Engineering Commons^™

Physical Information Incorporated Clustering Techniques And Their Applications In Transportation Information System, Yang Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Massive data from different sources are becoming available in transportation field, and spurring new research on utilizing these data to nurture new intelligent transportation information systems. Clustering algorithms are among the methods that are being applied to the domain but facing challenges. Classical clustering algorithms work fine with \point" based data, which are homogeneous and have no extra constraints. Data in transportation are sometimes involved with specific geometric shapes, have underlying constraints, and can be heterogeneous. There has been no clustering algorithm dedicated to these situations.

In this dissertation, we re-examine the mathematical foundation and underlying philosophy of hierarchical, density …

Evaluation Of Increased Targeted Enforcement And Community-Based Outreach And Education Programs To Increase Nighttime Seatbelt Use In East Tennessee, Kwaku Frimpong Boakye

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people aged 1-54 in the United Sates. In 2015, the number of motor-vehicle deaths on U.S. roadways totaled 35,092, a 7% increase from 2014 (32,744). Though lower gas prices and increased vehicle mileage combined with risky driving behaviors (e.g. speeding, driving while texting) account for the increased fatality rate, seatbelt non-use has been a significant contributory factor. It is estimated that nearly half (48%) of passenger vehicle occupants involved in fatal crashes each year are unrestrained.

In a recent 2014 report …

Value Of Flow Measurement Accuracy In Hydropower Plants With Short Converging Intakes, Mark Herbert Christian

Doctoral Dissertations

This report documents research undertaken to determine the value of flow measurement accuracy in hydropower plants with short converging intakes. The motivation was to provide a suite of tools and best practices to streamline flow measurement sensor modeling in any type of hydropower plant. The Lower Granite Lock and Dam hydroplant was leveraged in development of the analysis tool. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of Lower Granite Unit 4 provided necessary information about the hydraulic structures distribution through the unit. Two different CFD models were created. The first was done using the as-built plans; the second was created through modifications …

Laboratory Investigation And Discrete Element Analysis In Open-Graded Friction Course And Railway Crosstie-Ballast Interaction, Weimin Song

Doctoral Dissertations

Granular materials, such as ballast and aggregate, are widely used nowadays in civil and transportation engineering. Discrete element method has been extensively used to simulate the behavior of granular materials. In this study, properties of granular materials used in pavement and railway were investigated by laboratory tests and discrete element modeling.

Firstly, the bonding performance between pavement layers was evaluated. Open-graded friction course pavement and traditional dense asphalt mixture pavement were both explored. Two dense asphalt mixtures (D, BM) and one open-graded friction course (OGFC) mixture were selected for the comparison. The laboratory test results show that, for traditional dense …

Role Of Multiagency Response And On-Scene Times In Large-Scale Traffic Incidents, Xiaobing Li, Behram Wali

Faculty Publications and Other Works -- Civil & Environmental Engineering

Traffic incidents, often known as nonrecurring events, impose enormous economic and social costs. Compared with short-duration incidents, large-scale incidents can substantially disrupt traffic flow by blocking lanes on highways for long periods. A careful examination of large-scale traffic incidents and associated factors can assist with actionable largescale incident management strategies. For such an analysis, a unique and comprehensive 5-year incident database on East Tennessee roadways was assembled to conduct an in-depth investigation of large-scale incidents, especially focusing on operational responses, that is, response and on-scene times by various agencies. Incidents longer than 120 min and blocking at least one lane …

Using Naturalistic Data For Bicycle Safety Analysis: An Application Of Cyclephilly Data To Assess Wrong-Way Riding, Nirbesh Dhakal

Masters Theses

This study focuses on wrong-way riding and associated route-choice determinants of wrong-way riding. I present this application as a case study of the many types of analysis that are possible with emerging naturalistic datasets that are not limited to conventional methods (e.g., vehicle counters). I used a dataset generated from a smartphone application, CyclePhilly, that measures rider location second-by-second in Philadelphia. The dataset covers 12,202 trips by 300 unique CyclePhilly users collected from May 2014 through April 2016. The data also includes information on socio-economics of the rider, as well as cycling experience. I merged this dataset with complementary network …

