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Highway 17 Wildlife Crossing, Taryn Chisholm, Seema Singh, Justin Uyeno

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Highway 17 is an essential corridor for people to commute between the Bay Area and the Santa Cruz regions, but this highway also creates a barrier between wildlife territories, fragmenting their habitats and stranding animal populations on either side. The lack of crossing infrastructure along Highway 17 forces wildlife to attempt to cross the highway into oncoming traffic, causing wildlife-vehicle collisions (WVC) which endangers the lives of motorists and animals alike. In order to address this problem, the team designed a precast, concrete culvert crossing underneath Highway 17 to provide a safer passageway to increase habitat connectivity as well as …

Unleash The Heat: Exploring Geothermal Energy Perspectives And Energy Literacy In São Miguel, Azores, Lena Mcdonough

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The green energy transition is moving ahead in EU countries at very different paces, and there are some key challenges that all regions currently face in trying to phase fossil fuels out of their energy mixes. One of these challenges is that most regions simply cannot harness enough renewable energy sources and simultaneously have the storage technology for creating a baseload power source as reliable as oil, coal and natural gas. That is, unless you sit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on the boundary of three tectonic plates, with a continuous and reliable renewable energy source beneath your …

Quantifying The Impact Of Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement On The Skid Resistance Of Surface Mixtures, Sheng Hu, Fujie Zhou, Tom Scullion, Emmanuel Fernando, Mena I. Souliman

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Pavement skid resistance is critical for public safety, especially in wet-weather conditions. In Texas, as the population grows and the likelihood of wet-surface crashes and fatalities increases, the use of Surface Aggregate Classification A (SAC-A) aggregate has significantly increased each year to improve pavement skid resistance. Texas Department of Transportation specifications allow for the use of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) to conserve natural resources and save costs. However, the impact of RAP on the skid resistance of the surface mixture was unknown or not quantitatively studied. Currently, all RAPs are categorized as Surface Aggregate Classification B aggregate in Texas. This …

Loss Of Control In-Flight (Loc-I): A Mixed Methods Study Of Voluntary Versus Mandatory Reports From The United States Of America, Roger Lee

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Loss of control in flight (LOC-I) is one of modern aviation’s three most prominent fatal accidents. In the United States, air accidents are mandatorily reported to and investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Established in 1976, the Air Safety Reporting System (ASRS) is a voluntary safety reporting (VSR) system administered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Over 1.7 million ASRS reports have been processed to date. While the NTSB system handles LOC-I accidents, less severe incidents may have been reported voluntarily through the ASRS.

Safety reporting has been deemed the most valuable activity and the centerpiece …

Camera-Radar Sensor Fusion For Depth Estimation, Lonnie D. Chien , '23

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Self-driving cars rely on sensors for their perception of the surrounding environment. Depth estimation provides crucial information for the control systems of autonomous vehicles, as avoiding collisions and accidents is impossible without knowledge of the 3-dimensional locations of other objects on the road. Monocular depth estimation, or depth estimation from a single camera, shows promise as a relatively inexpensive yet effective solution to the depth estimation task. Cameras, however, are limited by the image formation process in their ability to calculate 3-dimensional depth from 2-dimensional images. Traditional machine-learning models use images paired with ground-truth depth labels for training. The image-label …

Mclaughlin-Walsh Residence Hall Expansion, Rebecca Huang, Shanelle Smith

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

An expansion of McLaughlin-Walsh Residence at Santa Clara University was designed to provide additional housing accommodations to on-campus residents. The design included both the structural and geotechnical components. The proposed solution included a vertical expansion of the residence hall with the design of a podium to span over the existing structure to support an additional residential structure. The loads of the additional residential structure were estimated to complete the design of the podium structure. The podium was designed to support the estimated loads using reinforced concrete columns, steel beams, prefabricated trusses, and concrete on metal deck. The podium design was …

South Lake Tahoe Fire Resiliency Project, Kelsi Rice, Wyatt Rich

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

Our names are Kelsi Rice and Wyatt Rich. We are Seniors at Santa Clara University and are majoring in Civil, Sustainable and Environmental Engineering. Within our senior year at Santa Clara, it is a requirement that we complete a Senior Design Project. Our Senior Design Project is fire hardening the City of South Lake Tahoe’s (City) utility lines. The last few months we have been analyzing the City's current utility infrastructure and the potential for new utility services to be implemented throughout the City. We have conducted an alternatives analysis to determine that the City of South Lake Tahoe is …

