Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Exploring The Role Of Perceived Range Anxiety In Adoption Behavior Of Plugin Electric Vehicles, Fatemeh Nazari, Abolfazl (Kouros) Mohammadian, Thomas Stephens

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A sustainable solution to negative externalities imposed by road transportation is replacing internal combustion vehicles with electric vehicles (EVs), especially plug-in EV (PEV) encompassing plugin hybrid EV (PHEV) and battery EV (BEV). However, EV market share is still low and is forecast to remain low and uncertain. This shows a research need for an in-depth understanding of EV adoption behavior with a focus on one of the main barriers to the mass EV adoption, which is the limited electric driving range. The present study extends the existing literature in two directions; First, the influence of the psychological aspect of driving …

Another Dangerous Fire Season Is Looming In The Western U.S., And The Drought-Stricken Region Is Headed For A Water Crisis, Mojtaba Sadegh, Amir Aghakouchak, John Abatzoglou

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Just about every indicator of drought is flashing red across the western U.S. after a dry winter and warm early spring. The snowpack is at less than half of normal in much of the region. Reservoirs are being drawn down, river levels are dropping and soils are drying out.

It’s only May, and states are already considering water use restrictions to make the supply last longer. California’s governor declared a drought emergency in 41 of 58 counties. In Utah, irrigation water providers are increasing fines for overuse. Some Idaho ranchers are talking about selling off livestock because rivers and reservoirs …

Pooling Data Improves Multimodel Idf Estimates Over Median-Based Idf Estimates: Analysis Over The Susquehanna And Florida, Abhishekh Kumar Srivastava, Richard Grotjahn, Paul Aaron Ullrich, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Traditional multimodel methods for estimating future changes in precipitation intensity, duration, and frequency (IDF) curves rely on mean or median of models’ IDF estimates. Such multimodel estimates are impaired by large estimation uncertainty, shadowing their efficacy in planning efforts. Here, assuming that each climate model is one representation of the underlying data generating process, i.e., the Earth system, we propose a novel extension of current methods through pooling model data: (i) evaluate performance of climate models in simulating the spatial and temporal variability of the observed annual maximum precipitation (AMP), (ii) bias-correct and pool historical and future AMP data of …

The Year The West Was Burning: How The 2020 Wildfire Season Got So Extreme, Mojtaba Sadegh, Ata Akbari Asanjan, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

More than 4 million acres of California went up in flames in 2020 – about 4% of the state’s land area and more than double its previous wildfire record. Five of the state’s six largest fires on record were burning this year.

In Colorado, the Pine Gulch fire broke the record for that state’s largest wildfire, only to be surpassed by two larger blazes, the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires.

Oregon saw one of the most destructive fire seasons in its recorded history, with more than 4,000 homes destroyed.

What caused the 2020 fire season to become so extreme?

Impacts Of Compaction Load And Procedure On Stress-Deformation Behaviors Of A Soil Geosynthetic Composite (Sgc) Mass—A Case Study, Meenwah Gui, Truc Phan, Thang Pham

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Fill compaction in the construction of Geosynthetic Reinforced Soil (GRS) mass is typically performed by operating a vibratory or roller compactor, which in turns imposed a compaction load in direction perpendicular to the wall face. The compaction process resulted in the development of the so-called compaction-induced stress (CIS), which may subsequently increase the stiffness and strength of the fill material. Compaction process is normally simulated using one of the following compaction procedures—(i) a uniformly distributed load acting on the top surface of each soil lift, (ii) a uniformly distributed load acting on the top and bottom surface of each soil …

South Texas Coastal Area Storm Surge Model Development And Improvement, Sara E. Davila, Cesar Davila Hernandez, Martin Flores, Jungseok Ho

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The intensification of climatic changes, mainly natural geophysical hazards like hurricanes, are of great interest to the South Texas region. Scientists and engineers must protect essential resources from coastal threats, such as storm surge. This study presents the development process and improvements of a hydrodynamic finite element model that covers the South Texas coast, specifically the Lower Laguna Madre, for the aid of local emergency management teams. Four historical tropical cyclone landfalls are evaluated and used as a means of verification of the hydrodynamic model simulation results. The parameters used to improve the accuracy of the model are the tidal …

A Comparison Of Three Types Of Permeable Pavements For Urban Runoff Mitigation In The Semi-Arid South Texas, U.S.A, Taufiqul Alam, Ahmed Mahmoud, Kim D. Jones, Juan Cesar Bezares-Cruz, Javier Guerrero

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines the hydrologic and environmental performance of three types of permeable pavement designs: Porous Concrete Pavement (PCP), Permeable Interlocking Concrete (PICP), and Interlocking Block Pavement with Gravel (IBPG) in the semi-arid South Texas. Outflow rate, storage, Normalized Volume Reduction (NVR), Normalized Load Reductions (NLR) of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), and Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD₅) were compared to results obtained from adjacent traditional pavements at different regional parking lots. A notable percentage of peak flow attenuation of approximately 31–100% was observed when permeable pavements were constructed and implemented. IBPG was capable to hold runoff from rainfall depths …

