Architectural Engineering Commons^™

Design And Performance Of Load Bearing Shear Walls Made From Composite Rice Straw Blocks, Kevin Robert Camann

Master's Theses

Although rice straw and other grains have been used in building since pre-history, in the past two decades, there has been a move to utilize this rapidly renewable, locally available, agricultural byproduct as part of the sustainable construction movement. Up to this point, this has been done by simply stacking up the full straw bales. Stak Block, invented by Oryzatech, Inc., is a modular, interlocking block made of a composite of rice straw and binding agent that serves as an evolution in straw construction. This study investigates the feasibility of using these Stak Blocks as a structural system. The report …

The Structure Of A Story, Pamalee Brady, Edmond P. Saliklis

Architectural Engineering

The stories of engineering heroes can serve as an exciting means of engaging young students in engineering concepts that are linked to their math and science curriculum. This research explores the development of a storytelling framework including the story of an engineer, a hands-on activity for exploring a related engineering idea, reinforcement of standard math and science curriculum and assessment of the effectiveness of the storytelling medium to teach and inspire young students. Storytelling principles are used to develop these narratives into compelling and engaging stories through the perspective of an individual character. Archival and other scholarly materials on fascinating …

Analysis Of Stabilized Adobe In Rural East Africa, Grace Ying Yu Chen

Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

ANALYSIS OF STABILIZED ADOBE IN RURAL EAST AFRICA

Grace Ying Yu Chen

This project seeks to assist people in rural East Africa by proposing sustainable building methods which implement affordable and durable adobe bricks for construction. Adobe, one of the oldest sustainable building materials in the world, is strong when dry but lacks structural integrity when exposed to moisture. Chemical additives such as cement and lime are added into the adobe mix to protect the brick against moisture decomposition. Once the chemicals are added and the mix is formed into a brick, a stabilized adobe brick is formed.

Cement, …

Optimization Of Two-Way Post-Tensioned Concrete Floor Systems, Gaelyn B. Krauser

Master's Theses

This thesis investigates a parametric study of a flat plate floor system designed using post-tensioning. The load balanced by the post-tensioning, the slab depth, and the strength of concrete were varied to create the parametric study of a hotel/condominium grid layout. In order to perform the parametric study, research was conducted on the development of post-tensioning, methods of analysis for two-way slab design, and post-tensioning methods of analysis. Design was conducted by hand through a series of Excel spreadsheets and compared to results found using the computer analysis program, ADAPT-PT. The designs found in the parametric study were then used …

Fatigue Of Masonry Walls With Cfrp Applied Externally For Out-Of-Plane Loads, Joseph Louis Williams

Master's Theses

This master’s thesis presents an investigation on the effects of fatigue on fiber- reinforced polymers (FRP) when applied to masonry walls subjected to out-of-plane loading. The project aims to provide further research and add to the general testing database of FRP enhanced masonry. An introduction to the problems and solutions associated with unreinforced masonry is discussed along with a literature review on previous testing done in the field of FRP enhanced masonry. The investigation on the effects of fatigue on FRP when applied to masonry walls subjected to out-of-plane loading is performed through experimental testing. A total of four wall …

Going Green With Concrete Masonry Grout, James Mwangi, Craig Baltimore

Architectural Engineering

Concrete, which is a product containing Portland cement, is the second most used building material (after water) worldwide. Masonry grout is similar to concrete except that grout has a high water content and smaller size aggregates. The excess water is immediately absorbed into the masonry units during placement, which lowers the water/cement ratio and allows for a normal hydration process. During the process of making Portland cement, more than 1/5 ton of carbon dioxide is produced for every ton of cement with 60% of the carbon dioxide production due to a chemical reaction. There is currently no viable remedy to …

Project Managers, Architects, And Engineers--Oh My! An Interdisciplinary Collaboration, David Lambert, Allen Estes, Craig Baltimore

Architectural Engineering

The Architectural Engineering (ARCE) Program at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo is creating a unique and novel interdisciplinary course where architecture, architectural engineering and construction management students collaborate to design and plan the construction of a building structure. The current plan is to develop a default interdisciplinary experience that can be taken by every student and then allow course substitutions for other options as they are created. This paper reports on one of those other options, specifically a unique real world, global, multi-disciplinary experience in East Africa that has resulted from a master’s degree project that …

