Civil Engineering Commons^™

College Students' Perceptions Of Sustainability: A Regional Survey, Michael Myung Jeong, Younghan Jung, Dan Daehyun Koo

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Understanding college students’ perception of sustainability is paramount as today’s students will soon be driving our economy and taking on the responsibility of maintaining a sustainable society. This study conducted a survey of college students attending two regional universities in the United States to capture their current experience levels, expectations, and perceptions with regard to various aspects of sustainability utilizing a questionnaire consisting of structured questions about sustainability knowledge/familiarity levels, green product purchase behavior, attitude-behavior relationship, and sustainability education. The results reveal useful insights into the students’ views on these topics and the demographic data collected were further analyzed to …

A Risk Assessment Of The Impacts Of Coastal Flooding And Sea Level Rise On The Existing And New Pump Stations 113, Norfolk, Va, David A. Pezza

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The author assessed the risk to a wastewater pump station and a planned replacement located nearby due to coastal flooding and rising sea levels. The locations for the pump stations are in the Larchmont neighborhood by the Lafayette River tidal estuaries in Norfolk, Virginia. The Lafayette River is a tributary to the Elizabeth River, which flows to the Chesapeake Bay. The low-lying areas along the river are subject to coastal surges caused by tropical and extra-tropical storms that flood the bay.

The region is considered one of the urban areas most exposed to the accelerating rate of rising sea levels. …

Behavior And Strength Of Pultruded Frp I-Section Columns Including Uniaxial And Biaxial Bending, Emad M. Amin

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents the outcome of a study of the behavior and strength of pultruded glass fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) I-section columns including uniaxial and biaxial applied bending moments. Also included in the study is a critical assessment of ASCE-LRFD Pre-standard for pultruded FRP structures in view of the rigorous analysis presented herein. The theoretical solution is based on a system of three coupled differential equations of equilibrium combined with pinned flexural and torsional boundary conditions. Effects of induced warping due to second-order terms as well as initial out-of-straightness are accounted-for in the governing differential equations. Detailed investigations into the …

Experimental And Predicted Behavior Of Frp Beam-Columns Including Retrofitting, Ali Al-Huazy

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents the outcome of a theoretical and experimental study of Fiber Reinforce Polymer (FRP) beam-columns with uniaxial bending and including retrofitting. The research involved the design and fabrication of a testing apparatus which was then used for a series of beam-column tests. Three different types of beam-column cross sections were used, namely, channel section, I-section, and square tube section. Six non-retrofitted beam-columns were tested in addition to two retrofitted ones. The members were subjected to an eccentric vertical load applied through a lever arm generating gradually increasing axial load and uniaxial bending moment up to the maximum load. …

Inelastic Behavior And Strength Of Steel Beam-Columns With Applied Torsion, Mamadou Konate

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents the outcome of an experimental and theoretical study of the inelastic behavior and strength of steel beam-columns with applied torsion. Although the international steel design specifications contain interaction relations for biaxially loaded beam-columns, the influence of applied torsion on such members has been completely ignored in the past. A series of hollow square section steel members are tested using an apparatus specially designed to apply torsion in the presence of an axial load and biaxial bending. The theoretical analysis involves formulation of a system of materially nonlinear differential equations and their solution based on a finite integral …

Accuracy Comparison Of Numerical Integration Algorithms For Real-Time Hybrid Simulations, Ganesh Anant Reddy

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The use of accurate numerical integration algorithms is one of the key factors for a successful real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS). In RTHSs, explicit integration algorithms are preferred more than implicit methods since all calculations need to be completed within a given time step during simulation. Explicit methods require the use of effective stiffness and damping for experimental substructures, which are incorporated into the calculation of the integration parameters. In general, those values that are greater than the expected stiffness and damping of the experimental substructure are used to ensure the stability of simulation. If a rate-dependent and nonlinear experimental substructure …

Characterizing Queue Dynamics At Signalized Intersections From Probe Vehicle Data, Semuel Yacob Recky Rompis

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Probe vehicles instrumented with location-tracking technologies have become increasingly popular for collecting traffic flow data. While probe vehicle data have been used for estimating speeds and travel times, there has been limited research on predicting queuing dynamics from such data. In this research, a methodology is developed for identifying the travel lanes of the GPS-instrumented vehicles when they are standing in a queue at signalized intersections with multilane approaches. In particular, the proposed methodology exploits the unequal queue lengths across the lanes to infer the specific lanes the probe vehicles occupy. Various supervised and unsupervised clustering methods were developed and …

Analyzing Driver Behavior And Traffic Flow Breakdowns At The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, Michelle L. Allen

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) is a major link for activity in Hampton Roads. The eastbound direction also suffers from congestion during both morning and peak hours. During these periods of congestion, the flow rate varies in regards to the location of the congestion. This study focuses on investigating driver behavior during these different conditions and briefly investigates the cost of delay due to the different capacities. To accomplish this, per vehicle record data (PVR) is used. This data, collected at the exit of the tunnel, provides information on arrival time, speed, lane location, vehicle class, and time headway. …

Counting And Classification Of Highway Vehicles By Regression Analysis, Mingpei Liang, Xinyu Huang, Chung-Hao Chen, Alade Tokuta

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe a novel algorithm that counts and classifies highway vehicles based on regression analysis. This algorithm requires no explicit segmentation or tracking of individual vehicles, which is usually an important part of many existing algorithms. Therefore, this algorithm is particularly useful when there are severe occlusions or vehicle resolution is low, in which extracted features are highly unreliable. There are mainly two contributions in our proposed algorithm. First, a warping method is developed to detect the foreground segments that contain unclassified vehicles. The common used modeling and tracking (e.g., Kalman filtering) of individual vehicles are not …