Usage Of Drone For Building Facade Inspection, Sahara Adhikari

Master's Theses (2009 -)

The taller the building the higher the risk caused by pieces breaking off from the building façade. 13 major cities in the USA have regulations that mandate building façade inspected by a certified professional as per regulations imposed by local authority. Conventional ways of inspecting build facades are manual contact methods where a certified professional inspects the building façade with the help of scaffolding, mobile cranes, or monorails. Visual inspections with contact methods face several challenges, including poor safety, productivity, and reliability. The results of visual inspection can be reliable when dealing with small structures with easily visible parts, but …

Characterizing And Modeling The Impact Photorepair Conditions Have On Parameters Governing The Regrowth Of Escherichia Coli After Uvc Irradiation, And Investigating Potential Mitigation Strategies, Andrea J. Martinez Ballen

LSU Master's Theses

Ultraviolet disinfection has been used to treat water and wastewater for decades. Previous studies highlight the significance of disinfection conditions and attempt to model bacterial regrowth behavior according to disinfection dosing parameters. The emergence of light-emitting diode (LED) technology provides the ability to further explore bacterial repair methods after UV disinfection, which has been a growing concern within the UV community. However, it is necessary to also consider post-disinfection conditions to model the regrowth patterns of bacterial organisms more accurately. By varying reactivation wavelengths, and their respective intensities, experiments using Escherichia coli ATCC 15597 revealed how these parameters impact the …

‘Being Able To Work Has Kept Our Life Fairly Constant:’ Reconciling Social Practice Models To Assess The Impact Of (Infra)Structural Inequities On Household Wellbeing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Sonya Ahamed, Chelsea Schelly, Kristin Floress, William Lytle, Holly Caggiano, Cara L. Cuite, Charles Wallace, Ryan Cook, Rebekah Jarvis, Rachael Shwom, David Watkins

Michigan Tech Publications

Social practice theory offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between infrastructure and wellbeing. One prominent model in practice theory frames systems of provision as the rules, resources, and structures that enable the organization of social practices, encompassing both material and immaterial aspects of infrastructures. A second well-known model frames social practices in terms of their constituent elements: meanings, materials, and competences. Reconciling these two models, we argue that household capacity to respond to shifting systems of provision to maintain wellbeing is profoundly tied to the dynamics of privilege and inequity. To examine these dynamics, we propose a new analytical …

Using Raised Crosswalks To Elevate Pedestrian Safety, Bradley Pease, William Hall

Purdue Road School

Discussion of how and when Carmel implemented raised crosswalks for successful traffic calming and enhanced pedestrian safety.

Preparing Municipalities For Ev, Diane Newton, Kerri Garvin

Purdue Road School

This session will cover many common questions about electric vehicles (EVs) that many cities and towns ask. What are the different charger types? Where do EV charging stations fall in our zoning guidelines? Are there public safety considerations with charging stations? Should we electrify our fleets? Are there funding opportunities for any of this? What can we do to be prepared? Join us as we answer these questions and more.

Economic Development And Infrastructure, Gary J. Pool

Purdue Road School

This presentation will cover how the developments on the Olio Road Corridor have affected Hancock County’s roadway deterioration and construction, revenue and funding, and public involvement.

Going The Extra Mile: Responding To Eastern Kentucky Flooding, Ed Green

Purdue Road School

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) responded to one its worst transportation challenges ever when historic flooding struck Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky counties in 2022. The transportation agency responded immediately to the disaster, and in the months following the event, KYTC was charged with assessing bridges for safety, clearing roads and streams, and restoring access to allow responders to reach those in need. New programs were quickly developed to address needs ranging from the installation of temporary bridges to the creation of temporary shelters for displaced residents. During this, C2 Strategic Communications partnered with KYTC to develop a communications campaign to …

See A Sign? Make A Call, John Habermann, P.E.

Purdue Road School

DOT staff and technology resources have the proven potential to help combat human trafficking if DOT employees know the indicators of human trafficking and how to cooperate with requests from agencies for information that can be derived from DOT assets. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute, NCHRP, and the Heart of Texas Human Trafficking Coalition will discuss the intersection of human trafficking with the transportation sector. Attendees will also learn the main components of human trafficking, the basic signs of human trafficking on DOT facilities, and resources to use in their own states.

