Architectural Engineering Commons^™

Monotonic Behavior Of Mississippi River Valley Silt In Triaxial Compression, Shuying Wang, Ronaldo Luna

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The static behavior of Mississippi River Valley silt was characterized using triaxial compression testing. Silt specimens, especially over consolidated ones, showed dilation behavior. There was no unique critical state among specimens with different over consolidation ratios (OCRs). with OCRs of 1, 2, and 8, the specimens exhibited normal behavior and dilated more as effective consolidation pressure dropped. However, for an OCR of 4, the specimens showed opposite behavior and dilated more as effective consolidation pressure rose. the friction angle of the silt was computed on the basis of several failure criteria, and the limiting strain was found to be the …

The Assessment Of High Dynamic Range Luminance Measurements With Led Lighting, Yulia I. Tyukhova

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research investigates whether a High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDRI) technique can accurately capture luminance values of a single LED chip. Previous studies show that a digital camera with exposure capability can be used as a luminance mapping tool in a wide range of luminance values with an accuracy of 10%. Previous work has also demonstrated the ability of HDRI to capture a rapidly-changing lighting environment with the sun. However these publications don’t investigate HDRI’s ability to capture a bright light source with a narrow light distribution (LED lighting).

Some of the existing concerns in LED technology today include low …

A Comparative Study Of Three Feedback Devices For Residential Real-Time Energy Monitoring, Mahmoud Alahmad, Patrick G. Wheeler, Joshua Eiden, Adam Brumbaugh

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Residential energy consumption accounts for 21% of the total electricity use in the United States. Unfortunately, research indicates that almost 41% of this power is wasted. Changing the way that consumers use energy may be important in reducing home energy consumption. This paper looks at whether the implementation of certain real-time energy monitors has an impact on the residential rate of energy consumption in a metropolitan area with relatively low electricity rates. In the following case study, 151 Omaha residences were equipped with two variants of the Aztech In-Home Display (Aztech) as well as the Blue Line Power Cost Monitor …

A Numerical Investigation Of Two Phase Solar-Collector Pipe, Seyyed Hashem Abedini

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the United States, major portions of the annual electrical and primary energy are consumed for buildings. To help reduce the energy consumption of non-renewable energy sources, this study investigates a new technology for harvesting solar energy using a boiling-condensing cycle with water in a solar collector. The fluid circulation is under natural forced convection. A solar collector is made of a black lacquer copper with 2 meters in length is used. The design of the system is presented to simulate heat transfer rate in a cold climate an average daily solar irradiation of 4.5kWh/m²/day, e.g. for Omaha …

Factors Influencing Crack-Induced Tensile Strength Of Compacted Soil, Tae Hyung Kim, Tae Hoon Kim, Gi Chun Kang, Louis Ge

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Mode I (tensile) fracture is the most commonly observed failure in Geostructure's resulting from cracks in soil. Direct or indirect tensile tests have been used to evaluate the tensile strength of geomaterials. in this paper, the unconfined penetration device and experimental procedure were modified to reduce measurement errors. It was then used to determine the tensile strength of compacted soil. Factors influencing the tensile strength of the compacted soil, including the plasticity index, rate of loading, and size of specimen were discussed in detail, as well as its reliability. Experimental results indicated that the modified, unconfined penetration technique is sufficiently …

Time-Weighted Average Spme Analysis For In Planta Determination Of Cvocs, Emily M. Sheehan, Matt A. Limmer, Philipp Mayer, Ulrich Gosewinkel Karlson, Joel Gerard Burken

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Potential of Phytoscreening for Plume Delineation at Contaminated Sites Has Promoted Interest in Innovative, Sensitive Contaminant Sampling Techniques. Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME) Methods Have Been Developed, Offering Quick, Undemanding, Noninvasive Sampling Without the Use of Solvents. in This Study, Time-Weighted Average SPME (TWA-SPME) Sampling Was Evaluated for in Planta Quantification of Chlorinated Solvents. TWA-SPME Was Found to Have Increased Sensitivity over Headspace and Equilibrium SPME Sampling. using a Variety of Chlorinated Solvents and a Polydimethylsiloxane/carboxen (PDMS/CAR) SPME Fiber, Most Compounds Exhibited Near Linear or Linear Uptake over the Sampling Period. Smaller, Less Hydrophobic Compounds Exhibited More Nonlinearity Than Larger, More …

