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Bs News September/October

Building Services Engineering

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Prediction Of Flood Hydrograph In Small River Catchments Using System Modelling Approach, Ahmed Nasr, Zeinab Bedri, Loreta Ramanauske

Conference papers

Floods remain to be one of the natural catastrophic disasters with serious adverse social and economic implications on individuals and communities all around the world. In Ireland, frequency of flood events have increased dramatically during the last forty years and is expected to continue to rise primarily due to changes in rainfall and temperature patterns as a result of the global climate change. Small river catchments are usually vulnerable to different types of flooding particularly those associated with “monster” rainfall events, which are characterised by short durations and high intensities. Therefore accurate prediction of flood hydrographs resulting from these rainfall …

Evaluation Of Undrained Shear Strength And Soil Classification From Cone Penetration Test, Md Imran Hossain

LSU Master's Theses

The in-situ cone and piezocone penetration tests (CPT, PCPT) has been widely used by the geotechnical engineering community for subsurface soil characterization and classification, and for the evaluation of many engineering soil properties, such as undrained shear strength (s_u), unit weight (γ), constrained modulus (M), coefficient of consolidation (c_v), and stress history (OCR). The objective of this research study was to estimate the undrained shear strength of clayey soil using CPT/PCPT data in addition to some soil boring log data. At the same time, soil classification charts/methods based …

Development Of Long-Term Aging Factor For Asphalt Mixtures’ Cracking Resistance, Yucheng Shi

LSU Master's Theses

To characterize the cracking resistance of asphalt mixtures, semi-circular bend (SCB) test has been developed and subsequently accepted as a routine test in mixture design in Louisiana. However, SCB test requires specimens to be aged for five days in laboratory, which makes it not implementable in quality control (QC)/quality assurance (QA).

The primary project objective was to develop an aging factor to transfer the unaged SCB Jc to the aged SCB Jc. Specific objectives were to: (1) investigate the effect of laboratory aging on asphalt mixtures’ cracking resistance and asphalt binders’ rheological and chemical properties, (2) develop an aging …

Introducing A New Cement Hydration And Microstructure Model, Niall Holmes, Anselm Griffin, Bernard Enright, Denis Keliher

Conference papers

This paper presents a new cement hydration model to predict the microstructure evolution of hydrating tricalcium silicate (C3S). The model is written in MATLAB and employs the continuum approach and integrated particle kinetic relationships to show the change in C3S and the growth of Calcium Silicate Hydrate (C-S-H) and Calcium Hydroxide (CH) in the pore space over time.

Cement hydration is a highly complex process. While hydration models should never completely remove experimental analysis, they are an aid to better understand cement hydration and microstructure development by providing a method to analyse a large number of pastes with different cementitious …

Modeling And Simulation Of Damage In The Brazilian Indirect Tension Test Using The Finite-Discrete Element Method, Jeremiah C. Leyba

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Brazilian indirect tension test is used to investigate possible correlations between progressive damage and associated permeability changes. The test offers ease of replicability with a damage behavior known to lead to fracture openings as a tool for interpreting the indirect tensile strength of concrete and rocks. This behavior can lend insight into the nature of tensile damage and fracture progression in association with changes in permeability. The nature of these brittle materials is known to exhibit rapid failures in the Brazilian indirect tension test and require a method to retard the progression of damage for the possibility of acquiring …

Safety Ramifications Of A Change In Pedestrian Crosswalk Law: A Case Study Of Oregon, Usa, Yue Ke, Konstantina Gkritza

Lyles School of Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Pedestrians are some of the most vulnerable road users as they are not protected by safety devices, and must also share the road with vehicles traveling at dangerous speeds, particularly during road crossings. In 2011, the state of Oregon changed their traffic laws to be more accommodating to pedestrians by giving right of way to pedestrians using a crosswalk, regardless if whether the crosswalk is marked or unmarked. This paper estimates a panel logit model to evaluate the efficacy of the law in preventing pedestrian fatalities. Pedestrian fatalities are shown to decrease over time, with smaller likelihood of a fatality …