Fracture Behavior Of Single Mason Sand Particles Under Uniaxial Compression, Thuy Thanh Trieu

Masters Theses

Tensile strength of granular materials under one-dimensional (1D) compression is often examined because granular materials fracture in many applications where the soil mass experience high compression stresses. Through methods such as 1D compression, three-dimensional (3-D) imaging, and discrete element modeling, researchers had determined that the Weibull distribution is a good model to represent the tensile strengths of granular material and the fracturing strength of granular materials is dependent on mineralogy, morphology, grain-size, loading rate, gradation, coordination number, and moisture content. Uniaxial compression experiments were performed on Mason sand particles retained between US sieve #10 (2 mm) and #20 (0.84 mm) …

In Service Performance Evaluation Of Erosion Prevention Sediment Control Devices, Ali Riza Hangul

Masters Theses

The Erosion Prevention and Sediment Control (EPSC) market continuously expands with the addition of new products based on research and development. While some products may require special equipment for installation, others are installation ready. There have not been any investigations conducted on installation complications and cost to gain feedback from construction field personnel with regard to which practices are performing better and/or are preferred. The objective of this thesis is to further evaluate the current practices from performance and cost perspectives, in order to improve the plans development efficiency for the Tennessee Department of Transportation’ Roadway Design, Environmental, and Operations …

Enhancing License Plate Matching Algorithm: A New Evaluation Measurement And Threshold Determination, Brandon Cole Whetsel

Masters Theses

The process of license plate matching has continued to improve over the last decade, moving from manually intensive to automated. The text-mining technique of edit distance has been crucial to this improvement. Edit distance is not without limitations, such as determining a threshold, intuitiveness of the measurement, and character length issues.

This paper proposes an alternative evaluation method for determining plate matches. The method utilizes conditional probability rules to calculate the likelihood that two plates are a match. The alternative method is not a replacement for the traditional edit distance calculation, but rather an additional tool for practitioners. Depending on …

Streambank Erosion Mapping On The Nottoway River Using Gps-Based Above-Water Video, Emine Fidan

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

This project concerns the development of streambank erosion maps on military installations utilizing GPS-based above-water video mapping and image georeferencing techniques. The river mapped was the Nottoway River at the Fort Pickett military installation on October 10-11, 2015. Kayak-mounted above-water cameras were utilized to capture georeferenced images of streambank erosion. These GIS-based erosion classifications were utilized to develop erosion maps for determining streambank erosion conditions along the river. Areas of high erosion were identified as about two percent of the river (2167 ft. of streambank length). These maps allow for the opportunity to revisit the sites to determine changes in …

Experimental And Analytical Study Of Dynamic Behavior Of Bridge Superstructures Subjected To Overheight Vehicle Collisions, Yuan Jing

Doctoral Dissertations

The increasing occurrence of over-height vehicle collisions with bridges in the United States leads to concern about the damage due to lateral impact to bridge superstructures by over-height vehicles. However, this issue is not fully addressed in current bridge specifications. Previous researchers have conducted a number of small-scale tests to study the impact process. Also, finite element method (FEM) has largely been used to analyze the complicated collision mechanism.

A full-scale lateral impact testing facility was designed and built on a construction site in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. An AASHTO Type-I prestressed concrete (PC) girder and a Hybrid Composite Beam …

Sustainable Infrastructure Development: A Holistic System Based Decision Making Framework Integrating Vulnerability Indicators And Stakeholders Objectives, Mohamed Saeid Eid

Doctoral Dissertations

Infrastructure systems enable the host communities to expand, develop, and prosper in adequate socioeconomic conditions and healthy environment. Thus, the strategies for sustainable infrastructure development should aim to increase the individual utility of the local stakeholders, while reducing the vulnerability of the built environment to perturbations. Nevertheless, the available frameworks consider the development of the infrastructure systems as isolated projects and do not simultaneously address the needs of the stakeholders or the vulnerability of the built environment. The goal of this research is to provide decision makers and the research community with a novel infrastructure development framework that holistically balances …

Errors And Truths From Transportation Data Aggregation: Some Implications For Research And Practice, Hyeonsup Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

