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Modelling Monthly Rainfall Of Calabar, Nigeria Using Box-Jenkins (Arima) Method, Francis Ogbozige

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Rainfall has both positive and negative effects on human activities hence, correct prediction of the period of occurrence is very essential. However, the traditional method of predicting months of heavy rainfall is gradually fading out as irregular rainfall pattern is been experienced in most regions of the world. The rainfall pattern in Calabar city in Southern Nigeria has been reported in past literatures of being irregular. Hence, this research applied the Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) also known as Box-Jenkins method to model the rainfall pattern of Calabar. This was achieved by subjecting 50years monthly rainfall (1971 – 2020) to …

Development Of Software Tools For Efficient And Sustainable Process Development And Improvement, Jake P. Stengel

Theses and Dissertations

Infrastructure is a key component in the well-being of our society that leads to its growth, development, and productive operations. A well-built infrastructure allows the community to be more competitive and promotes economic advancement. In 2021, the ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) ranked the American infrastructure as substandard, with an overall grade of C-. The overall ranking suffers when key infrastructure categories are not maintained according to the needs of the population. Therefore, there is a need to consider alternative methods to improve our infrastructure and make it more sustainable to enhance the overall grade. One of the challenges …

Estimating The Weights Of Latticed Power Transmission Towers Using Genetic Programming, Ahmed M. Ebid Dr.

Future Engineering Journal

The recent booming in the power network industry inspired a lot of researchers to develop models to estimate the optimum cost of transmission towers. Unlike previous researches which depended on design the tower from scratch, this research depends on collecting actual database from several projects around the globe and applying the well-known (GP) technique to develop a model to predict the tower weight. The accuracy of the developed formula was about 84%. The developed model could be used in early tender stage or to check design economy.

Development Of A Covid-19 Vulnerability Index (Cvi) For The Counties And Residents Of New Jersey, Remo Victor Disalvatore

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted countless aspects of everyday life since it was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March of 2020. From societal to economic impacts, COVID-19 and its variants will leave a lasting impact on our society and the world. Approximately $9 trillion has been spent on fighting the pandemic around the world. During the pandemic, it became increasingly evident that indices, such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), were extremely important for predicting vulnerabilities in a community. The CDC's SVI provides important estimates on which communities will be …

Laboratory Assessement Of Emulsion-Cement Paste And Cold Recycled Mixtures At Varying Amounts Of Emulsion, Cement, And Water, Ahmed Saidi

Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of this study was to assess the performance of cold recycled mixtures (CRMs) at: (1) binder level through evaluating the rheological and mechanical properties of emulsion-cement paste (ECP), and (2) mix level through characterizing the density and performance of CRMs. The testing program for ECPs included multiple stress creep recovery (MSCR), bending beam rheometer (BBR), linear amplitude sweep (LAS), penetration test, and isothermal calorimetry. For CRMs, a balanced mix design (BMD) approach was used to develop performance interaction charts to select optimum contents of emulsion, cement, and water maximizing the resistance of CRMs to rutting and cracking. …

Unconventional Water Resources: Global Opportunities And Challenges, Zahra Karimidastenaei, Tamara Avellán, Mojtaba Sadegh, Bjørn Kløve, Ali Torabi Haghighi

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water is of central importance for reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. With predictions of dire global water scarcity, attention is turning to resources that are considered to be unconventional, and hence called Unconventional Water Resources (UWRs). These are considered as supplementary water resources that need specialized processes to be used as water supply. The literature encompasses a vast number of studies on various UWRs and their usefulness in certain environmental and/or socio-economic contexts. However, a recent, all-encompassing article that brings the collective knowledge on UWRs together is missing. Considering the increasing importance of UWRs in …

Evaluation Of Aluminum Dissolution, Current Density, And Pitting Patterns During Electrocoagulation, Monica Castro Carias

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electrocoagulation (EC) is a sustainable water treatment process involving the generation of coagulants on-site through the application of a voltage on metal (usually aluminum or iron alloys). The factors that impact EC system performance have been well researched, however further research is needed on the factors that impact anodic dissolution of aluminum electrodes, especially when the technology is transferred to full-scale applications. Electrode fouling is one of the factors that can impact dissolution of the anode during EC due to the formation of a protective oxide/hydroxide layer on the electrode surface. Previous studies have addressed electrode fouling by reversing polarity, …