Winslamm Simulation Of Hydrologic Performance Of Permeable Pavements—A Case Study In The Semi-Arid Lower Rio Grande Valley Of South Texas, United States, Taufiqul Alam, Ahmed Mahmoud, Kim D. Jones, Juan Cesar Bezares-Cruz, Javier Guerrero

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

his study used the Source Loading and Management Model for Windows (WinSLAMM) to develop a set of calibrated hydrologic models for three types of regional permeable pavements—porous concrete pavement (PCP), permeable interlocking concrete pavement (PICP), and interlocking block pavement with gravel (IBPG). The objective was to assess the hydrologic performance of permeable pavements, including the runoff depth, peak discharge, percentage increment in runoff reduction of pavements as a function of rainfall depth, development area, and base aggregate porosity, respectively. The permeable pavements were monitored over a wide range of rainfall events in the semi-arid Lower Rio Grande Valley of South …

Incorporating Antecedent Soil Moisture Into Streamflow Forecasting, Abdoul Oubeidillah, Glenn Tootle, Thomas Piechota

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study incorporates antecedent (preceding) soil moisture into forecasting streamflow volumes within the North Platte River Basin, Colorado/Wyoming (USA). The incorporation of antecedent soil moisture accounts for infiltration and can improve streamflow predictions. Current Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) forecasting methods are replicated, and a comparison is drawn between current NRCS forecasts and proposed forecasting methods using antecedent soil moisture. Current predictors used by the NRCS in regression-based streamflow forecasting include precipitation, streamflow persistence (previous season streamflow volume) and snow water equivalent (SWE) from SNOTEL (snow telemetry) sites. Proposed methods utilize antecedent soil moisture as a predictor variable in addition …

Tree-Ring Reconstructions Of Streamflow For The Tennessee Valley, Sallyrose Anderson, Ross Ogle, Glenn Tootle, Abdoul Oubeidillah

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study reports the preliminary results from a statistical screening of tree-ring width records from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB), to evaluate the strength of the hydrological signal, in dendrochronological records from the Tennessee Valley. We used United States Geological Survey (USGS) streamflow data from 11 gages, within the Tennessee Valley, and regional tree-ring chronologies, to analyze the dendroclimatic potential of the region, and create seasonal flow reconstructions. Prescreening methods included correlation, date, and temporal stability analysis of predictors to ensure practical and reliable reconstructions. Seasonal correlation analysis revealed that large numbers of regional tree-ring chronologies were significantly correlated …

A Two-Dimensional Finite Element Model Of The Grain Boundary Based On Thermo-Mechanical Strain Gradient Plasticity, Yooseob Song, George Z. Voyiadjis

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work, a two-dimensional finite element model for the grain boundary flow rule is developed based on the thermo-mechanical gradient-enhanced plasticity theory. The proposed model is temperature-dependent. A special attention is given to physical and micromechanical nature of dislocation interactions in combination with thermal activation on stored and dissipated energy. Thermodynamic conjugate microforces are decomposed into energetic and dissipative components. Correspondingly, two different grain boundary material length scales are present in the proposed model. Finally, numerical examples are solved in order to explore characteristics of the proposed grain boundary flow rule.

Development Of Disaster Management In Turkey: From 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake To 2011 Van Earthquake, Mert Tolon, Kağan Cenk Mızrak

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The natural disasters that have occurred in Turkey are categorized as % 61 earthquakes, followed by landslides, floods, rock falls, fires and storms. Between the years of 1903 and 2000, there have been nearly 150 earthquakes in Turkey which led to damage and this is a challenge for Turkey. The management and plans of these natural disasters in Turkey were first developed in 1959. In 1999, with the magnitude of 7.4, The Kocaeli and Duzce earthquakes affected a region of Turkey that constitutes % 23 of the country’s population. After that, in 2000 necessary laws have been prepared and enacted. …

Accuracy Analysis Of Parallel Method Based On Non-Overlapping Domain Decomposition Method, Moonho Tak, Yooseob Song, Hye-Kwan Jeon, Taehyo Park

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, an accuracy analysis of parallel method based on non-overlapping domain decomposition method is carried out. In this approach, proposed by Tak et al.(2013), the decomposed subdomains do not overlap each other and the connection between adjacent subdomains is determined via simple connective finite element named interfacial element. This approach has two main advantages. The first is that a direct method such as gauss elimination is available even in a singular problem because the singular stiffness matrix from floating domain can be converted to invertible matrix by assembling the interfacial element. The second is that computational time and …