Civil Engineering Commons^™

Fragility Curves For Buildings In Hong Kong, Sung-Hei Luk, Ho-Fai Wong

Faculty of Science & Technology (THEi)

Fragility curves are the tools for evaluating the damage of structural or nonstructural components under different levels of ground excitation. It is also the necessary information for calculating the life-cycle cost of buildings during their design period. In this paper, development of fragility curves for buildings designed based on HK standard is presented. Two prototype models, which include three-storey and tenstorey reinforced concrete rigid frames, were considered. Incremental dynamic analysis was conducted under nine sets of past earthquake records with scaled peak ground accelerations. Maximum inter-storey drift ratio was selected as the damage indices and three performance levels were considered. …

Analysis Of Factors Influencing Return On Investment (Roi) For Building Information Modeling (Bim) Implementation, Tugce Kulaksiz

Wayne State University Dissertations

A research study was conducted to investigate and understand factors influencing Return on Investment of Building Information Modeling (BIM).

Research data was collected from 182 industry professionals (design firms, contractors and owners) using a survey instrument. The research data were evaluated by examining frequency distributions and running statistical analyses including an analysis of variance with post hoc tests and a multiple linear regression analysis. Furthermore, a simulation study was conducted to infer conclusions about the larger population from which the repeated samples were taken. The research findings revealed that the factors contributing to Return on Investment of BIM implementation were: …

The Resilient City: A Platform For Informed Decision-Making Process, Paul Niculescu-Mizil Gheorghe, Jarutpong Vasuthanasub, Adrian Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

As over half of the world’s inhabitants lives in metropolises, the rapid growth in urbanization has made cities becoming more and more exposed and vulnerable to a broad spectrum of threats and hazards. In order to respond to such difficulties, a concept of resilience is considered a significant component for the long-term planning and sustainable development of the cities. “Resilient City” is a new paradigm that challenges the idealistic principle of stability and resistance to change implicitly in sustainable development and success. However, building a resilient city requires a holistic approach, as well as the appropriate adoption of knowledge and …

Biomass Density Based Adjustment Of Lidar-Derived Digital Elevation Models: A Machine Learning Approach, Khalid Abdelwahab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Salt marshes are valued for providing protective and non-protective ecosystem services. Accurate digital elevation models (DEMs) in salt marshes are crucial for modeling storm surges and determining the initial DEM elevations for modelling marsh evolution. Due to high biomass density, lidar DEMs in coastal wetlands are seldom reliable. In an aim to reduce lidar-derived DEM error, several multilinear regression and random forest models were developed and tested to estimate biomass density in the salt marshes near Saint Marks Lighthouse in Crawfordville, Florida. Between summer of 2017 and spring of 2018, two field trips were conducted to acquire true elevation and …

Arterial-Level Real-Time Safety Evaluation In The Context Of Proactive Traffic Management, Jinghui Yuan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the context of pro-active traffic management, real-time safety evaluation is one of the most important components. Previous studies on real-time safety analysis mainly focused on freeways, seldom on arterials. With the advancement of sensing technologies and smart city initiative, more and more real-time traffic data sources are available on arterials, which enables us to evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials. However, there exist substantial differences between arterials and freeways in terms of traffic flow characteristics, data availability, and even crash mechanism. Therefore, this study aims to deeply evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials from multiple aspects by …

Assessing Pedestrian Safety Conditions On Campus, Morgan Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrian-related crashes are a significant safety issue in the United States and cause considerable amounts of deaths and economic cost. Pedestrian safety is an issue that must be uniquely evaluated in a college campus, where pedestrian volumes are dense. The objective of this research is to identify issues at specific locations around UCF and suggest solutions for improvement. To address this problem, a survey that identifies pedestrian safety issues and locations is distributed to UCF students and staff, and an evaluation of drivers reactions to pedestrian to vehicle (P2V) warning systems is studied through the use of a NADS MiniSim …

Probabilistic Spatio-Magnitude Sinkhole Hazard Analysis For East Central Flrodia, Yong Je Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Karst areas, sinkholes are a major geohazard that creates damage and economic loss to building and civil infrastructure. The main goal of the proposed study is to develop a probabilistic spatio-magnitude sinkhole susceptibility model that predicts the potential of sinkhole occurrence on a regional scale. The dissertation presents statistical techniques such as frequency ratio (FR) and logistic regression (LR), and a machine learning technique such as artificial neural network (ANN) to develop the sinkhole hazard models. The study area was limited to the East Central Floria (ECF) region. Seven hydrogeological factors were identified as key contributing factors to sinkhole …

