Engineering Commons^™

Development Of Natural Perlite Based Concrete For Sustainable Construction, Seyedmahmoud Motaharikarein

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aimed to partially replace Portland Cement (PC) with environmentally friendly binders capable of improving the longevity of concrete. The new binders consisted of different proportions of natural pozzolan (perlite) with various fineness and particle size distributions. A step-by-step research program was designed to: (1) discover the optimum fineness of perlite powder and its optimum replacement level with cement; (2) investigate the rheological properties of the perlite-containing mixtures, and examine whether this binder can be used in selfconsolidating concrete; and (3) assess the weaknesses of the new binder, and improve its deficiencies by using nanomaterials such as nano-silica. The …

Design Of Efficient Carbon-Based Adsorbents For The Removal Of Organic And Inorganic Water Contaminants, Sayedeh Soroosh Mortazavian Dehkordi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Granular activated carbon (AC) and biochar (BC) are two carbon-based adsorbents commonly used for water and wastewater treatment. However, these adsorbents have drawbacks that suppress their aqueous contaminants removal efficiency. Their major disadvantages are that AC has low selectivity and reusability potential, and BC has a hydrophobic nature.

The scope of this dissertation is to enhance the performance of commonly-used carbon-based adsorbents for the removal of organic and inorganic water contaminants and to understand the interactive mechanism of contaminants’ ions/molecules with adsorbents. Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) and trichloroethylene (TCE) are two types of inorganic and organic water contaminants, respectively, which are …

Impact Of Design Cost Percentage On Cost Growth, Schedule Growth, And Construction Intensity Of Road Construction Projects, Elina Prajapati

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The performance of construction projects is measured in terms of cost and schedule variation. Studies have identified that such variations are mainly due to design changes, which are more frequent on projects executed through the design-bid-build (DBB) delivery method. Thus, the design factor is identified as one of the major parameters affecting the performance of DBB projects. Despite the majority of road projects being constructed following the DBB method, the impact of design cost on the performance of road projects has not been sufficiently studied yet. Therefore, this study focuses on determining the effect of design cost on the performance …

Sizing A New Bike Sharing System For The University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nesley Orochena

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The strategic planning objectives for a novel Bike Sharing Systems (BSS) are to locate the BSS stations, size the stations, and determine the bicycle fleet size, among others. Current guidelines to design BSS programs are tailored to city centers with large coverage areas and high bicycle to population ratios, and thus not directly transferable to a university setting. An ordered probit model was created using data from a university online stated preference survey to determine the key factors that affect the uptake rates for the UNLV BSS program and to estimate the potential demand. The demand analysis was incorporated into …

Carbon Management And Volatile Fatty Acid Production In Primary Clarifiers At A Wastewater Treatment Plant, Brittany Nicole Radke

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An increasing number of treatment plants are required to remove nutrients from domestic wastewater to lessen the impact of nutrient loading to water bodies. Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR) is one of the processes commonly used to remove phosphorus from domestic wastewater. The presence of an adequate quantity of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in the wastewater influent to EBPR is important for process efficiency and stability. The objective of this research was to investigate the production of VFAs through fermentation of sludge in primary clarifiers as it related to improving nutrient removal, primarily targeting phosphorus.

The research tested, in full-scale, …

Application Of Data-Driven And Process-Based Modeling Approaches For Water Quality Simulation In Lakes And Freshwater Reservoirs, Ali Saber Sichani

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lakes and freshwater reservoirs often serve as the primary drinking and irrigation water sources for surrounding communities. They provide recreational and tourism opportunities, thereby promoting the prosperity of neighboring communities. Reliable estimates of water quality in lakes and reservoirs can improve management practices to protect water resources.