Teaching Architects And Engineers: Up And Down The Taxonomy, Edmond P. Saliklis, Robert Arens, Joseph Hanus

Architectural Engineering

Engineering faculty and Architecture faculty both address student learning through the prism of Bloom’s taxonomy of the cognitive domain, but do so in diametrically opposite manners. Engineering faculty tend to assess student learning starting at the lowest taxonomy level, Acquisition of Knowledge, and progress in their curriculum and courses to the higher levels of Synthesis and Evaluation. Compare this to a studio environment in an undergraduate Architecture curriculum, where the faculty often begin with the highest levels, such as Evaluation in applying value judgments about the adequacy of the design and Synthesis, by putting disparate pieces of …

Solar Power For Deployment In Populated Areas, Nathan Andrew Hicks

Master's Theses

The thesis presents background on solar thermal energy and addresses the structural challenges associated with the deployment of concentrating solar power fields in urban areas. Two potential structural systems and urban locales of deployment are proposed and investigated to determine whether they have the potential to be a cost-effective renewable energy solution for urban areas. The structural issues explored in the thesis include flutter, the wind loading of open frame structures, performance-based design, and the design of flexibly mounted equipment on a building.

Seismic Performance Of Unreinforced Masonry Walls Retrofitted With Post-Tensioning Tendons, Daniel Louis Lazzarini

Master's Theses

Unreinforced masonry (URM) structures have historically been regarded as structurally unsound in response to seismic events. The tendency for URM walls to collapse out-of-plane in a brittle manner is continually cause for concern. Retrofit of these walls is necessary in order to prevent severe damage and injury to occupants.

This paper is concerned with the retrofit of unreinforced masonry (URM) walls in response to out-of-plane loading. A retrofit design was developed and verified through structural testing. The selected retrofit technique incorporates vertical coring of URM walls to allow for the insertion of a single post-tensioning (PT) tendon. Tendons are spaced …

Bamboo: An Alternative Building Material For Urban Ethiopia, Bewketu Z. Kassa

Master's Theses

This project explores the potential of bamboo as an alternative building material for low cost housing units suitable for urban Ethiopia. The rational for the application of bamboo comes from its abundance throughout the country, and its proven physical properties that equate it to other building material like timber, steel and concrete. The proposed bamboo based design solution concentrates on simplification of construction methods, prefabrication of structural components and vertical densification of housing units, addressing the lack of skilled labor, cost of construction time and urban land respectively. An understanding of the design solution was established by constructing a full-scale …

Preparing Students For The Environment Of The Practice Of Consulting Engineer, James Mwangi, Craig Baltimore, Brent Nuttall

Architectural Engineering

In the United States of America, the body of knowledge required for an individual to be allowed to take the engineering licensing examination, which on passing allows the individual to be in responsible charge of engineering projects, is usually defined by laws and regulations of each state. In California, the shortest path taken by most individuals is one where the individual graduates from an ABET accredited undergraduate program; passes the Engineer in Training (EIT) examination and works under the supervision of a licensed engineer for two years (one year if the individual has a Masters degree in relevant field).

In …

Capstone Projects: Integrating Industry Through Student Leadership, Brent Nuttall, James Mwangi, Craig Baltimore

Architectural Engineering

Capstone projects provide a unique opportunity for developing student leadership skills while integrating industry partners. While models for including industry partners in capstone projects have been discussed in prior literature, these models focus on faculty leadership in developing industry partnerships. This paper describes a capstone project model that encourages student, not faculty, leadership in engaging industry partners. Factors that influence successful project teaming of students and industry partners are identified and described using case study examples. The successes and difficulties of integrating industry in capstone project via student leadership are explored.

Teaching The Design: Timber Shear Walls And Developing Student Engineering Judgement And Intuition Through A Hands-On Experience, Craig Baltimore, James Mwangi, Brent Nuttall

Architectural Engineering

Engineering judgement and intuition are vital characteristic of the design profession. Engineering judgement and intuition are developed through experience. This experience is gained by designing a building (working with industry disciplines and the owner); analyzing the building (calculations); being part of the construction process (constructability), and walking through the final product (end user). Teaching design means, in part, developing engineering judgement and intuition. This may best be accomplished by incorporating active learning experiences.

