Structural Engineering Commons^™

Elevation-Distributed Multistage Reverse Osmosis Desalination With Seawater Pumped Storage, Hani E. Elsayed-Ali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A seawater reverse osmosis (RO) plant layout based on multistage RO with stages located at different elevations above sea level is described. The plant uses the weight of a seawater column from pumped storage as head pressure for RO (gravity-driven multistage RO) or to supplement high-pressure pumps used in RO (gravity-assisted multistage RO). The use of gravitational force reduces the specific energy for RO compared to using high-pressure pumps. By locating the RO stages at different elevations based on demand sites, the total specific energy consumption for RO and permeate transport to different elevations above sea level is reduced from …

Frp Pedestrian Bridges, Joseph Ryan Virga

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Advanced fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are being used as mainstream structural materials to build complex infrastructure systems. Such application of FRP composites can be attributed to their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios, corrosion resistance, higher energy absorption, durability, and competitive life-cycle costs. FRP composites are increasingly being considered as suitable alternative structural materials to traditional construction materials such as timber, concrete, and steel.

In this work, detailed experimental investigation has been carried out on different types of glass FRP composite pedestrian bridges with FRP and/or timber deck. Four full-scale FRP pedestrian bridges, including 70`×8.5’ and 70’×10’ single-span bridges, a 16’×8’ …

Implementation Of Ground Penetrating Radar (Gpr) And Complementary Non-Destructive Testing On Concrete Structures, Macy Spears

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzes the application and practicality of different non-destructive testing (NDT) methods for the inspection of reinforced concrete. There are two studies discussed in this paper. The first one is a laboratory investigation, utilizing ground penetrating radar (GPR) on concrete slabs that consisted of simulated defects to mimic those found in real concrete structures. This served as a preliminary experiment to verify the GPR data with the design of the slabs. The following study describes a field investigation on an old bridge deck, which involved multiple testing methods. The techniques used were GPR, impact echo (IE), ultrasonic pulse echo …

An Investigation Into Aluminum’S Torsional Behavior Of Circular, Rectangular, And Square Cross-Sections, Marly Mcclintock

Honors Theses

The Specifications for Aluminum Structures (2020) provides the standards that structural engineers follow for aluminum design. Included in these specifications are limit state equations that use strength properties to calculate a member’s initial yield, full yield, and rupture values. One limit state that the standards currently neglect is the torsional failure of solid bars. Torsion is the act of rotation caused by a twisting force, otherwise known as torque. Future installments of the specifications hope to include torsional yielding and rupture equations, so this study investigates the validity of these proposed equations.

Two different aluminum alloys were investigated for this …

Strengthening Of Damaged Structural Members With External Frp, Krishna Tulasi Gadde

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are excellent alternatives to traditional materials for civil infrastructure. Several researchers have worked on the application of FRP composites for construction, repair, and rehabilitation of structures. This research aims at evaluating the use of carbon, glass, basalt, and hybrid FRPs with epoxy and polyurethane resin systems for rehabilitation of damaged structural components. Following evaluations were carried out in this research: (i) tension testing of FRP coupons, (ii) compression testing of concrete cylinders with and without damaged sections/FRP reinforcements, (iii) flexural testing of external-FRP reinforced RC beams with and without damages, (iv) pull-off tests on FRP …

Comparison Between Different Codes In Design Cold-Formed Steel Lipped Channel Section Subjected To Axial Load Or Bending Moment, Samar El-Sayed Ibrahim Atya, Ahmed Hussain Ali Abdelrahman, Fikry Abdo Salem, Nabil Sayed Mahmoud, Mohamed Ghannam

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This paper presents a comparative analysis between Eurocode3 (EC3), the North American Specification (AISI), and the Egyptian Code of Practice (ECP-205) to design Cold-Formed Steel (CFS) compression and flexural members with channel profiles. The research recognizes similarities and variations in strength measures to facilitate the learning process in the design codes, as well as the expressions and limits provided in the ECP, EC3, and AISI design codes. A computer program was designed to improve the speed of the calculation process. The software was created utilizing the C+ programming language and was programmed to calculate the axial load and bending moment …