Seasonal water temperature and solar shortwave radiation variations, and their subsequent interactions with water column aquatic life, combined with seasonal variations of mixing intensity throughout the water column, result in variations of water quality constituents with depth during the annual cycle. The complexity of these variations entails the use of advanced water quality …

Evaluation Of Titanosilicate Materials For The Sorption Of Cesium And Strontium From High Level Wastes, Matheus Tolentino Lauar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Treatment of high-level waste (HLW) stored in the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) sites of Hanford and Savannah River involves the separation of radioactive cesium (137Cs) and strontium (90Sr). Challenges in treating the liquid HLW includes high alkalinity or acidity, and high salt content, many orders of magnitude above Cs and Sr concentrations. Ion exchange is the preferred process for removing these compounds, due to the availability of selective media and large volume-processing capacity by column operations. The crystalline silicotitanate (Na2Ti2O3SiO4·2H2O), i.e. CST, which structure is analog to the mineral sitinakite, is considered the reference material for this application. …

Examining The Effectiveness Of A 4d Schedule And A Virtual Reality Model On A Modular Project: Unlv Solar Decathlon Case, Rajarshi Ghimire

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The use of a 4D schedule as technological advancement has brought significant improvement to the planning and execution of construction projects, through visualizing stepwise construction progress, following a sequence of pre-planned activities, and finalizing a baseline schedule with necessary changes. Moreover, the application of virtual reality (VR) to create interactive 3D models of a planned structure has made it possible to make a detailed planning of any construction project. Because of these benefits, the use of 4D schedules and VR in the construction industry has increased drastically, leading to improved planning and execution. However, past studies have given little attention …

Contemporary Problems In Aerosol Aggregation And Gelation, Pai Liu

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Aggregation of nanoparticles in aerosols is a fundamental phenomenon with important implications to diverse fields ranging from material synthesis to pollutant control. The past few decades have witnessed extensive research on investigating the structure and growth mechanism of aerosol aggregates with sizes spanning across several orders of magnitude. This dissertation focuses on some contemporary problems that remain unaddressed in this topical area. Aerosol aggregates in sub-micron regimes, which are formed via the irreversible collision and aggregation of solid nanoparticle monomers, are fractal-like in their morphology. A mathematical description of this seemingly random structure dates to the seminal works by Forest …

Utility Of Bench Scale Sand Tank Experiments At Assessing Permeable Reactive Barrier Design, Brandon Meier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The objective of this work was to evaluate the utility of bench scale sand tank experiments at assessing permeable reactive barrier (PRB) design. Our criteria for meeting this goal was that differences between PRB designs could be identified solely by measuring concentration in outflow from the sand tank models. For our PRB designs (funnel-and-gate, staggered wells, and parallel bars), numerical simulations clearly showed that PRB design had a quantifiable effect on outflow concentration, provided that the solute reacted with the PRB materials. Conversely, use of a conservative (non-reactive) solute did not allow us to discern between PRB design alternatives. Employing …

Retrofit Of Corroded Corrugated Metal Culverts Using Gfrp Slip-Liner, Rahulreddy Chennareddy

Civil Engineering ETDs

Culverts are water conveyance structures, typically used to allow water flow and maintain a balance between the flow streams without interrupting structures such as highways and bridges. Corrugated metal pipes (CMPs) have been used as culverts in North America since the 1950s because of their low cost and simple construction method. Today, the corrosion of CMPs is a major problem faced by all U.S. Departments of Transportation. There is an urgent need to provide an efficient solution, one that is corrosion-resistant, to retrofit thousands of corroded CMPs across the country. High specific strength, high strength to weight ratio, corrosion resistance, …

Numerical And Semi-Analytical Estimation Of Convective Heat Transfer Coefficient For Buildings In An Urban-Like Setting, Anwar Demsis Awol

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Urban building arrangements such as packing density, orientation and size are known to influence the microclimate surrounding each building. Studies on the impact of urban microclimatic changes on convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) from a stock of buildings, however, have been rare in surveyed literature. The present study focuses on numerical and analytical investigation of CHTC from building-like models with homogeneous set of equal and unequal planar and frontal densities. Consequently, the study discusses the CHTC response in relation to broader changes in the urban surface form. Part of the process involves the development of a simplified one-dimensional semi-analytical CHTC …