For timber and masonry buildings, the shear wall is the lateral resisting system of choice. A hands-on experience has been developed as a simple exercise in constructing …

Incorporating Constructability In The Design Of Masonry Structures, James Mwangi, Craig Baltimore

Architectural Engineering

The International Building Code (IBC) has now been adopted as the model design code for most states and territories of the United States of America. For Masonry design, the IBC references the Building Code Requirements and Specification for Masonry Structures (MSJC) for material properties, design procedures, specifications and quality control. Individual state codes then amend the two documents (IBC and MSJC) appropriately.

In high seismic regions of the United States, hollow block of concrete masonry units (CMU) are the material of choice in masonry construction. The CMU’s are built using sand, pea gravel, cement and water. CMU is typically delivered …

Tilt-Up Buildings, John W. Lawson

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Predicting The Seismic Behavior Of The Dywidag Ductile Connector (Ddc) Precast Concrete System, Elizabeth Mary Kenyon

Master's Theses

Structural engineering is heavily dependent on the use of computers. When creating a building model using structural analysis software, it is required that the designer have an understanding of the system behavior and the modeling program capabilities.

Some engineers in the Southern California region are taking steps towards incorporating the Dywidag ductile connector (DDC) and super hybrid systems into building practice due to the advantages found in these systems’ construction methods and seismic performance.

As the DDC and super hybrid systems reach industry, the design engineer will need to model these systems using structural analysis programs. This report describes two …

Four Research Projects, One “Green” Theme, Edmond P. Saliklis

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this paper is to suggest ways that faculty can motivate students to do research through the timely and important issue of sustainable or “green” materials in architectural engineering. This paper will briefly describe four research projects undertaken by seniors in our architectural engineering department. Following these descriptions will be a series of pros and cons that the author has detected while mentoring these projects. Suggestions for best practices will then be presented as well as a discussion of how we assessed these projects. Finally, one of the research projects will be highlighted, with the goal of demonstrating …

Researchers And Practitioners: A Dual Track Path To Tenure That Works, Allen Estes, Brent Nuttall, Cole C. Mcdaniel

Architectural Engineering

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has published the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge (BOK) for the 21st Century and has produced a draft version of the follow-on BOK II, both which attempt to define the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a civil engineer. A section of that document addresses who should teach this body of knowledge. It concludes that civil engineering faculty must be scholars, effective teachers, practitioners, and role models. In most universities, practitioners are included on the faculty as adjunct professors. They are paid less and are not viewed as full-fledged partners. The Architectural Engineering …

Exceed Teaching Workshop: Tenth Year Anniversary, Allen Estes, Ronald Welch, Stephen J. Ressler, Norman Dennis, Debra Larson, Carol Considine, Tonya Nilsson, Jim O'Brien, Thomas A. Lenox

Architectural Engineering

In response to the need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers developed and funded the ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Workshop that is today – the summer of 2008 – celebrating its tenth year of existence. For the past decade, nineteen ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at the United States Military Academy, the University of Arkansas, and Northern Arizona University, with two more workshops scheduled for this summer for a total of 21 offerings. ETW has realized 449 graduates from 203 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. This paper summarizes the content …

Arch Building For Kids: What Did They Learn? What Did We Learn?, Edmond P. Saliklis

Architectural Engineering

This paper will describe a teaching module that several senior architectural engineering students developed as their senior project. The teaching module targeted 5th or 6th grade students with the goal of creating an engineering outreach program that demonstrated a structural mechanics concept in a fun and interesting manner. The purpose of this paper is to describe the rationale behind the teaching module, and to document the changes we made to the module as we assessed its impact over several trial runs.

Simplicity, Scale, And Surprise: Evaluating Structural Form, Edmond P. Saliklis, Michael Bauer, David P. Billington

Architectural Engineering

Aesthetic and ethical issues of building design are presented here to encourage meaningful discussion among today’s architectural engineering students and practitioners. The evaluative aesthetic ideas of scale, simplicity, and surprise are applied to two important structures designed by Fazlur R. Khan. Khan’s profound understanding of load flow in his buildings influenced his aesthetic ideas. Furthermore, his aesthetic ideas were intimately intertwined with his ethical ideas about structural logic and the role of structure in architecture. We explore these ideas and present new insights as well. Our goal is to encourage a public discourse within our profession on the topic of …

