Civil Engineering Commons^™

Development Of Protocols For Determining Deleterious Material Content In Crushed Recycled Glass, Fiona Nutbeam

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Glass recycling appears to be a viable way to reduce waste; however, there are many challenges to ensuring the recycled product has an economically and environmentally sustainable end use. Cleaning recycled glass to a standard that allows it to be melted down into new glass is extremely difficult when single-stream recycling is in practice. The recycled glass that is not melted down is processed into different materials, such as processed glass aggregate (PGA). As states implement bans on landfilling recyclable materials (e.g., Act 148 in Vermont), additional uses for PGA are needed. In New England, there are diminishing sources of …

Flood Analysis Of Bridge-Stream Interactions Using Two-Dimensional Models, Rachel Seigel

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The 2011 Tropical Storm Irene resulted in considerable property and infrastructure damage in Vermont and neighboring states, including damages to and failure of over 300 bridges and 800 km (500 miles) of roads in Vermont alone, which brought to light the vulnerability of regional transportation infrastructure to extreme flood events. The northeastern United States is experiencing more frequent precipitation events of longer duration (i.e., extreme events). Infrastructure therefore must be able to withstand more frequent flood events of greater magnitude. It is not feasible to analyze and retrofit each structure for the rigorous hydraulic demands of extreme flood events; so …

Application Of Electrokinetics In Subsurface Energy Extraction, Maria Peraki

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The world’s growing population results in increased energy needs that cannot yet be fully supported by the renewable sources of energy. These modern conditions and restraints have created the need to further research methods to enhance the recovery of resources previously unavailable due to technical and/or economic reasons and to reduce the environmental impacts of using fossil fuels. In this dissertation, applications of electrokinetic phenomena for the improvement of subsurface energy resource extraction are investigated using experimental and numerical tools.

Electrodialysis is proposed as a method of pre-treatment of the flow-back water produced during fracturing stage of shale gas extraction. …

Leveraging The Information Content Of Process-Based Models Using Differential Evolution And The Extended Kalman Filter, Lucas Howard

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Process-based models are used in a diverse array of fields, including environmental engineering to provide supporting information to engineers, policymakers and stakeholdes. Recent advances in remote sensing and data storage technology have provided opportunities for improving the application of process-based models and visualizing data, but also present new challenges. The availability of larger quantities of data may allow models to be constructed and calibrated in a more thorough and precise manner, but depending on the type and volume of data, it is not always clear how to incorporate the information content of these data into a coherent modeling framework. In …

Use Of Sacrificial Embankments To Minimize Bridge Damage From Scour During Extreme Flow Events, Matthew Willi Brand

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

The leading cause of bridge failure has often been identified as bridge scour, which is generally defined as the erosion or removal of streambed and/or bank material around bridge foundations due to flowing water. These scour critical bridges are particularly vulnerable during extreme flood events, and pose a major risk to human life, transportation infrastructure, and economic sustainability. Climate change is increasing the intensity and persistence of large flow events throughout the world, further straining bridge infrastructure. Retrofitting the thousands of undersized and scour critical bridges to more rigorous standards is prohibitively expensive, and current countermeasures inadequately address the core …