Spatial And Temporal Characteristics Of Temperature-Precipitation Covariability Across Canada In A Changing Climate, Harsimrenjit Singh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Changes in the regional characteristics of temperature and precipitation can intensify the occurrence and severity of extreme events such as rain-on-snow induced flooding, droughts and wildfires. Analyzing these climate variables in isolation without considering their interdependencies might result in severe underestimation of their combined effects. In this study, copula functions are used to describe the joint behaviour of temperature and precipitation across Canada over a historical period of 1910-present using observations and further till the end of the 21st century using three large ensembles of regional climate models. Moreover, given the lack of observation data over Canada, gridded datasets are …

Rapid Characterization Of Dissolved Organic Matter And Precursors To Disinfection By-Products By Fluorescence Technique, Taha Marhaba

Sustainability Seminar Series

Natural organic matter (NOM) in the environment today does not only come from humic sources, but also from non-humic or synthetic sources. The typical total organic carbon (TOC) analysis has been typically used as an aggregate measure of NOM in water. NOM from surface water sources were isolated and fractionated by resin adsorption techniques into hydrophobic acid, hydrophobic neutral, hydrophobic base, hydrophilic acid, hydrophilic neutral and hydrophilic base. The Spectral Fluorescent Signatures (SFS) technique through a database of spectral characteristics specific to each fraction was developed for the identification of the six NOM fractions. Among the main advantages of the …

High Strain Dynamic Test On Helical Piles: Analytical And Numerical Investigations, Mohammed Fahad Alwalan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Helical piles are currently considered a preferred foundation option in a wide range of engineering projects to provide high compressive and uplift resistance to static and dynamic loads. In view of the large capacity of large diameter helical piles, there is a need to determine their capacity using accurate and economically feasible testing techniques. The capacity of piles is usually determined by conducting a Static Load Test (SLT). However, the SLT can be costly and time consuming, especially for large capacity piles. The High Strain Dynamic Load Test (HSDT) evaluates the pile capacity using dynamic measurements generated through subjecting the …

Bringing Statistical Learning Machines Together For Hydro-Climatological Predictions - Case Study For Sacramento San Joaquin River Basin, California, Balbhadra Thakur, Ajay Kalra, Sajjad Ahmad, Kenneth W. Lamb, Venkat Lakshmi

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Study region: Sacramento San Joaquin River Basin, California Study focus: The study forecasts the streamflow at a regional scale within SSJ river basin with largescale climate variables. The proposed approach eliminates the bias resulting from predefined indices at regional scale. The study was performed for eight unimpaired streamflow stations from 1962–2016. First, the Singular Valued Decomposition (SVD) teleconnections of the streamflow corresponding to 500 mbar geopotential height, sea surface temperature, 500 mbar specific humidity (SHUM500), and 500 mbar U-wind (U500) were obtained. Second, the skillful SVD teleconnections were screened non-parametrically. Finally, the screened teleconnections were used as the streamflow predictors …

Application Of Bayesian Networks To Integrity Management Of Energy Pipelines, Wei Xiang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Metal-loss corrosion and third-party damage (TPD) are the leading threats to the integrity of buried oil and natural gas pipelines. This thesis employs Bayesian networks (BNs) and non-parametric Bayesian networks (NPBNs) to deal with four issues with regard to the reliability-based management program of corrosion and TPD. The first study integrates the quantification of measurement errors of the ILI tools, corrosion growth modeling and reliability analysis in a single dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) model, and employs the parameter learning technique to learn the parameters of the DBN model from the ILI-reported and filed-measured corrosion depths. The second study develops the …

Effect Of Incorporating Pottery And Bottom Ash As Partial Replacement Of Cement, Bassam A. Tayeh, Doha M. Alsaffar, Lawend K. Askar, Asmahan Issa Jubeh

