Civil Engineering Commons^™

Numerical Modeling Of Concrete Flow In Drilled Shaft, Jesudoss Asirvatham Jeyaraj

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drilled shafts are cylindrical, cast-in-place concrete deep foundation elements. Their construction involves drilled excavation of soil or rock using large diameter augers, and placement of the necessary reinforcing steel in the excavation followed by concreting. Where a high water table is encountered, drilling slurry is used to support the excavation walls and concreting is tremie-placed. Even though the history of drilled shaft construction goes back to the 1950s, the occurrence of anomalies persists in the form of soil inclusions, reduction in shaft cross-sectional area and exposure of reinforcement. One of the main reasons for the anomalies is attributed to the …

Improving Early-Age Cracking Resilience And Durability Of Concrete Elements, Ananya Markandeya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Control of early-age cracking in concrete structures due to restrained deformation, thermal and/or autogenous, presents a major durability challenge for state highway agencies. This study details research conducted on improving the early-age cracking resilience of plain concrete and supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) blended concrete. Three specific areas, within concrete structural elements, with high incidence of early-age cracking are addressed:

• High early-age strength (HES) concrete mixtures used in slab-replacement of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCP)
• Use of metakaolin (MK) in bridge deck mixtures
• Use of slag blended concrete, at high cement replacement levels, in massive structural elements

Three cracking mitigation measures …

Enhancement Of Rainfall-Triggered Shallow Landslide Hazard Assessment At Regional And Site Scales Using Remote Sensing And Slope Stability Analysis Coupled With Infiltration Modeling, Thilanki Maneesha Dahigamuwa Rajaguru Mudiyanselage

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Landslides cause significant damage to property and human lives throughout the world. Rainfall is the most common triggering factor for the occurrence of landslides. This dissertation presents two novel methodologies for assessment of rainfall-triggered shallow landslide hazard. The first method focuses on using remotely sensed soil moisture and soil surface properties in developing a framework for real-time regional scale landslide hazard assessment while the second method is a deterministic approach to landslide hazard assessment of the specific sites identified during first assessment. In the latter approach, landslide inducing transient seepage in soil during rainfall and its effect on slope stability …

Toward Building Resilient, Sustainable, And Smart Infrastructure In The 21st Century, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

In recent years, as a result of significant climate change, stringent windstorms are becoming more frequent than before. Given the threat that windstorms bring to people and property, wind/structural engineering research is imperative to improve the resilience of existing and new infrastructure, for community safety and assets protection. The Windstorm Impact, Science and Engineering (WISE) research program at Louisiana State University (LSU) focuses on creating new knowledge applicable to the mitigation of existing and new infrastructure, to survive and perform optimally under natural hazards. To achieve our research goals, we address two imperious challenges: (i) characterization of realistic wind forces …

Axial Compressive Behavior Of Square Ice Filled Steel Tubular Stub Columns, Yanlei Wang, Guipeng Chen, Baolin Wan, Hao Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Concrete has many limitations in the building construction in cold areas. However, there is abundant ice in those regions. Therefore, using ice as a substitute for concrete has been explored by researchers. Inspired by the idea of square concrete filled steel tube (CFT), a new column form termed square ice filled steel tubular (IFT) column is proposed in this study. It consists of a square outer steel tube with the inner space filled with ice. A total of eighteen stub columns were made and tested under axial compression, including three circular plain ice specimens, nine square IFT specimens and six …

A Theoretical And Practical Analysis Of The Effect Of Drilling Fluid On Rebar Bond Strength, Kelly Costello

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drilled shafts are large cylindrical cast-in-place concrete structural elements that can be favored due to cost-effectiveness. These elements however, require strict quality control during construction to ensure a stable excavation. Drilling fluid is often used in construction to attain this stability. Drilling fluid, or slurry, can be ground water or salt water, but is typically made from a mixture of water and mineral or polymer powder to form a viscous fluid slightly more dense than ground water. During concreting, the drilling fluid is displaced by the heavier concrete, which is tremie placed at the base of the excavation from the …

Sub-Pilot-Scale Autocatalytic Pyrolysis Of Wastewater Biosolids For Enhanced Energy Recovery, Zhongzhe Liu, Simcha L. Singer, Daniel Zitomer, Patrick J. Mcnamara