Revisions To Tilt-Up Concrete Building Design: The Backstory Behind Changes Encompassed In 2009 International Building Code, John W. Lawson

Architectural Engineering

The 2009 International Building Code (IBC) has in its scope some significant revisions that greatly affect the design of tilt-up concrete buildings, but to the lay engineer it appears that some of these provisions are a step backwards. With the IBC’s referencing standards including ACI 318-08 (concrete) and the 2008 NDS SDPWS (timber), these documents have significant changes that become effective with the adoption of the IBC. We as engineers expect building codes to advance the state of the art with each successive edition. The 2009 International Building Code (IBC) and the Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete (ACI 318-08) …

Quantifying The Life Cycle Benefits Of Performance-Based Design In Sustainable Design, David Isaac Carmona

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

Quantifying the Life Cycle Benefits of Performance-Based Design in Sustainable Design

David Carmona

For this thesis, a method is developed and tested for use with performance based design to quantify the sustainable and financial benefits of designing buildings to a structural performance level higher than Life-Safety. This paper starts to answer the question, “which would be a better investment: build structures to a performance level of Immediate Occupancy (IO) with the likelihood of less damage and downtime after an earthquake or continue to build to the building code’s implied minimum performance level of Life-Safety (LS)?”

An ASCE 7-05 designed …

Finite-Element Limit Analysis Of The Tucker High School Gymnasium Roof Failure, Peter T. Laursen, Edmond P. Saliklis

Architectural Engineering

The Randolph Tucker High School gymnasium roof failure of 1970 has received much scholarly attention. This study will provide a conclusion to a large body of previously published works by means of limit state analysis of the roof failure using state of the art parametric finite-element modeling. Parametric modeling within a general purpose finite-element analysis program allows for extremely rapid changes to the model because key terms are objects or parameters that can be adjusted internally by the program, rather than laboriously entered by the user. The failure of the roof was investigated by means of a limit state analysis, …

The Bridge Newsletter Spring 2012, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

The Bridge Newsletter

-Light-weight foam could cushion expensive bridge repairs
-New Chancellor
-The house of the future today
-High-tech approach to project management

Spectral Amplification Of Seismic Motion Travelling Through Natural Sand Deposits, Pradipta Chakrabortty, Radu Popescu

Architectural Engineering

Guidelines for seismic spectral amplification are provided in current building codes based on soil strength/stiffness by means of seismic site class. However, current codes do not make a difference between fully saturated and unsaturated soil deposits and do not account for effects of soil heterogeneity on seismic amplification. This study investigates the effect of natural small scale soil heterogeneity and degree of saturation on spectral amplification by means of transient nonlinear finite element analyses. Only cohesionless soil (sand) is considered in this study. The effects of presence of a structure are also studied for soils with two different relative densities. …

From The Personal To The Communal - Support For An Evolutionary Urban System, Noel Brady

Conference papers

A short discussion towards a model for the future of urban and interurban development. From the personal tot he communal argues for a futurist city that is an organic physiological time filled environment.

Ua61/3 Wku Nursing & Physical Therapy - The Medical Center - Wku Health Sciences Complex, Wku Health & Human Services

WKU Administration Documents

Fundraising brochure regarding The Medical Center – WKU Health Sciences Complex constructed from 2012 through 2014. Features architectural renderings of each floor.