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

This study addressed the environmental constraints in cement produc­tion. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was replaced with pottery powder (PP, produced by grinding locally available pottery) and bottom ash (BA) at 10%, 20% and 30% of cement mass. Moreover, 4% calcium chloride solution (CaCl₂.2H₂O) was used as mixing water. Material properties, such as standard consistency, setting time and compressive strength, were measured with different percentages of OPC replacement with PP and BA. Results indicated that the replacement with PP and BA increased the water demand to achieve the standard consistency. These results revealed that the strength evolution …

Lidar Assessment To Monitor Bridge Response Under Live And Dead Loads, Daniel Watson

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding how a bridge structure responds to various loads in a time and resource-efficient approach is vital in characterizing bridge health. Bridge health monitoring is an evaluation of the structural condition and performance, which optimizes limited transportation budgets by prioritizing the bridges that are in the most need for retrofit or replacement. Identifying and remedying issues will mitigate long-term problems and ensure that the bridge remains open to service for all legal loads. In contrast, health monitoring and load rating will determine if a bridge can only carry traffic up to a certain weight or speed, requiring a bridge load …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Fall 2019, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Forensic Investigation Of Building Failure – The Harbour Cay Condominium Disaster, John Airis

Publications and Research

When a building suffers collapse, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is tasked with conducting an investigation into the cause. Often OSHA will request technical assistance from the National Institute for Standards and Technology to assist in the forensic technical aspects determining a most probable cause. This forensic effort entails many actions. The Harbour Cay Condominium disaster occurred on March 28, 1981 in Cocoa Beach, Florida. It was a total collapse of a five story reinforced concrete structure during the last stage of roof construction, resulting in 11 deaths and 24 injuries. The investigation report revealed structural design …

Numerical Simulations Of The Hall–Petch Relationship In Aluminium Using Gradient-Enhanced Plasticity Model, Yooseob Song, Jaeheum Yeon, Byoungjoon Na

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

+e Hall-Petch relation in aluminium is discussed based on the strain gradient plasticity framework. +e thermodynamically consistent gradient-enhanced flow rules for bulk and grain boundaries are developed using the concepts of thermal activation energy and dislocation interaction mechanisms. It is assumed that the thermodynamic microstresses for bulk and grain boundaries have dissipative and energetic contributions, and in turn, both dissipative and energetic material length scale parameters are existent. Accordingly, two-dimensional finite element simulations are performed to analyse characteristics of the Hall–Petch strengthening and the Hall–Petch constants. +e proposed flow rules for the grain boundary are validated using the existing experimental …

Diffusion And Uniformity Of Recycled Asphalt In Pavements, Baoshan Huang

Abbett Distinguished Seminar Series

Asphalt pavements covers over 93 percent of the paved roads in the United States. The use of recycled asphalt into pavement maintenance and construction has been a common practice. However the lack of understanding of the interaction between recycled and virgin asphalt poses a change on the efficient use of recycled asphalt, and often causes pavement premature failures. The present study addressed some fundamental aspects associated with the beneficial use of recycled asphalt into asphalt paving mixtures: 1) how much recycled asphalt can be mobilized into a uniform asphalt coating in the mixture? and 2) will the mobilized old asphalt …

Simulation Training And Route Optimization For Bridge Inspection, Sushil Louis

INSPIRE Archived Webinars

Since the 1970s, simulation training has developed opera­tional trainers for a variety of complex systems from pilot flight simulations to cultural awareness training simulations. When connected to the real world, such simulation training interfaces can drive real vehicles and systems. We have been building a Simulation Training And Control System (STACS) for autonomous bridge inspection that uses a simulated world to train inspectors to control a heterogeneous group of robots. The objective is that, once trained, inspectors can use the same STACS interface used in training to control multiple real robots simultaneously during a bridge inspection task. We first built …

Static Analysis Of Structural Members, Amani Calderon, Alexis Villalona, Farhad Alinaghizadeh