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Improving onsite energy generation and recovering value-added products are common goals for sustainable used water reclamation. A new process called autocatalytic pyrolysis was developed at bench scale in our previous work by using biochar produced from the biosolids pyrolysis process itself as the catalyst to enhance energy recovery from wastewater biosolids. The large-scale investigation of this process was used to increase the technical readiness level. A sub-pilot-scale catalytic pyrolytic system was constructed for this scaled-up study. The effects of configuration changes in both pyrolytic and catalytic reactors were investigated as well as the effect of vapor-catalyst contact types (i.e., downstream, …

An Analytical Solution For Attainment Of Field Capacity, Ali Aldrees

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Field Capacity (FC) is a key parameter to quantify in agricultural engineering, irrigation controlling, and soil physics studies. For instance, irrigation studies focuses on determining the optimal amount of water needed by plants to grow following an irrigation system and therefore relies on determining FC. Likewise, the value of FC is a good indicator of soil textures, structures and pore size distributions. For example, loamy soils have a wider distribution of pores leading to high FC values. FC depends on multiple physically-grounded variables which include matric potential value (ψ_FC ), water content at FC (θ_FC ), specific drainage time to …

Effects Of Moving Bottlenecks On Traffic Operations On Four-Lane Level Freeway Segments, Jianan Zhou

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) was developed to provide capacity and level of service analyses for roadway facilities. Trucks may adversely affect the quality of traffic flow on a roadway. In HCM, the passenger car equivalent (PCE) of a truck, which represents the number of passenger cars that have an equivalent effect on traffic flow, is used to account for the impacts of trucks. However, in the past ten years rural freeways in the western rural U.S. have experienced conditions that lie outside the standard HCM conditions. Also, the current HCM truck PCEs may not be appropriate for the western …

A Hybrid Clustering-Fusion Methodology For Land Subsidence Estimation, Narges Taravatrooy, Mohammad Reza Nikoo, Mojtaba Sadegh, Mohammad Parvinnia

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A hybrid clustering-fusion methodology is developed in this study that employs Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimization method, k-means method, and several soft computing (SC) models to better estimate land subsidence. Estimation of land subsidence is important in planning and management of groundwater resources to prevent associated catastrophic damages. Methods such as the Persistent Scatterer Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PS-InSAR) can be used to estimate the subsidence rate, but PS-InSAR does not offer the required efficiency and accuracy in noisy pixels (obtained from remote sensing). Alternatively, a fusion-based methodology can be used to estimate subsidence rate, which offers a superior accuracy as …

Effect Of Geogrid Reinforcement On Railroad Ballast Performance Evaluated Through Triaxial Testing And Discrete Element Modeling, Yu Qian, Erol Tutumluer, Debakanta Mishra, Hasan Kazmee

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Geogrids have been found to effectively improve the performance of unbound aggregate layers in transportation applications by providing confinement and arresting movement through interlock between individual aggregate particles and their apertures. Geogrid reinforcement offers an effective remedial measure when railroad track structures are susceptible to track geometry defects resulting from excessive movement and particle reorientation within the ballast layer. This paper presents an ongoing research study at the University of Illinois aimed at quantifying the effects of geogrid reinforcement on the shear strength and permanent deformation behavior of railroad ballast. Geogrids with triangular, rectangular, and square apertures were tested in …

Modeling Socio-Economic Determinants Of Traffic Fatalities, Amin Azimian, Deogratias Eustace

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

Over several decades, traffic growth has caused an increased number of traffic crashes, which are associated with economic losses and human sufferings. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [1] in 2016 there were a total of 34,247 fatal traffic crashes in the United States that resulted into 37,133 fatalities. Risk factors relating to the occurrence of fatal and injury severity of motor vehicle crashes have been extensively studied. Most studies [2-7] that have attempted to model the occurrences of traffic crashes and fatalities have been mainly confined to factors related to driver characteristics, roadway geometry characteristics, traffic characteristics, …

Bs News November/December

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Self-Healing Microcapsules As Concrete Aggregates For Corrosion Inhibition In Reinforced Concrete, Homero Castaneda, Marwa Hassan, Miladin Radovic, Jose Milla

Publications

Reinforced Concrete (RC) structures are vital to the US’s civil infrastructure for their strength and versatility. Unfortunately, RC elements deteriorate rapidly when exposed to corrosive environments. One possible solution is to extend the life of RC elements and systems using microencapsulated corrosion inhibitors to reduce the rebar corrosion rate. The capsules house an anodic corrosion inhibitor agent including calcium nitrate (CN) and triethanolamine (TEA). The integration of such microencapsulated materials will enhance the durability and extend the useful life by controlling the corrosion precursors and the corrosion process during damage evolution. Therefore, this work aims to develop and characterize the …