Topological Theory In Bioconstructivism, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

In the essay “Landscapes of Change: Boccioni’s Stati d’animo as a General Theory of Models,” in Assemblage 19, 1992, Sanford Kwinter proposed a number of theoretical models which could be applied to computer-generated forms in Bioconstructivism. These included topological theory, epigenesis, the epigenetic landscape, morphogenesis, catastrophe and catastrophe theory. Topological theory entails transformational events or deformations in nature which introduce discontinuities into the evolution of a system. Epigenesis entails the generation of smooth landscapes, in waves or the surface of the earth, for example, formed by complex underlying topological interactions. The epigenetic landscape is the smooth forms of relief which …

A Directionally Tunable But Frequency-Invariant Beamformer On An Acoustic Velocity-Sensor Triad To Enhance Speech Perception, Yue Ivan Wu, Kainam Thomas Wong, Xin Yuan, Siu-Kit Lau, Shiu-Keung Tang

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Herein investigated are computationally simple microphone-array beamformers that are independent of the frequency-spectra of all signals, all interference, and all noises. These beamformers allow the listener to tune the desired azimuth-elevation “look direction.” No prior information is needed of the interference. These beamformers deploy a physically compact triad of three collocated but orthogonally oriented velocity sensors. These proposed schemes’ efficacy is verified by a jury test, using simulated data constructed with Mandarin Chinese (a.k.a. Putonghua) speech samples. For example, a desired speech signal, originally at a very adverse signal-to-interference-and-noise power ratio (SINR) of -30 dB, may be processed to become …

Application Of Drum-Buffer-Rope Methodology In Scheduling Of Healthcare System, Arefeh Mohammadi, Emmanuel S. Eneyo

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Theory of constraints (TOC) is a management philosophy that seeks to increase throughput (efficiency or performance) of the system by identifying those processes that are constraining the system bottlenecks. There have been very few profound studies of TOC in health care systems. In order to fill this gap, this study was conducted to determine how healthcare systems are utilizing components of TOC to schedule operations and what results are being obtained. This is done by using a patient flow model for a radiotherapy section of a hospital. The drum-buffer-rope (DBR) was used as the methodology for scheduling this flow. Successful …

Teaching Sustainable Design Using Bim And Project-Based Energy Simulations, Zhigang Shen, Wayne Jensen, Tim Wentz, Bruce Fischer

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

The cross-disciplinary nature of energy-efficient building design has created many challenges for architecture, engineering and construction instructors. One of the technical challenges in teaching sustainable building design is enabling students to quantitatively understand how different building designs affect a building’s energy performance. Concept based instructional methods fall short in evaluating the impact of different design choices on a buildings’ energy consumption. Building Information Modeling (BIM) with energy performance software provides a feasible tool to evaluate building design parameters. One notable advantage of this tool is its ability to couple 3D visualization of the structure with energy performance analysis without requiring …

Seismic Design Of Timber Panelized Roof Structures, John W. Lawson

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

An Adaptive Utility Interactive Photovoltaic System Based On A Flexible Switch Matrix To Optimize Performance In Real-Time, Mahmoud Alahmad, Mohamed Amer Chaaban, Siu Kit Lau, Jonathan Shi, Jill Neal

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Reconfigurable architectures are of great interest to system designers to improve the system’s operation and efficiency. In this paper, we propose an adaptive utility interactive photovoltaic (PV) system based on a novel Flexible Switch array Matrix topology. This proposed system maximizes the generated power in real-time in response to operational conditions such as shading, soiling, mismatches, and module failure among others. The proposed system is a compromise in the utilization of power conditioning equipment to maximize energy capture and system efficiency. Simulation results demonstrate an average 13% improvement in efficiency when compared with the central inverter topology performance. A prototype …

Effects Of Roof Pitch On Air Flow And Heating Load Of Sealed And Vented Attics For Gable-Roof Residential Buildings, Shimin Wang, Zhigang Shen

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Pitch value is an important consideration in residential gable roof design and construction. However, how roof pitch, coupled with air flows in attic space, affects the energy performance of building attics has been barely investigated. In this paper, a 2D unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is employed to investigate the effects of roof pitch on air flow and heating load of both sealed and vented attics for gable-roof residential buildings. The simulation results show that air flow in the sealed attics is steady and asymmetric, while that in the vented attics is a combination of an essentially symmetric base …