitative and quantitative data to develop and simulate a system dynamics model that explores the systemic interaction of these drivers on the economic, environmental and social sustainability of agricultural production. We then use this model to evaluate the role of each driver in determining the differences in sustainability …

Development Of Chemical Process Design And Control For Sustainability, Shuyun Li, Gaurav Mirlekar, Gerardo J. Ruiz-Mercado, Fernando V. Lima

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This contribution describes a novel process systems engineering framework that couples advanced control with sustainability evaluation for the optimization of process operations to minimize environmental impacts associated with products, materials and energy. The implemented control strategy combines a biologically-inspired method with optimal control concepts for finding more sustainable operating trajectories. The sustainability assessment of process operating points is carried out by using the U.S. EPA’s Gauging Reaction Effectiveness for the ENvironmental Sustainability of Chemistries with a multi-Objective Process Evaluator (GREENSCOPE) tool that provides scores for the selected indicators in the economic, material efficiency, environmental and energy areas. The indicator scores …

Experimental And Theoretical Investigation Of Sustainable Fast Pyrolysis Biofuels From Woody Biomass, Bethany Jean Klemetsrud

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Biofuels are an important advancement in alternative energy that can provide substantial environmental benefits compared to their conventional fossil fuel counterparts Said benefits are usually measured using life cycle assessments. However, it is not well understood yet how different methodological choices such as system boundaries, biomass feedstocks, conversion pathways, geographical data, etc. affect the conclusions drawn from biofuels LCA. This research shows large variability in life cycle assessment results and limits comparison across different biofuel pathways due to methodological choices set forth by policy and certification schemes. Advanced biofuels have not reached large scale production due to a limited understanding …