Characterization Of Grain-Size Distribution, Thermal Conductivity, And Gas Diffusivity In Variably Saturated Binary Sand Mixtures, T.K.K. Chamindu Deepagoda, Kathleen Smits, J.R.R.N. Jayarathne, Benjamin M. Wallen, Timothy J. Clough

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

Characterization of differently textured porous materials, as well as different volumetric porous media mixtures, in relation to mass and heat transport is vital for many engineering and research applications. Functional relations describing physical (e.g., grain-size distribution, total porosity), thermal, and gas diffusion properties of porous media and mixtures are necessary to optimize the design of porous systems that involve heat and gas transport processes. However, only a limited number of studies provide characterization of soil physical, thermal, and gas diffusion properties and the functional relationships of these properties under varying soil water contents, especially for soil mixtures, complicating optimization efforts. …

Development Of Self-Healing Mechanisms For Asphalt Pavements, Max Abelardo Aguirre Deras

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Self-healing mechanisms, such as microcapsules or hollow-fibers, filled with an asphalt rejuvenator present an emerging technology that would enhance an asphalt mixture’s resistance to cracking damage caused by vehicular and environmental loading. The objectives of this study were to: (a) Evaluate the effects of asphalt rejuvenators on hot-mix asphalt mixtures in order to test its effects on the fundamental engineering properties of the mixtures at high and intermediate temperatures; (b) Develop a synthesis procedure for production of microcapsules and hollow-fibers containing an asphalt rejuvenator; (c) Evaluate the self-healing efficiency of double-walled microcapsules and hollow-fibers filled with an asphalt rejuvenator, through …

Evaluation Of Site Variability And Its Application In Design, Abu Hakim Muhammad Hasan Faisal

LSU Master's Theses

Geotechnical characterization has an important role in engineering geology as well as in implementation of any project. There are several variables and uncertainties involved in characterizing a project site. Four different sources of uncertainties represent the characterization of geotechnical variability, which include spatial variability, measurement error, statistical error and model bias. Spatial variability is expressed in terms of the mean, variance, and scale of fluctuation. Several statistical techniques such as the Gauge R & R, which includes X-Bar/R and ANOVA, and the Second Moment can be applied to compute site variability in terms of the coefficient of variations. Measurement error …

Concurrency Platforms For Real-Time And Cyber-Physical Systems, David Ferry

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Parallel processing is an important way to satisfy the increasingly demanding computational needs of modern real-time and cyber-physical systems, but existing parallel computing technologies primarily emphasize high-throughput and average-case performance metrics, which are largely unsuitable for direct application to real-time, safety-critical contexts. This work contrasts two concurrency platforms designed to achieve predictable worst case parallel performance for soft real-time workloads with millisecond periods and higher. One of these is then the basis for the CyberMech platform, which enables parallel real-time computing for a novel yet representative application called Real-Time Hybrid Simulation (RTHS). RTHS combines demanding parallel real-time computation with real-time …

Causal Loop Development Activity, Ali Mirchi

All ECSTATIC Materials

Students will work in groups to develop a causal loop diagram (CLD) to illustrate the structure and expected behavior of the fictional water short state of Nevizonato facilitate qualitative discussion of expected outcomes of a proposed water management strategy. This activity requires familiarity with systems thinking and system dynamics modeling. CLDs are introduced as a fundamental systems thinking tool for conceptual modeling.

Measuring Landscape Performance: Case Study Investigation, Hannah Michelle Lopresto, Brandon Zambrano, Catherine De Almeida

UCARE: Research Products

Participating in the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2018 Case Study Investigation has been an incredibly informative experience for our research team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We are eager to shine a spotlight on the landscape performance of two Great Plains projects: P Street Corridor, a revitalized downtown streetscape in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, a waterfront redevelopment in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Working on the post-occupancy study of both projects has been extremely beneficial in understanding how reclaiming underutilized sites can create high-performing landscapes. Both are public projects in urban settings with primary goals of transforming formerly unpleasant, …

Internet Traffic Forecasting Model Using Self Organizing Map And Support Vector Regression Method, Enrico Laoh, Fakhrul Agustriwan, Chyntia Megawati, Isti Surjandari