Assessing The Safety And Operational Benefits Of Connected And Automated Vehicles: Application On Different Roadways, Weather, And Traffic Conditions, Md Sharikur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies have recently drawn an increasing attention from governments, vehicle manufacturers, and researchers. Connected vehicle (CV) technologies provide real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition (i.e., position, speed, acceleration) and the traffic management center's decisions. The CV technologies improve the safety by increasing driver situational awareness and reducing crashes through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Vehicle platooning with CV technologies is another key element of the future transportation systems which helps to simultaneously enhance traffic operations and safety. CV technologies can also further increase the efficiency and reliability of automated vehicles (AV) by collecting real-time …

Mechanical Study On Edge-Oxidized Graphene Oxide (Eogo) Reinforced Concrete, Mohammad Khawaji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is known that graphene oxide (GO) has superior mechanical properties and can enhance mechanical properties of cement composites. However, Hummer produced conventional GOs have been limited to small-scale specimens (e.g., cement paste and mortar) and applications to concrete have not been implemented due to their high cost and large volume of concrete. Edge-oxidized graphene oxide (EOGO) is a low-cost, carbon-based nanomaterial produced by a mechanochemical process with ball milling and a non-toxic oxidizing agent. The low cost (less than $50/kg) of EOGO enables its use in bulk-scale concrete materials/structures, which is a prerequisite for the field implementation. In this …

Enhanced Concrete Bridge Assessment Using Artificial Intelligence And Mixed Reality, Enes Karaaslan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional methods for visual assessment of civil infrastructures have certain limitations, such as subjectivity of the collected data, long inspection time, and high cost of labor. Although some new technologies (i.e. robotic techniques) that are currently in practice can collect objective, quantified data, the inspector's own expertise is still critical in many instances since these technologies are not designed to work interactively with human inspector. This study aims to create a smart, human-centered method that offers significant contributions to infrastructure inspection, maintenance, management practice, and safety for the bridge owners. By developing a smart Mixed Reality (MR) framework, which can …

Investigation Of Coastal Vegetation Dynamics And Persistence In Response To Hydrologic And Climatic Events Using Remote Sensing, Subrina Tahsin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal Wetlands (CW) provide numerous imperative functions and provide an economic base for human societies. Therefore, it is imperative to track and quantify both short and long-term changes in these systems. In this dissertation, CW dynamics related to hydro-meteorological signals were investigated using a series of LANDSAT-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data and hydro-meteorological time-series data in Apalachicola Bay, Florida, from 1984 to 2015. NDVI in forested wetlands exhibited more persistence compared to that for scrub and emergent wetlands. NDVI fluctuations generally lagged temperature by approximately three months, and water level by approximately two months. This analysis provided insight …

Influence Of Limit Equilibrium Methods In The Design Of Contiguous Cantilever Sheet Pile Walls Through Reliability-Based Analysis, Alvaro J. Mattos, Juan Camilo Viviescas, Juan Pablo Osorio

Conference papers

In geotechnical engineering the design of bored- pile walls is commonly performed in terms of the embedment length (D) defined according to the limit equilibrium methods (also known as balance methods) formulated by Krey, Blum, Rowe, Hansen and the empirical method of Look in sandy soils. The limit equilibrium methods are calculations associated with the shape of the earth pressures distributions in the shaft, earth pressures theories, geotechnical properties and safety factors, while the empirical criteria establish that the relationship between embedment and the free height (H) is of the order of D/H = 1.5. These design methods are complemented …

Image-Based Roadway Assessment Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Weilian Song

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Road crashes are one of the main causes of death in the United States. To reduce the number of accidents, roadway assessment programs take a proactive approach, collecting data and identifying high-risk roads before crashes occur. However, the cost of data acquisition and manual annotation has restricted the effect of these programs. In this thesis, we propose methods to automate the task of roadway safety assessment using deep learning. Specifically, we trained convolutional neural networks on publicly available roadway images to predict safety-related metrics: the star rating score and free-flow speed. Inference speeds for our methods are mere milliseconds, enabling …

