Structural Materials Commons^™

Precious Plastics - Plastic Brick Machine Fabrication, Timothy Ukaobasi Kanu, Evi Paraskevi Troulis

Architectural Engineering

The goal of this research is to determine the structural parameters of the recycled plastic polypropylene when molded into bricks resembling CMU blocks. To accomplish this, three mechanisms had to be assembled: the shredder, the injector, and the 1x1 mold. A tensile and compression test were to be performed on the plastic brick, and the values would be used to compare the tensile and compressive strength of PP plastic bricks, as well as their modulus of elasticity and stress vs. Strain performance. These values would be analyzed to determine whether it would be feasible to build an entire plastic wall. …

Investigation Of Fiber Orientation And Mechanical Properties Of Pyrolysis Recycled Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Composite, Reva N. Simmons, Harry Lee, Garam Kim

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

With increasing demand of carbon fiber reinforced fiber thermoset composites, establishing a sustainable cycle for these materials becomes crucial. Pyrolysis is a process of reclaiming carbon fiber from thermoset composites by thermally degrading the polymer at high temperatures allowing the fibers to be extracted. Carbon fiber reclaimed through current pyrolysis processes for thermoset composites typically loses its original shape and orientation, making it difficult to reorganize the fibers. This study investigated the feasibility of maintaining the fiber orientations for continuous fiber reinforced thermoset composite during pyrolysis by stitching the carbon fiber layup to a conformable copper mesh during the manufacturing …

The Living Breakwaters Pdr Efforts: Conceptual Scheduling, Calvin O. Walters Jr.

Publications and Research

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Sandy caused nearly $19 billion in damages in New York City including 69,000 residential units across the five boroughs. This disaster precipitated a post-disaster-rebuilding (PDR) project including roughly $4.2 billion in a Community Development Block Grant allocated towards PDR projects. A portion of the grant was used to construct a living breakwater in Tottenville, Staten Island, consisting of a resiliency approach to risk reduction through erosion prevention, wave energy attenuation, and enhancement of ecosystems and social resiliency to improve resistance to storms for the community of Tottenville. The ridges of each breakwater are designed with …

New Type Of Lightweight Aggregate For Use In Structural Concrete, Jamal Khatib, Ali Jahami, Oussama Baalbaki, Adel Elkordi

BAU Journal - Science and Technology

This research studied the utilization of municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash (MSWI-BA) in lightweight coarse aggregate (LWC) production. A special method was followed to prepare the new aggregate to fully replace the normal aggregates (NWA) in concrete. The mechanical properties such as compressive strength, tensile strength, and elasticity modulus were investigated for the LWC concrete. Then, two beams were prepared; one from LWC and the other from NWC. The structural performance of beams made up of lightweight aggregates compared to normal aggregates was investigated. The results showed that this type of aggregates led to a 20% reduction in concrete …

Macro - And Microstructure Evaluation And Field Applications Of Concrete With Recycled Glass Pozzolan, Marija Krstic

Dissertations and Theses

Concrete is the most used material in the world, second only to water. Conventional concrete is produced with Portland cement (PC). The production of cement is an energy intensive operation that has raised significant environmental concerns, since one ton of cement generates an equal ton of CO₂. In the USA about 90 million tons of cement are used annually, with 3 million tons used in New York. Most contemporary concrete applications for buildings and infrastructure use high-performance concrete (HPC) mixtures which are produced by replacing a percentage of cement with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), consisting mainly of fly-ash …

Development Of Geopolymer-Based Cement And Soil Stabilizers For Transportation Infrastructure, Miladin Radovic, Anand Puppala

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18CTAM03. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"Geopolymer Cement (GPC) has drawn much attention in the recent years as an alternative to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) for soil stabilization, pavements, bridges and other transportation structures due to their good mechanical properties in comparison to OPC. In addition, GPC can be processed at room temperatures from aqueous solutions of waste materials (e.g. fly ash) or abundant natural sources (e.g. clay), thereby significantly reducing CO2 production associated with processing of OPC. As such, GPC proves to be a more sustainable and …

Toward Non-Corrosion And Highly Sustainable Structural Members By Using Ultra-High-Performance Materials For Transportation Infrastructure, Shih-Ho Chao, Ashish Karmacharya

Data

Corresponding data set for Tran-SET Project No. 18STUTA01. Abstract of the final report is stated below for reference:

"This research focused on investigating a highly sustainable and efficient reinforced concrete structural member for future infrastructure by utilizing emerging high-performance materials. These materials include ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHP-FRC) and corrosion-resistant high-strength fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars. Four reduced scale UHP-FRC specimens were tested under large displacement reversals to prove the proposed new ductile-concrete strong-reinforcement (DCSR) design concept by fully utilizing these ultra-high-performance materials. Micro steel fibers were incorporated into three specimens and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers were blended into the fourth …

Development Of Geopolymer-Based Cement And Soil Stabilizers For Transportation Infrastructure, Miladin Radovic, Anand Puppala

Publications

Geopolymer Cement (GPC) has drawn much attention in the recent years as an alternative to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) for soil stabilization, pavements, bridges and other transportation structures due to their good mechanical properties in comparison to OPC. In addition, GPC can be processed at room temperatures from aqueous solutions of waste materials (e.g. fly ash) or abundant natural sources (e.g. clay), thereby significantly reducing CO2 production associated with processing of OPC. As such, GPC proves to be a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative than OPC. This research explores methods to develop GPC with desired properties and evaluate their …

Toward Non-Corrosion And Highly Sustainable Structural Members By Using Ultra-High-Performance Materials For Transportation Infrastructure, Shih-Ho Chao, Ashish Karmacharya

Publications

This research focused on investigating a highly sustainable and efficient reinforced concrete structural member for future infrastructure by utilizing emerging high-performance materials. These materials include ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHP-FRC) and corrosion-resistant high-strength fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) bars. Four reduced scale UHP-FRC specimens were tested under large displacement reversals to prove the proposed new ductile-concrete strong-reinforcement (DCSR) design concept by fully utilizing these ultra-high-performance materials. Micro steel fibers were incorporated into three specimens and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers were blended into the fourth specimen. One specimen with ASTM A1035 MMFX high-strength steel rebars, one with high-strength glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) …

High Performance Mortar With 100% Recycled Aggregate Using Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles, Molly Schrager, Vito Francioso, Arjun Kadakia, Mirian Velay-Lizancos

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Concrete and mortar are materials commonly used in construction. Their main compounds are cement, aggregates (sand and gravel) and water. In an effort to increase the sustainability of these materials, the idea of using recycled aggregates from ground old concrete and using it to make mortar and concrete has gained more interest. It has two advantages: it reduces the need to mine for raw materials and lessens the amount of old and defective concrete that is typically put in landfills. But, the use of recycled concrete aggregate lowers the strength of mortars and concretes because the residual compounds in the …

The Effect Of Biocomposite Material In A Composite Structure Under Compression Loading, Benjamin Andrew Sweeney

Master's Theses

While composite structures exhibit exceptional strength and weight saving possibilities for engineering applications, sometimes their overall cost and/or material performance can limit their usage when compared to conventional structural materials. Meanwhile ‘biocomposites’, composite structures consisting of natural fibers (i.e. bamboo fibers), display higher cost efficiency and unique structural benefits such as ‘sustainability’. This analysis will determine if the integration of these two different types of composites are beneficial to the overall structure. Specifically, the structure will consist of a one internal bamboo veneer biocomposite ply; and two external carbon fiber weave composite plies surrounding the bamboo biocomposite. To acquire results …