Impedance Analysis Of Anodized Aluminum And Structural Bridge Tendons, Justin Silnutzer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is a two-part thesis with the overall investigation technique being electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). In the first part, EIS is used to estimate the layer thickness of anodized aluminum oxide. This required the development of an appropriate electrical circuit model; that with parameters that correspond to physical properties of the oxide. In this work, it was found that for thicker oxides of which the outer porous layer is greater than 12 microns, impedance may be used to estimate the outer layer thickness. However, further research is required to understand the role of outer porous layer structure on the impedance …

Design And Commissioning Of An E-Beam Irradiation Beamline At The Upgraded Injector Test Facility At Jefferson Lab, Xi Li, Helmut Baumgart, Charles Bott, Gianluigi Ciovati, Shaun Gregory, Fay Hannon, Mike Mccaughan, Robert Pearce, Matthew Poelker, Hannes Vennekate, Shaoheng Wang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The Upgraded Injector Test Facility (UITF) at Jefferson Lab is a continuous-wave superconducting linear accelerator capable of providing an electron beam with energy up to 10 MeV. A beamline for electron-beam irradiation has been designed, installed and successfully commissioned at this facility, aimed at the degradation study of 1,4-dioxane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in wastewater treatment. A solenoid with a peak axial magnetic field of up to 0.28 T and a set of raster coils were used to obtain a Gaussian beam profile with a transverse standard deviation of ∼15.0 mm at the target location. Monte-Carlo simulations using …

An Improved Polynomial Chaos Expansion Based Response Surface Method And Its Applications On Frame And Spring Engineering Based Structures, Mhd A. Hafez

ETD Archive

In engineering fields, computational models provide a tool that can simulate a real world response and enhance our understanding of physical phenomenas. However, such models are often computationally expensive with multiple sources of uncertainty related to the model’s input/assumptions. For example, the literature indicates that ligament’s material properties and its insertion site locations have a significant effect on the performance of knee joint models, which makes addressing uncertainty related to them a crucial step to make the computational model more representative of reality. However, previous sensitivity studies were limited due to the computational expense of the models. The high computational …

Examining Metal Contents In Primary And Secondhand Aerosols Released By Electronic Cigarettes, Kashala Fabrice Kapiamba, Weixing Hao, Stephen Adom, Wenyan Liu, Yue-Wern Huang, Yang Wang

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

The usage of electronic cigarettes (ECs) has surged since their invention two decades ago. However, to date, the health effects of EC aerosol exposure are still not well understood because of insufficient data on the chemical composition of EC aerosols and the corresponding evidence of health risks upon exposure. Herein, we quantified the metals in primary and secondhand aerosols generated by three brands of ECs. By combining aerosol filter sampling and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), we assessed the mass of metals as a function of EC flavoring, nicotine concentration, device power, puff duration, and aging of the devices. …

Characterization And Performance Enhancement Of Cement-Based Thermoelectric Materials, Ruchita Jani, Niall Holmes Dr., Roger West, Kevin Gaughan, Xiaoli Liu, Ming Qu, Esther Orisakwee, Lorenzo Stella, Jorge Kohanoff, Hongxi Yin, Bartlomiej Wojciechowski

Articles

Thermoelectric materials enable the direct conversion of thermal to electrical energy. One application of this is ambient heat energy harvesting where relatively stable temperature gradients existing between the inside and outside of a building could be utilized to produce electricity. Buildings can thus change from energy consumers to energy generators. This could ultimately help reduce the surface temperatures and energy consumption of buildings, especially in urban areas. In this paper, research work carried out on developing and characterizing a cement-based thermoelectric material is presented. Cement-based samples are doped with different metal oxides (Bi2O3 and Fe2O3) to enhance their thermoelectric properties, …

Tracing Geochemical Sources And Health Risk Assessment Of Uranium In Groundwater Of Arid Zone Of India, P. Pandit, Atul Saini, Sabarathinam Chidambaram, Vinod Kumar, Banjarani Panda, A. L. Ramanathan, Netrananda Sahu, A. K. Singh, Rohit Mehra

