Civil Engineering Commons^™

Estimation And Prediction Of Mobility And Reliability Measures Using Different Modeling Techniques, Fatema Hoque Farzana

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study is to investigate the predictive ability of less data intensive but widely accepted methods to estimate mobility and reliability measures. Mobility is a relatively mature concept in the traffic engineering field. Therefore, many mobility measure estimation methods are already available and widely accepted among practitioners and researchers. However, each method has their inherent weakness, particularly when they are applied and compared with real-world data. For instances, Bureau of Public Roads (BPR) Curves are very popular in static route choice assignment, as part of demand forecasting models, but it is often criticized for underperforming in congested …

New Connection Details To Connect Precast Cap Beams To Precast Columns Using Ultra High Performance Concrete (Uhpc) For Seismic And Non-Seismic Regions, Mohamadreza Shafieifar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Several connection details have been developed for the connection of precast cap beams to precast columns in Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) applications. Currently, the suggested details involve some form of either reinforcement or portion of the precast column to penetrate inside the cap beam. Such details present many challenges in the field, such as necessitating bundling of reinforcement in the cap beam or creating a congested reinforcement arrangement. Furthermore, closer inspection of some of the test data indicates that for currently used details, cap beams could sustain some damages during major seismic events, whereas they are designed to be capacity …

Improved Methods For Network Screening And Countermeasure Selection For Highway Improvements, Md Asif Raihan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Network screening and countermeasure selection are two crucial steps in the highway improvement process. In network screening, potential improvement locations are ranked and prioritized based on a specific method with a set of criteria. The most common practice by transportation agencies has been to use a simple scoring method, which, in general, weighs and scores each criterion and then ranks the locations based on their relative overall scoring. The method does not deal well with criteria that are qualitative in nature, nor does it account for the impacts of correlation among the criteria. The introduction of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) …

Design Of Low Impact Development And Green Infrastructure At Flood Prone Areas In The City Of Miami Beach, Florida, Usa, Noura Alsarawi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the effectiveness of Low Impact Development Infrastructure (LIDI) and Green Infrastructure (GI) in reducing flooding resulting from heavy rainfall events and sea-level rise, and in improving stormwater quality in the City of Miami Beach (CMB). InfoSWMM was used to simulate the 5, 10, and 100-year, 24-hour storm events, total suspended solids (TSS), biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), and chemical oxygen demand (COD) loadings, and in evaluating the potential of selected LIDI and GI solutions in North Shore neighborhood.

Post-development results revealed a decrease of 48%, 46%, and 39% in runoff, a decrease of 57%, 60%, and 62% in …

Study On Strut And Node Behavior In Strut-And-Tie Modeling, Nazanin Rezaei

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The strut-and-tie method (STM) is a simple and conservative method for designing concrete structures, especially deep beams. This method expresses complicated stress patterns as a simple truss or kinematic model made up of compression elements (struts), tension elements (ties), and the joints between elements (nodes). STM is based on lowerbound plasticity theorem, so using it properly will lead to a conservative design. Although the concepts of STM have been around in concrete design since the late 19th century, STM was first introduced in AASHTO LRFD in 1994 and ACI 318-02 in 2002. ACI 318 defines two different types of struts …

Investigating Scale Effects On Analytical Methods Of Predicting Peak Wind Loads On Buildings, Mohammadtaghi Moravej

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Large-scale testing of low-rise buildings or components of tall buildings is essential as it provides more representative information about the realistic wind effects than the typical small scale studies, but as the model size increases, relatively less large-scale turbulence in the upcoming flow can be generated. This results in a turbulence power spectrum lacking low-frequency turbulence content. This deficiency is known to have significant effects on the estimated peak wind loads.

To overcome these limitations, the method of Partial Turbulence Simulation (PTS) has been developed recently in the FIU Wall of Wind lab to analytically compensate for the effects of …

Experimental Investigation Of Wind-Induced Response Of Span-Wire Traffic Signal Systems, Manuel A. Matus Mr.

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation was to identify key design parameters that might significantly affect the response of span wire traffic light systems during extreme wind events. The performance of these systems was assessed through physical testing in an effort to quantify the effect of sag ratio, wire tension and wire clearance. The Wall of Wind experimental facility at Florida International University was utilized for testing the systems at different wind speeds and wind directions.

The findings showed that, at all tested wind directions, lift, drag and tension forces increased with increasing wind speeds. On the contrary, increasing the wind …

The Effects Of Frequent Atmospheric Events And Hydrologic Infrastructure On Flow Characterization In Tims Branch And Its Major Tributary, Sc, Mohammed Albassam

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hydrological models are powerful tools used to predict water systems behavior such as flow and water level characteristics for rivers and streams. In this research, a fully dynamic 1-D model was developed using the MIKE 11 model for a specific stream called A-014, this stream is in the Savannah River Site (SRS), SC.

A field study was conducted in order to collect data needed as inputs for the model development. Data like water velocity and cross-section measurement played a major role in understanding the behavior of the A-014 and the validation of our model.

Results showed a correlation capable to …