Data aggregation, which is a process to combine information by defined groups for statistical analysis, summary, data size reduction, or other purposes, has fundamental challenges, such as loss of the original information. Improper data aggregation, such as sampling bias or incorrect calculation of average, may cause misreading of information. In first chapter, it is revealed that the harmonic mean, which is used to calculate space mean speed for fixed segment, has a sampling bias, i.e., overestimation with small samples. The several impact analyses show that the sampling bias is affected by sampling rate, time interval, segment length, and distribution type. …

Ut Lineman Chute, Benjamin D. Jacob, Logan T. Sissom, Stephen E. Brennan, Thomas B. Mcdavid

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Transportation Infrastructure On Stream Water Quality: Contribution From Stormwater Runoff, Andrew James Steinman

Masters Theses

Stormwater runoff is a vital concern to the health of natural waterbodies and ecosystems within urban watersheds. While there is already ample research dedicated to understanding water quality from urban roadways, few of those studies have focused on measuring the dynamics of how stream water quality during storm conditions changes due to increased pollutant load from major urban roadways. With the goal to develop effective water resource management strategies for an impaired tributary watershed, water quality was monitored at four locations within a subwatershed to determine what impact pavement runoff of a major interstate has on the impaired receiving stream. …

Leading Safety Indicators In The Construction Industry: The Case Of Tennessee, Noor Suheil Akroush

Masters Theses

The construction industry has historically suffered from high frequency and severity of accidents, making safety a major concern for all associated stakeholders. To improve safety performance, leading safety indicators have emerged as a more effective alternative to the traditional lagging indicators measured after the occurrence of an incident or accident. These are ex ante assessment of construction behaviors and processes to proactively predict safety breaches.

Prior research has defined and assessed leading safety indicators, but has not yet sufficiently understood their actual current application either at the local and/or regional levels. To this end, this research aims to study, define, …

A Bug’S Life: Integration Of Anaerobic Digestion And Bioelectrochemical Systems For Enhanced Energy Recovery From Wastewater Solids And Other Waste Substrates, Jeff Ryan Beegle

Masters Theses

Organic waste streams, like domestic wastewater and municipal solid waste, have the potential to be used as feedstocks for biotechnology processes to produce high value products and energy. This thesis investigated the technological, economical, and environmental potential for integrated anaerobic digestion (AD) and bioelectrochemical system (BES) platforms as they were theoretically and physically evaluated for energy recovery from domestic wastewater. The first chapter of this thesis compared the theoretical energy efficiencies of converting waste directly into electricity, using AD and BES alone and in various combinations. This chapter reviewed the experimentally demonstrated energy efficiencies reported in the literature with comparisons …

Evaluation Of The Hot Mix Asphalt Compactability Utilizing The Impact Compaction Method, Pawel Andrzej Polaczyk

Masters Theses

This study investigates possibility of utilizing an accelerometer to evaluate compactability of Hot Mix Asphalt compacted with an impact hammer. For over 50 years Marshall Asphalt Mix Design has been the principal choice for asphalt mix designers around the world. Although the United States has almost entirely moved to Superpave Mix Design, the rest of the world nations still choose the Marshall Method. The investigation was conducted with the accelerometer placed on the falling mass of the Marshall Hammer and acceleration data was stored and analyzed. Data obtained from the accelerometer was filtered and the asphalt mix response after each …

Wastewater Treatment Improvement For Rush Strong School, Christina R. Sanford Utk, Kelli M. Grissom, Katie Gipson, Sharon Counts

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Particle Morphology And Its Influence On Friction And Dilatancy Of Sands, Karen Carmen Lee

Masters Theses

Particle morphology outlines the general analytical method used to describe soil particles’ structure and shape. The characteristics defining this term include sphericity, roundness, and surface texture. Particle morphology has a significant influence on sand behavior and consequently affects dilatancy and friction. Understanding the relationship between shear strength parameters and particle morphology answers fundamental questions about the mechanics of granular materials in general and has the potential to enhance the development of advanced constitutive models that describe granular materials’ behavior.

Many researchers have reported measurements for sphericity, roundness, and surface texture using both two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) images to analyze …