Performance And Durability Assessment Of Concrete Bridge Deck Sealants, Bipin Adhikari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Electronic Waste As Synthetic Aggregate For Portland Cement Concrete, Md Shafaul Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lightweight concrete has grown in popularity in the building industry in recent years. Due to its environmental and economic benefits, the construction sector favors using lightweight concrete in applications allowed by the technical specifications. On the other hand, electronics waste (e-waste) is the world’s most rapidly growing waste problem. Given the scale and the volume of global concrete construction, incorporating e-waste as a lightweight concrete construction material can potentially reduce sending electronic waste to landfills, which is an environmental benefit. Additionally, it will help with saving the consumption of virgin aggregates. This study was undertaken to determine the feasibility of …

Analyzing Ground Motion Records With Cvi Fuzzy Art, Dustin Tanksley, Xinzhe Yuan, Genda Chen, Donald C. Wunsch

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper explores using Cluster Validity Indices Fuzzy Adaptative Resonance Theory (CVI Fuzzy ART) to cluster ground motion records (GMRs). Clustering the features extracted from a supervised network trained for predicting the structure damage results in less overfitting from the trained network. Using Cluster Validity Indices (CVIs) to evaluate the clustering gives feedback to how well the data is being classified, allowing further separation of the data. By using CVI Fuzzy ART in combination with features extracted from a trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), we were able to form additional clusters in the data. Within the primary clusters, accuracy was …

Nondestructive Evaluation Of Structural Defects In Concrete Slabs, Ehsanul Kabir

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Nondestructive testing (NDT) is a reliable method for determining the structural integrity of new and old construction and understanding the condition of structural defects. It is widely acknowledged that the interpretation of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) has a significant impact on the reliability and consistency of this technology. However, NDT data acquisition remains subjective and heavily dependent on the operator’s knowledge and expertise. As a result, there are still issues to be resolved regarding the imaging and diagnostic procedures for NDT-based concrete inspection. NDT methods such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), and impact-echo (IE), have been extensively used to inspect concrete …

Inspire Newsletter Fall 2023, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Hdd Dataset: Optimising Retrofitted Insulation For Irish Residential Building Walls, Rakshit D. Muddu, Aimee Byrne, Anthony James Robinson

Datasets

In this study, a thermal-economic analysis was conducted to determine the optimum insulation thickness of retrofitted insulation walls in different regions in Ireland. This was based on the Heating Degree Day method (HDD). This dataset contains optimum insulation thickness, payback period, cost savings and carbon emission for all 25 counties in the Republic of Ireland

Deep Reinforcement Learning For Approximate Policy Iteration: Convergence Analysis And A Post-Earthquake Disaster Response Case Study, Abhijit Gosavi, L. (Lesley) H. Sneed, L. A. Spearing

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Approximate Policy Iteration (API) is a Class of Reinforcement Learning (RL) Algorithms that Seek to Solve the Long-Run Discounted Reward Markov Decision Process (MDP), Via the Policy Iteration Paradigm, Without Learning the Transition Model in the Underlying Bellman Equation. Unfortunately, These Algorithms Suffer from a Defect Known as Chattering in Which the Solution (Policy) Delivered in Each Iteration of the Algorithm Oscillates between Improved and Worsened Policies, Leading to Sub-Optimal Behavior. Two Causes for This that Have Been Traced to the Crucial Policy Improvement Step Are: (I) the Inaccuracies in the Policy Improvement Function and (Ii) the Exploration/exploitation Tradeoff Integral …

Evaluations Of Frp Composite Coupons Under Impact And Puncture, Lekhnath Bhandari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Evaluations of FRP Composite Coupons Under Impact and Puncture

Lekhnath Bhandari

Railroad tank cars are the main mode of transportation for carrying flammable liquids and other hazardous materials, in any mode of ground transportation system. These tank cars, if punctured during derailments may explode releasing large amounts of hazardous materials and posing serious threats to human life and leading to economic losses. To minimize such catastrophes, in 2015, United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) proposed to improve the thermal and puncture performances of these tank cars and introduced two new design specifications: DOT-117 and DOT-117R. Tank cars with 9/16 inches …