Uncertainty Quantification And Fragility Development Of Deteriorating Rc Bridge Piers, Ayush Bhandari

Dissertations and Theses

Corrosion can reduce structural capacity and increase the risk of bridge damage/failure under extreme events. The impact of corrosion on seismic fragility of bridges has been well studied. However, the methodology used in most existing studies requires detailed information on the structural design and condition of a bridge, which is a major hindrance in conducting seismic risk assessment for a large population of bridges. Furthermore, existing studies do not adequately address the time-dependency of uncertainties associated with fragility curve development. This study presents a methodology to generate time-dependent seismic fragility curves for deteriorating highway bridges based only on the limited …

Chatgpt As Metamorphosis Designer For The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai): A Conceptual Investigation, Amarjit Kumar Singh (Library Assistant), Dr. Pankaj Mathur (Deputy Librarian)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore ChatGPT’s potential as an innovative designer tool for the future development of artificial intelligence. Specifically, this conceptual investigation aims to analyze ChatGPT’s capabilities as a tool for designing and developing near about human intelligent systems for futuristic used and developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also with the helps of this paper, researchers are analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT as a tool, and identify possible areas for improvement in its development and implementation. This investigation focused on the various features and functions of ChatGPT that …

Reflect To Connect, Sophia Rae Guzules

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

Engineering statics is an important course and a prerequisite for many subsequent courses for many engineering majors. It is often students’ first exposure to technical engineering sciences. Most statics concepts are addressed in ways disconnected from students’ prior experiences and interests. Utility Value Interventions (UVIs) have been employed in fields like biology and chemistry to help students connect concepts in class and their lives outside the classroom. However, UVI usage in engineering so far has been limited. In this Senior Project paper, I will describe the process that the team Critical Research in Engineering and Technology Education (CREATE) and I …

Existing Transportation Infrastructure In The Central Appalachian Basin To Support Core-Cm, Bryan Gibson, Robin Baskette, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Stretching from Tennessee northeastward through southwestern Pennsylvania, the Central Appalachian Basin’s economic fortunes have long depended on coal production. However, as the U.S. has increasingly turned toward new forms of energy to generate electricity, the region’s economy has faced inexorable headwinds. Yet, what is clear is that the extractive industries are likely to play a key role in shaping the basin’s economy in the years to come. Taking this assumption as a starting point, this paper discusses how well current transportation infrastructure can support expanded us of the basin’s carbon ore, rare earth, and critical minerals (CORE-CM), other minerals, and …

Fire Life Safety Design Of Technology Office, Jared Ellis

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

The subject building is an approximately 180,000 SF technology office; the location and some details are omitted for privacy of the project and client. It is a 3-story heavy timber frame (Type IIIA) over 1 level of concrete basement stepped into a hillside.

The building is compliant with the prescriptive building code for egress, fire alarm, and fire sprinkler systems. A NFPA 72 compliant fire detection, notification and communication system is provided. The building is fully sprinklered with a system that is hydraulically designed per NFPA 13, 2016 Section 11.2.3 Water Demand Requirements – Hydraulic Calculation Methods. Water supply is …

Improved Object Re-Identification Via More Efficient Embeddings, Ertugrul Bayraktar

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Object reidentification (ReID) in cluttered rigid scenes is a challenging problem especially when same-looking objects coexist in the scene. ReID is accepted to be one of the most powerful tools for matching the correct identities to each individual object when issues such as occlusion, missed detections, multiple same-looking objects coexisting in the same scene, and disappearance of objects from the view and/or revisiting the same region arise. We propose a novel framework towards more efficient object ReID, improved object reidentification (IO-ReID), to perform object ReID in challenging scenes with real-time processing in mind. The proposed approach achieves distinctive and efficient …

Classification Tradeoffs In Multispectral Polarimetric Ladar Architectures, Connor B. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

An end-to-end LADAR system is modeled at the waveform level to perform material classification at a per-pixel basis. A K-Nearest Neighbors machine learning algorithm is chosen to make predictions using polarimetric material characteristics as features. A variable receiver design is modeled to allow for the use of multiple configurations of Polarization State Analyzers. This research investigates the inclusion of multiple wavelengths in the transmitted laser pulse to improve classification accuracy. Additionally, the effects of lowering the receiver’s detector bandwidth are investigated. Through the classification process, transmitting a multispectral laser pulse is shown to improve classification and may improve future LADAR …

Drone Detection Using Yolov5, Burchan Aydin, Subroto Singha

Faculty Publications

The rapidly increasing number of drones in the national airspace, including those for recreational and commercial applications, has raised concerns regarding misuse. Autonomous drone detection systems offer a probable solution to overcoming the issue of potential drone misuse, such as drug smuggling, violating people’s privacy, etc. Detecting drones can be difficult, due to similar objects in the sky, such as airplanes and birds. In addition, automated drone detection systems need to be trained with ample amounts of data to provide high accuracy. Real-time detection is also necessary, but this requires highly configured devices such as a graphical processing unit (GPU). …

Icao Commentary On Hubbard (2016): Stigma And Pilots With Mental Health Issues, Ansa Jordaan

International Journal of Aviation Sciences (IJAS)

No abstract provided.