Analysis Of The Pile Load Tests At The Us 68/Ky 80 Bridge Over Kentucky Lake, Edward Lawson

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Large diameter piles are widely used as foundations to support buildings, bridges, and other structures. As a result, it is critical for the field to have an optimized approach for quality control and efficiency purposes to measure the suggested number of load tests and the required measured capacities driven piles. In this thesis, an analysis of a load test program designed for proposed bridge replacements at Kentucky Lake is performed. It includes a detailed site exploration study with in-situ and laboratory testing. The pile load test program included monitoring of a steel H-pile and steel open ended pipe pile during …

Investigation Of Atmospheric Effects On Vapor Intrusion Processes Using Modelling Approaches, Elham Shirazi

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Most people in the United States (US) spend considerable amount of time indoors—about 90% of their time as compared to outdoors, which makes the US population vulnerable to adverse health effects of indoor air contaminants. Volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations are well-known to be higher in indoor air than outdoor air. One source of VOC concentrations in indoor air that has gained considerable attention in public health and environmental regulatory communities is vapor intrusion. Vapor intrusion is the process by which subsurface vapors enter indoor spaces from contaminated soil and groundwater. It has been documented to cause indoor air contamination …

Applied Fluid Mechanics Lab Manual, Habib Ahmari, Shah Md Imran Kabir

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

This lab manual provides students with the theory, practical applications, objectives, and laboratory procedure of ten experiments. The manual also includes educational videos showing how student should run each experiment and a workbook for organizing data collected in the lab and preparing result tables and charts.

E-Construction Technologies For Efficient Highway Construction Inspections, Dhaivat Patel

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Over recent years, organizations such as the Federal Highway Administration and Departments of Transportation across the United States have showed interest in automating highway construction processes. The addition of e-Construction and other advanced technologies can significantly improve the efficiency and safety of highway paving operations, specifically paving inspections. Activities such as collecting load tickets, tracking pavement lay-down temperatures, and monitoring roller movement are antiquated practices that DOT inspectors perform during paving operations. E-Ticketing, Paver Mounted Thermal Profiling, and Intelligent Compaction were proposed to automate paving inspections and were recently tested in two resurfacing pilot projects in the state of Kentucky. …

Basic Turbo Roundabouts As An Alternative To Conventional Double-Lane Roundabouts: Operational Performance Evaluation, Zuhair Elhassy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional roundabouts have been prevalent worldwide since the emergence of modern roundabouts in 1966. An innovative design of multilane roundabouts known as turbo roundabouts, however, has been recently introduced as an alternative to conventional multilane roundabouts. Due to several reasons, there has been no general consensus on the operational performance of turbo roundabouts throughout the world. Nationwide, turbo roundabouts have yet to be part of roadway systems, but there is an ongoing project expected to be finished in early 2020. Therefore, this dissertation aims to evaluate the operational performance of a widespread variant of turbo roundabouts, namely basic turbo roundabouts, …

Escherichia Coli Removal From Stormwater Using Steel Chips Filter, Peng Dai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Media filtration has received increasing attention as an effective technology that can facilitate the removal of particles and dissolved pollutions in the stormwater. However, most traditional media filtration systems are generally ineffective in removing bacteria, causing pollution of groundwater and receiving surface water. In this study, recycled steel chips were evaluated as low-cost filter materials for bacterial removal from stormwater. Laboratory column experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of steel chips particle size, flow rate, initial E.coli concentration, pH, natural organic matter (NOM), steady and intermittent flow on E.coli removal. The results showed that E.coli removal decreased from 99.4% …

Repairable Moment-Resisting Steel Buildings, Heath William Pederson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current seismic design codes ensure life safety for buildings, but structural members may significantly yield or even fail under strong earthquakes. A new design approach is to implement connections that localize the yielding and failure to fuses. A more sophisticated approach is to be able to replace the fuses after the event. The present study was carried out to develop repairable moment-resisting (MR) connections for steel buildings and to investigate their seismic performance through nonlinear finite element analyses (FEA). Two details were proposed using buckling restrained fuses (BRFs) and buckling restrained reinforcement (BRR). Test data was collected from the literature …