Publications and Research

This research is devoted to statics analysis of structural members under mechanical loads. Static analysis of beams under uniform transverse mechanical loads is presented. The beams are supported by simply supported boundary condition at both sides. The equilibrium equation of the beams is obtained and solved using analytical method and numerical method. The numerical method employed in this work is generalized differential quadrature (GDQ) method. The type of differential quadrature method used for numerical solution is the polynomial-based GDQ method. The differential equation is discretized into algebraic equations based on the GDQ technique. The algebraic equations are then solved to …

Energy & Carbon Neutral Nyc, Evan Banks, Elena Zimareva, Elena Malysheva

Publications and Research

In 2016, the world's leading countries signed the Paris Agreement which focused on reducing anthropogenic climate change on the planet. On May 2019, New York State and New York City declared its own ambitious goals aimed at decarbonizing the city and restricting the state’s energy use to relying completely on renewables.

Some of these goals specifically target infrastructure in the city since estimates cite buildings as accounting for nearly 70% of New York’s energy use. The main law of New York’s Climate Policy, Local Law 97, requires all buildings over 25,000 sq ft to reduce their CO2 footprint by 40% …

Modeling The Effects Of Distribution System Topology On Water Quality, Chun-Ying Chao

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Inadequate treatment of drinking water causes the formation of disinfection by-products and the regrowth of harmful microbial species. Various studies have addressed the problem of water quality monitoring, but very few have employed topological analysis, a valuable mathematical tool widely applied in biological, business, and social research. This thesis examines the relationship between the topological properties of water distribution systems and water-quality models. In particular, the research proposes a novel framework for mapping network topological attributes to water-quality models. This research adopts topological metrics to assess the accuracy of the predictions of chlorine concentrations in dead ends. It examines four …

Static Analysis Of Circular Plates Under Mechanical Loads, Harpreet Lalia

Publications and Research

In this research statics analysis of circular plates is performed using SolidWorks.

Circular plates with different material properties, thickness to radius ratios, and boundary conditions under mechanical loads are modeled and analyzed in SolidWorks.

The results are obtained for deflections of circular plates under uniform and point loads.

A three-dimensional (3D) model of circular plates is first created in SolidWorks. Then the material properties, mechanical loads and boundary conditions are defined for the plate.

It is found deflection of plates is depended on magnitude of mechanical loads, geometrical parameters, boundary conditions and material properties. Responses of SolidWorks for deflections of …

Green Roof System Integrated Soil Methods, Jude R. Vallon, Ivan L. Guzman

Publications and Research

Large metropolitan areas like NYC are seeking to integrate sustainability into retrofitting buildings for the development of green infrastructure. Among the many environmental issues of urbanization, the UHI (urban heat island) effect and storm water runoff are of particular interest when it comes building structures. Individual buildings can contribute towards mitigating these effects with implementation of vegetative rooftops, i.e. Green Roofs. Commercial buildings are currently receiving government incentives and new constructions are required to include green roof installations. However, if existing buildings are considering the addition of a green roof on an existing roof, they have to factor in the …

Influence Of Nh4f In Dextran Based Biopolymer Electrolytes: Conductivity And Electrical Analysis, Muhamad Hafiz Hamsan, Mohd Fakhrul Zamani Kadir, Shujahadeen Bakar Aziz, Muhammad Amirul Solihin Azha, Saifful Kamaluddin Muzakir

Makara Journal of Technology

Dextran polymer host was doped with different concentrations of ammonium fluoride (NH4F) via casting technique. In this present work, dextran-NH4F film has been employed to investigate the ionic conductivity using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy from 50 to 5 MHz. The highest room temperature conductivity is achieved at (2.33 ± 0.76) × 10-3 S cm-1 with 40 wt.% NH4F. The electrolyte is found to obey Arrhenius rule at high temperature with activation energy of 0.21 eV. Dielectric analysis has been performed to obtain better understanding on the conductivity pattern. The dielectric parameters e.g. ɛreal, ɛimag, Mreal, and Mimag have been tested as …