A Deep Learning-Informed Design Scheme For Shear Friction At Concrete-To-Concrete Interface: Recommendations For Inclusion In Aashto Lrfd Guidelines, Tarutal Ghosh Mondal, Nikkolas Edgmond, Lesley Sneed, Genda Chen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Recent advancements in construction technology have led to high-strength concrete and steel. However, these developments have depreciated the accuracy of the design equations in current provisions, which were based on normal-grade materials. To fill such a research gap, this study presents a novel deep learning-based computation scheme that can replace the current design provisions by virtue of its superior accuracy and reliability. The proposed approach exploits Neural Additive Models (NAMs) in which geometric and material properties associated with a normal weight concrete-to-concrete shear interface are inputted to individual neural network blocks. The outputs of the individual blocks are linearly combined …

Hardware-In-The-Loop And Digital Twin Enabled Autonomous Robotics-Assisted Environment Inspection, Johnny Li, Bo Shang, Iresh Jayawardana, Genda Chen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Empowered by the advanced 3D sensing, computer vision and AI algorithm, autonomous robotics provide an unprecedented possibility for close-up infrastructure environment inspection in an efficient and reliable fashion. Deep neural network (DNN) learning algorithms, pretrained on the large database can empower real-time object detection as well as fully autonomous, safe robotic navigation in unstructured environments while avoiding the potential obstacle. However, the development and deployment of the robots, inspection planning and operation procedures are still tedious and segmented with tremendous manual intervention during environmental inspection and anomaly monitoring. The proposed digital twin approach is able to provide a virtual representation …

Concrete Technology In A Rapidly Growing Urban Environment – The Case Of Dar Es Salaam City, John K. Makunza Jkm

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Concrete is a building material that is used in great quantities second only to our use of water. The ingredient materials of concrete include cement, fine and coarse aggregates plus a reasonable amount of water, and sometimes additives. The construction of various structures like, residential buildings, commercial buildings, hospitals, schools, bridges, etc., needs good quality concrete. Good modern technologies are needed by the construction industry in order to effectively construct buildings which are durable. A study has been done with the main objective of assessing the concrete technologies existing in rapid growing cities in Sub-Sahara Africa like Dar es Salaam, …

Damage Stability Study Of A 500 Dw Ro-Ro Ferry Vessel, Zulfaidah Ariany, Budhi Santoso, Sarwoko Sarwoko, Nauval Abdurrahman Prasetyo

Makara Journal of Technology

The development of the crossing transportation industry is currently increasing in the island areas. The use of Ro-Ro type ferry boats is extremely efficient in moving people, goods, and vehicles. The current research focuses on the damage stability of the 500 DWT Ro-Ro ferry, which aims to meet the needs of the Ro-Ro ferry in the archipelago area. The previously existing initial design of a barge hull with a main size Lpp = 40.15 m, B = 12 m, H = 3.2 m, and T = 2.15 m was used to analyze the damage stability condition further. First, the drawings …

Fire-Resistance Testing Procedures For Construction Elements—A Review, Shashikant Chaturvedi, Ajitanshu Vedrtnam, Maged A. Youssef, Martin T. Palou, Gonzalo Barluenga, Kishor Kalauni

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

Fire accidents are a significant risk to human life and civil infrastructure. As a countermeasure, the regulatory bodies of different countries have established standards for evaluating the performance of construction elements during fire exposure. ISO 834 is the globally accepted fire-resistance testing standard. Other standards include ASTM E119, BS 476, IS 3809, JIS A 1304, AS 1503, EN 1363, and GB/T 9978, which are utilized by the US, Britain, India, Japan, Australia, Europe, and China, respectively. This article presents a summary and comparison of the fire-resistance testing standards. In reality, standard tests for isolated structural members may not efficiently portray …

Design, Concept, And Visualization Of Urban Multi-Level Growing Table Systems In Hyper Urban Areas, Aaryan Manoj Nair, Shaheed Mohammed, Omar Rahama

Publications and Research

As of a 2019 study conducted by the National Urban Gardening Program (National Urban Gardening Program), urban farming accounts for approximately 19% of the total national farming output and is expected to triple to almost 45% by 2025. There is intensive research being conducted on aspects of reduced recidivism, communal health benefits, natural carbon capture systems, improved urban ecology and the necessity for reducing the carbon footprint of food, (informally dubbed “food miles”) there is little substantive research on optimisation, and maximation of crop productivity in hyper-urban areas.

The purpose of this report is to understand the functionalities of urban …