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Water quality degradation and metal contamination in groundwater are serious concerns in an arid region with scanty water resources. This study aimed at evaluating the source of uranium (U) and potential health risk assessment in groundwater of the arid region of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The probable source of vanadium (V) and fluorine (F) was also identified. U and trace metal concentration, along with physicochemical characteristics were determined for 265 groundwater samples collected from groundwater of duricrusts and palaeochannels of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The U concentration ranged between 0.6 and 260 μg L⁻¹ with a mean …

Coevolution Of Machine Learning And Process-Based Modelling To Revolutionize Earth And Environmental Sciences: A Perspective, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Machine learning (ML) applications in Earth and environmental sciences (EES) have gained incredible momentum in recent years. However, these ML applications have largely evolved in ‘isolation’ from the mechanistic, process-based modelling (PBM) paradigms, which have historically been the cornerstone of scientific discovery and policy support. In this perspective, we assert that the cultural barriers between the ML and PBM communities limit the potential of ML, and even its ‘hybridization’ with PBM, for EES applications. Fundamental, but often ignored, differences between ML and PBM are discussed as well as their strengths and weaknesses in light of three overarching modelling objectives in …

Monitoring Of Renewable Energy Systems By Iot-Aided Scada System, Ohirul Qays, Musse M. Ahmed, M. A. Parvez Mahmud, Ahmed Abu-Siada, S. M. Muyeen, Liton Hossain, Farhana Yasmin, Momtazur Rahman

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

With the rapid increase of renewable energy generation worldwide, real-time information has become essential to manage such assets, especially for systems installed offshore and in remote areas. To date, there is no cost-effective condition monitoring technique that can assess the state of renewable energy sources in real-time and provide suitable asset management decisions to optimize the utilization of such valuable assets and avoid any full or partial blackout due to unexpected faults. Based on the Internet of Things scheme, this paper represents a new application for the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system to monitor a hybrid system comprising …

Evaluation Of An Equivalent Mean Grain Size Diameter To Rationally Predict The Erodibility Of Fine Riverbed Soils In Nebraska, Basil Abualshar

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

The erosion of riverbed soils under the bridges is one of the major reasons that cause bridge closure or failure leading to a significant effect on the local economy. One of the commonly used methods to predict the erosion rate of soils is the excess shear stress method, which is based on two parameters describing the erodibility behavior; the erodibility coefficient and the critical shear stress. On the other hand, studies showed that the mean grain size diameter D₅₀ could be correlated to the erosion resistance of soils, usually for cohesionless soils but not for cohesive soils. It is …

Development Of Probabilistic Failure Pressure Models For Pipelines With Single Corrosion Defect, Kiswendsida J. Kere, Qindan Huang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Many models have been developed in the past to predict the failure pressure of a pipeline with a single corrosion defect. However, most of the existing models are conservative and may lead to unnecessary repairs and maintenance in the pipeline risk management. The aim of this study is to develop probabilistic failure pressure prediction models that are suitable for risk assessment of corroded pipelines. The proposed models are developed at three levels of pipe ultimate strength based on a comprehensive database (consist of both experimental and numerical data) established in this study. When comparing with the existing models, it is …

Understanding Ch4 Emissions From Compostables: An Exploration Of Local Ch4 Emissions From Landfilled Compostables And The Efficacy Of Emission Mitigation Via Anaerobic Biogas Digestion, Jordan-Yoosuf Aljbour

University Honors Theses

Methane (CH₄) is the second most abundant anthropogenic greenhouse gas within the atmosphere, comprising ~16% of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gas composition on Earth. It has an ~12-year lifetime relative to its eventual oxidation via reaction with tropospheric hydroxyl radicals (OH), and has a 100-year indirect global warming potential (GWP) approximately ranging between 28-36 [Environmental Protection Agency, 2021]. In recent years, the observed average global concentration of atmospheric CH₄ has increased by ~11.0% from 2020 (~15.3 ppb) to 2021 (~17.0 ppb) [Dlugokencky et al., 1994; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2022]. With …