Tilt-Up Building Seismic Design - Precast Or Cast-In Place?, Joe Steinbicker, John Lawson

Architectural Engineering

Tilt-up buildings have been successfully designed and constructed throughout the United States for over fifty years. Today, the tiltup method of construction is used extensively to build all types of buildings, currently at a rate of 300,000,000 square feet of tilt-up concrete panels constructed in the United States each year. Recently, with the adoption of the 2006 edition of the International Building Code (IBC) in conjunction with the ASCE 7-05 Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures , there has developed some confusion over what building type should tilt-up construction be classified for the purposes of seismic design – …

Thinking Outside The Box: New Approaches To Very Large Flexible Diaphragms, John W. Lawson

Architectural Engineering

This paper discusses the past design practices of flexible diaphragms, the current trend to very large diaphragms, and the new tools available to properly evaluate and engineer these large roof systems. Higher shear demands are accommodated by higher plywood/OSB and steel deck shear capacities accepted by the IBe. A new collective chord technique is presented to more accurately reflect large diaphragm behavior. In addition, these very large diaphragms have significant lateral deflection issues that can now be evaluated in the IBC. The new AF&PA deflection equations for wood diaphragms are presented as well as a technique to compute deflections of …

Deflection Limits For Tilt-Up Wall Serviceability - The History Behind Changes To Chapter 14 Of Aci 318, John Lawson

Architectural Engineering

Tilt-up construction is one of the most ubiquitous forms of commercial construction in many parts of the country. Thanks to its efficient wall and roof systems, more than 700 million ft² (65 million m²) of tilt-up buildings were constructed in the U.S. in 2006.¹
Tilt-up's current popularity is even more remarkable considering that it wasn't until the 1980s that building codes began to recognize the unique design of slender tilt-up wall panels. In fact, it wasn't until ACI 318-99² was published that the design of slender wall panels was codified on a national level. Of …

Evaluating Structural Form: Is It Sculpture, Architecture Or Structure?, Edmond P. Saliklis

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the idea of a continuum between sculpture form, architectural form and structural form. A linkage between the various forms will be proposed, and several scholarly views on this subject will be presented. Then, this paper will describe a brief web-based survey which tested people’s subjective categorization of various sculptural, architectural and structural forms. The target audience of the web-based survey was college students interested in building design and high school students. Finally, this paper will analyze whether or not presenting the respondents with the idea of a proposed continuum between such forms …

Tedesko’S Philadelphia Skating Club: Refinement Of An Idea, Edmond P. Saliklis, David P. Billington, Anneliza W. Carmalt

Architectural Engineering

This paper presents new aspects of Anton Tedesko’s design for an important thin shell concrete roof. The study of this roof results from the examination of original engineering drawings and calculations which we present with the goal of promoting a greater understanding of the structural design of a major figure in the tradition of 20th century building.

A Call For Unified Design - Deflection Limits For Tilt-Up Wall Serviceability, John Lawson

Architectural Engineering

As one of the fastest-growing construction methods in the industry today, tilt-up construction, has witnessed a great deal of flux in its governing building codes.

The Civil Engineering Faculty Of The Future, Allen C. Estes, Ronald Welch

Architectural Engineering

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has published the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge (BOK) for the 21st Century that attempts to define the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a civil engineer. A section of that document addresses who should teach this body of knowledge. It concludes that civil engineering faculty must be scholars, effective teachers, practitioners, and role models. While true, there are a number of complex issues that arise such as whether it is possible for one person to possess all of these attributes, whether such a model best serves the projected trends in civil engineering …

Program Assessment The Easy Way: Using Embedded Indicators To Assess Program Outcomes, Karl Fred Meyer, Allen C. Estes, Ronald W. Welch, David G. Winget

Architectural Engineering

The culminating design experience for civil engineering majors at the United States Military Academy (USMA) is CE492, Design of Structural Systems. CE492 serves as a “capstone” experience or one in which students are faced with a multi-disciplinary design project incorporating facets from all previous civil engineering courses. Previous capstone experiences have required students to design structures planned for construction or currently under construction at the Academy, thus providing an opportunity for site visitations and active participation with key players in the project development process. Since CE492 provides a multi-disciplinary experience, it also provides an ideal opportunity for the application of …