Makara Journal of Technology

Internet traffic forecasting is one of important aspect in order to fulfill the customer demand. So, the service quality of internet service provider (ISP) can be maintained at the good level. In this study self-organizing map (SOM) and support vector regression (SVR) algorithm are used as forecasting method. SOM is first used to decompose the whole historical data of traffic internet into clusters, while SVR is used to build a forecasting model in each cluster. This method is used to forecast ISPs traffic internet in Jakarta and surrounding areas. The result of this study shows that SOM-SVR method gives more …

Effects Of The Preheating Temperature On The Crystal Structure And Texture Of Martensitic Stainless Steel, Tri Hardi Priyanto, Rifai Muslih, Herry Mugirahardjo, Bharoto Bharoto, Andon Insani, Muzzakiy Muzzakiy

Makara Journal of Technology

Theoretically, the preheating temperature refers to the start martensite temperature (Ms), and the martensite transformation can be considered as the conservation of the invariant habit-plane in the lattice structure. The habit-plane is the interface plane between austenite and martensite as measured on a macroscopic scale. From the calculation, Ms = 252 °C. The martensite formation can be affected by temperature or stress treatment. In this experiment, temperature treatment was conducted. The sample was treated at 250 °C ± 10 °C. Before and after the pre-heat treatment, the sample was characterized using the neutron diffraction method. BATAN’s Texture Diffractometer (DN2) with …

Investigation Of Ship Hull Girder Strength With Grounding Damage, Muhammad Zubair Muis Alie, Ristiyanto Adiputra

Makara Journal of Technology

The objective of the present study is to investigate ship hull girder strength as a result of grounding damage upon longitudinal bending. A bulk carrier and tanker are analyzed and Smith’s Method is adopted and implemented in the analysis program. An efficient solution procedure is performed by assuming the cross-section remains plane and the vertical bending moment is applied to the cross section. As a fundamental case, the damage is simply created by removing the elements from the cross section. Welding residual stress, initial imperfections, and crack extensions are not considered. The grounding damage is made by two conditions, namely …

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 …

Determining The Optimal Traffic Opening Time Using Piezoelectric Sensors, Adlan Amran, Yen-Fang Su, Na Lu

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) requires a reliable method of determining the early age quality of concrete to improve traffic opening time. We propose to develop an in-situ method that enables an accurate, efficient, and non-destructive health monitoring of concrete using the electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique coupled with a piezoelectric sensor named Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT). The test was conducted by mounting a PZT sensor on mortar samples. The PZT sensor was then excited by a voltage to track the strengthening of samples. The data obtained from the EMI technique was refined using the Root Mean Square Deviation (RMSD) …

Real-Time Non-Contact Road Defect Detection Using Inexpensive Sensors, Zhao Xing Lim, Mohammad Jahanshahi, Tarutal Ghosh Mondal, Da Cheng, Shutao Wang, Mohammad K. Sweidan, Aanis Ahmad, Omar Hesham Abouhussein, Xi Chen

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Road defects such as potholes, humps, and road cracks have become one of the main concerns for road and traffic safety worldwide. Pavement defect detection is crucial to ensure road safety. However, current solutions to this problem are either too time-consuming or too expensive to be employed large-scale. We propose a novel approach which has the ability to autonomously detect potholes in real-time using cost-effective sensors. Inexpensive sensors are mounted on a vehicle and a deep learning algorithm is used to identify road defects. The detection system is paired with a GPS and positional sensors to map the location of …

Purdue Air Sense: A Methodology For Improving The Accuracy Of Ambient Aerosol Mass Concentration And Size Distribution Measurement With Low-Cost Optical Sensing Techniques, Rishabh Ramsisaria, Satya Sundar Patra, Brandon Emil Boor

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

There is a global lack of a means for monitoring air pollutant levels at a local level due to expensive and bulky instrument requirements. It is important to monitor toxic gas levels, as well as particulate matter levels, in the atmosphere to study their effects on human health and to further develop city- and community-level air pollution solutions. In this study, with the means of a Raspberry Pi, low-cost Alphasense Optical Particle Counter and gas sensors, and methodical calibration techniques, we built a portable 3-D printed module powered by clean electricity generated by an on-board Voltaic solar cell that measures …