Effects Of Experimental Scale On The Adsorption Of Two Pharmaceutical Drugs Detected In Municipal Wastewater Effluent, Michael Moore

Master's Theses

Pharmaceutical drugs are being produced and consumed in increasing quantities every year and are poorly treated by conventional wastewater treatment processes, leading to increasing detection of such compounds in surface water, groundwater, and municipal drinking water. Soil aquifer treatment (SAT) is a promising method for treating these emerging compounds through combined adsorption and degradation of target compounds in soil. This thesis examines the consistency of results from typical studies like adsorption isotherms and soil columns utilized in analysis of SAT performance, across varying experimental scales. The adsorption behavior of two pharmaceuticals was investigated as a function of experimental scale and …

Design, Fabrication, And Testing Of Mechanical Hinges With Snap-Fit Locking Mechanisms In Rigid Origami Structures, Colby James Scanlon

Master's Theses

The ancient art of ‘origami’ has recently become the source of inspiration for engineers to create structures that can unfold from a compact state to a fully deployed one. For instance, researchers have currently adopted origami designs in various engineering disciplines, including aerospace engineering, robotics, biomedical engineering, and architecture. In particular, architects have been interested in designing origami-inspired rigid walled structures that can be deployed as disaster-relief shelters. This type of design has three main advantages: transportability, constructability, and rigidity. Although there has been increased interests in deployable structures, limited research has been conducted on evaluating their structural performance, specifically …

Girls Build Summer Academy Leadership Summit, Itzell Ruiz

Construction Management

This paper highlights the activities and presentations that will take place during the women in construction leadership summit prior to the Girls Build Summer Academy for high school girls. The leadership summit is a two-day event that will consist of presentations on important leadership and construction topics. The presentations will cover topics such as confidence, safety, leadership assessment activity, tool shop training, emerging trends, career paths, jobsite visit, and a women’s panel. This leadership summit will be implemented in the summer of 2023 and will take place at Cal Poly’s campus in the Construction Innovations Center. The scope of this …

Single-Pass Inline Pipeline 3d Reconstruction Using Depth Camera Array, Zhexiong Shang, Zhigang Shen

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Faculty Publications

A novel inline inspection (ILI) approach using depth cameras array (DCA) is introduced to create high-fidelity, dense 3D pipeline models. A new camera calibration method is introduced to register the color and the depth information of the cameras into a unified pipe model. By incorporating the calibration outcomes into a robust camera motion estimation approach, dense and complete 3D pipe surface reconstruction is achieved by using only the inline image data collected by a self-powered ILI rover in a single pass through a straight pipeline. The outcomes of the laboratory experiments demonstrate one-millimeter geometrical accuracy and 0.1-pixel photometric accuracy. …

Wavelet Power And Shannon Entropy Applied To Acoustic Emission Signals For Corrosion Detection And Evaluation Of Reinforced Concrete, Jinrui Zhang, Ziye Kang, Dongshuai Hou, Biqin Dong, Hongyan Ma

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Acoustic emission (AE) signals detected from corrosion test on a steel reinforced concrete beam subjected to the coupling effects of corrosive wet-dry cycles and static load are analyzed by power spectral density, wavelet transform, and Shannon entropy. The degradation process of the corroded reinforced concrete beam can be divided into four stages on the basis of the accumulated event number (AEN). Due to the difference of material properties, steel reinforcement and concrete matrix have distinguished AE features. The time-frequency characteristics of AE signals can reflect the microstructural degradation mechanism of steel corrosion and concrete cracking. The corrosion evaluation entails investigating …

Optimizing Speed Profiles For Sustainable Train Operation With Wayside Energy Storage Systems, Leon A. Allen

Dissertations

Large hauling capability and low rolling resistance has put rail transit at the forefront of mass transportation mode sustainability in terms of congestion mitigation and energy conservation. As such, rail vehicles are one of the least energy-intensive modes of transportation and least environmentally polluting. Despite, these positives, improper driving habits and wastage of the braking energy through dissipation in braking resistors result in unnecessary consumption, extra costs to the operator and increased atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions.