Development, Training, Education, And Implementation Of Low-Cost Sensing Technologies For Bridge Structural Health Monitoring (Shm), Fernando Moreu, Chris Lippitt, Dilendra Maharjan, Marlon Aguero, Roya Nasimi

Publications

Transportation infrastructure needs continuous monitoring. However, traditional inspections cost money and are conducted visually. New technologies for bridge monitoring are expensive and complex. This project involved developing cost-effective sensor technologies that can be applied towards the maintenance of railroad bridges by recording reference-free transverse displacement. More specifically, this project developed new applications of new technologies (Arduino, wireless smart sensors, drones, Hololens) and promoted workforce development with an emphasis on outreach of high-school students. This project was carried out in three main phases: (1) development and validation of technologies, (2) education and outreach to students, and (3) outreach to industry consisting …

Removal Of Antibiotic Resistance Genes In An Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Treating Primary Clarifier Effluent At 20 °C, Anthony D. Kappell, Lee K. Kimbell, Matthew Seib, Daniel Elliott Carey, Melinda J. Choi, Tino Kalayil, Masanori Fujimoto, Daniel Zitomer, Patrick J. Mcnamara

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBR) play a key role in future plans for sustainable wastewater treatment and resource recovery because they have no energy-intensive oxygen transfer requirements and can produce biomethane for renewable energy. Recent research results show that they can meet relatively stringent discharge limits with respect to BOD₅ and TSS when treating municipal wastewater primary effluent. Sustainable used water recovery plans should also consider removal of unregulated pollutants. Antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) represent an important emerging contaminant due to public health concerns surrounding the spread of infections resistant to common antibiotics. Conventional activated sludge processes have demonstrated mixed …

Sustainability-Based Long-Term Management Of Bridges Under Multi-Hazard Exposure, Mohamed Soliman

Publications

Bridges are under deterioration due to various mechanical and environmental stressors. Hydraulic-related hazards (e.g., flood and scour), aggressive environmental conditions, and seismic events (e.g., earthquake) are recognized as the most significant threats to the safety of bridges. In traditional risk assessment methods for structures susceptible to damage due to floods and other natural hazards (e.g., corrosion and seismic events), future hazard predictions are conducted using historic return periods and climate records. However, recent increase in flood intensity in central-southern states indicate that future hazard occurrence rate may not necessarily follow past trends. Accordingly, current design, assessment, and management methodologies should …

Statistical Investigation Of Road And Railway Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety, Amirfarrokh Iranitalab

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat) in the United States (U.S.) constituted 22.8% of the total tonnage transported in 2012 with an estimated value of more than 2.3 billion dollars. As such, hazmat transportation is a significant economic activity in the U.S. However, hazmat transportation exposes people and environment to the infrequent but potentially severe consequences of incidents resulting in hazmat release. Trucks and trains carried 63.7% of the hazmat in the U.S. in 2012 and are the major foci of this dissertation. The main research objectives were 1) identification and quantification of the effects of different factors on occurrence and …

Effect Of Swine Manure Pit Additives And Facility Disinfectants On The Fate Of Antibiotics And Manure Composition During Simulated Swine Manure Slurry Storage, Jon Duerschner

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis investigates the effect of time and of swine manure slurry treatment on the physical properties, nutrient content, and the concentrations of antibiotics chlortetracycline, lincomycin, and tiamulin in simulated storage of swine manure. In one experiment the slurry was treated with six additive products. In a second experiment a set of four disinfectant products were used. Control consisted of unamended slurry. Manure was stored in 60 liter stainless steel bioreactors to simulate deep pit storage and was sampled 7 times over a 40 day incubation.

From an ANOVA of the results, it was concluded that evaporation may be contributing …

Experimental And Numerical Study Of Evaporation From Wavy Surfaces By Coupling Free Flow And Porous Media Flow, Bo Gao, Hossein Davarzani, Rainer Helmig, Kathleen M. Smits

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

The macroscale roughness of the soil surface has significant influences on the mass/energy interactions between the subsurface and the atmosphere during evaporation. However, most previous works only consider evaporation behavior from flat surfaces. Based on experimental and numerical approaches, the goal of this work is to provide a framework for the understanding of the mechanisms of evaporation from irregular soil surfaces at representative elementary volume scale. A coupling free flow-porous media flow model was developed to describe evaporation under nonisothermal conditions. For simplicity, sinusoidal-type wavy surfaces were considered. To validate this modeling approach, an experiment using an open-ended wind tunnel …