Vfr Flight Planning With Paper Charts Versus Electronic Charts, Tyler A. Babb

International Journal of Aviation Sciences (IJAS)

Historically, VFR flight planning has been accomplished using an E6B flight computer, paper chart, and navigation plotter. Pilots have used these tools to determine the course, speed, and fuel required for a particular flight. These conventional tools have been a cornerstone of private pilot training for many years. Many types of flight planning software are currently available with a great range in cost and capability. ForeFlight Mobile™ is one of the most prominent flight software applications in use today. The software provides electronic navigation charts and tools that simplify flight planning for pilots. Distance, speed, and time calculations can be …

Moving Towards Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Into The National Airspace System: Evaluating Visual Observers’ Imminent Collision Anticipation During Day, Dusk, And Night Suas Operations, Igor Dolgov

International Journal of Aviation Sciences (IJAS)

An experiment was conducted in an austere desert location (entirely lacking artificial light pollution) to evaluate visual observers’ ability to maintain line of sight with a light-sport manned aircraft and a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS; Raven RQ-11B or Wasp III) and predict imminent collisions between them. We investigated the impact of night and dusk operational settings on observers’ performance as compared to daytime and manipulated the placement of the critical visual observer in relation to the sUAS pilot. Analyses revealed that the light-sport aircraft was identified at significantly farther distances at night and dusk than during the day, and …

Structural Integrity Analysis Of The Rig Mast Following Repair Of Two Diagonal Braces In The Upper Mast Section, Rendhatya Padmodwiputra, Johny Wahyuadi Soedarsono, Mirza Mahendra, Bambang Eka Satria, Chandra Arif, Eka Juni Suarthana

Journal of Materials Exploration and Findings

During a move to the new drilling location, two braces of the upper mast section on a 550 HP oil and gas rig was damaged. When damage is discovered, the rig operating company should conduct a risk analysis related to the damage using the standard used to determine rejection criteria and follow-up repairs. The strength of the rig mast is calculated using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) with initial conditions (before damage occurs) where all braces are installed and extreme conditions where neither brace is repaired. The calculation results are then used to assess the risk of reducing the rig mast …

Integration Of Public Policy Into Civil Engineering Undergraduate Curricula: Review Of Civil Engineering Body Of Knowledge And Course Application, Michelle R. Oswald Beiler

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

The field of civil and environmental engineering directly ties with serving the needs of the public through infrastructure development and improvements in sustainable environments. Integrating this reciprocal connection between public policy and civil engineering into undergraduate civil engineering education is critical for the preparation of the next generation of engineers. This project, first, reviews the guidance of public policy in civil engineering programs, such as ASCE’s Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge. Then, a pedagogical application is presented that focuses on the integration of public policy concepts, methods, assessment tools and techniques in a required, upper level course in civil and …

Strengthening Urban Resilience: Understanding The Interdependencies Of Outer Space And Strategic Planning For Sustainable Smart Environments, Ulpia-Elena Botezatu, Olga Bucovetchi, Adrian V. Gheorghe, Radu D. Stanciu

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The conventional approach to urban planning has predominantly focused on horizontal dimensions, disregarding the potential risks originating from outer space. This paper aims to initiate a discourse on the vertical dimension of cities, which is influenced by outer space, as an essential element of strategic urban planning. Through an examination of a highly disruptive incident in outer space involving a collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites, this article elucidates the intricate interdependencies between urban areas and outer space infrastructure and services. Leveraging the principles of critical infrastructure protection, which bridge the urban and outer space domains, and …

Coalition Formation And Beamsteering Optimization For Directional Software-Defined Radios, Sayanta Seth

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA), also known as Dynamic Spectrum Management, is the method of utilizing a set of spectrum techniques in real time to provide the ability to share wireless channels between Primary (or licensed) users (PUs) and Secondary (or unlicensed) users (SUs). The system is so designed that under normal circumstances, the PUs always get priority, but DSA enables the SUs to use the licensed bands as long as they do not create any interference on the PUs. Hence, the goal of utilizing the spectrum more efficiently can be achieved. Though DSA has been researched extensively as a new …