This study presents an intelligent method for the optimization of the number and locations of wayside energy storage system (WESS) units that maximize the …

Planning Methodology For Alternative Intersection Design And Selection, Liran Chen

Dissertations

The recent publication of the 6th Edition of the Highway Capacity Manual included a chapter on Ramp Terminals and Alternative Intersections that introduces various alternative intersection designs and assesses the performance of Median U-turn, Restricted crossing U-turn and Displaced left-turn intersections. Missing from the literature is an alternative intersection selection tool for identifying whether an alternative intersection would be successful under local conditions. With limited information of organized alternative intersection research, most planners must rely heavily on their personal judgement while selecting the most suitable intersection designs. As appealing as alternative intersections are, there is no comprehensive methodology for planners …

A Self-Learning Intersection Control System For Connected And Automated Vehicles, Ardeshir Mirbakhsh

Dissertations

This study proposes a Decentralized Sparse Coordination Learning System (DSCLS) based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to control intersections under the Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) environment. In this approach, roadway sections are divided into small areas; vehicles try to reserve their desired area ahead of time, based on having a common desired area with other CAVs; the vehicles would be in an independent or coordinated state. Individual CAVs are set accountable for decision-making at each step in both coordinated and independent states. In the training process, CAVs learn to minimize the overall delay at the intersection. Due to the …

Reactive Iron Mineral Coatings In Redox Transition Zones Of A Site With Historical Contamination: Abiotic Attenuation, Xin Yin

Dissertations

Reactive iron mineral coatings are found throughout reduction-oxidation (redox) transition zones and play a significant role in contaminant transformation processes. In this study, an 18.3-meter core is collected, subsampled, and preserved under anoxic conditions to maintain its original redox state. Screening analyses are conducted at sampling increments of 5.08 cm in depth for the following: elemental concentrations with X-ray fluorescence (XRF), sediment pH, sediment oxidation-reduction potential (ORP), total volatile organic carbon (TVOC) in the sample headspace, and abundant bacteria (16S rRNA sequencing). Using the Fe and S gradients correlated with microbial data, five RTZs are delineated. To characterize iron mineral …

Integrating Deep Learning And Hydrodynamic Modeling To Improve The Great Lakes Forecast, Pengfei Xue, Aditya Wagh, Gangfeng Ma, Yilin Wang, Yongchao Yang, Tao Liu, Chenfu Huang

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Laurentian Great Lakes, one of the world’s largest surface freshwater systems, pose a modeling challenge in seasonal forecast and climate projection. While physics-based hydrodynamic modeling is a fundamental approach, improving the forecast accuracy remains critical. In recent years, machine learning (ML) has quickly emerged in geoscience applications, but its application to the Great Lakes hydrodynamic prediction is still in its early stages. This work is the first one to explore a deep learning approach to predicting spatiotemporal distributions of the lake surface temperature (LST) in the Great Lakes. Our study shows that the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network, …

An Injury Severity Prediction-Driven Accident Prevention System, Gulsum Alicioglu, Bo Sun, Shen-Shyang Ho

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

Traffic accidents are inevitable events that occur unexpectedly and unintentionally. Therefore, analyzing traffic data is essential to prevent fatal accidents. Traffic data analysis provided insights into significant factors and driver behavioral patterns causing accidents. Combining these patterns and the prediction model into an accident prevention system can assist in reducing and preventing traffic accidents. This study applied various machine learning models, including neural network, ordinal regression, decision tree, support vector machines, and logistic regression to have a robust prediction model in injury severity. The trained model provides timely and accurate predictions on accident occurrence and injury severity using real-world traffic …

Evaluating And Incorporating Site Variability In Different Geotechnical Engineering Applications, Md Habibur Rahman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Site investigation and characterization of subsurface soil conditions are crucial for geotechnical engineering design and analysis. Geotechnical properties vary inherently from one point to another within the same site. This study focused on evaluating the site variability from cone penetration tests (CPT) and soil boring data, and its implementation into the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) formulation. The total Coefficient of Variation (COV_R,total) for each site was estimated from COV_R,spatial (Spatial Coefficient of Variation) and COV_R,method (Method Coefficient of Variation) which were then used to calibrate the resistance factors (ϕ_spatial, ϕ_total) …