Architectural Engineering Commons^™

Timber-Strong Design Build Senior Project, Corbin S. Morisada

Architectural Engineering

The 2019 Timber-Strong Design Build Competition was developed by the American Wood Council, Simpson Strong-Tie Company Inc, and APA - The Engineered Wood Association to cultivate timber design, building, and sustainability experience for students. Participating students gained exposure to performance analysis, construction management, building practices, and project bid preparation while practicing as a design construction firm. In the process of this hands-on experience, students were expected to procure all building materials and tools themselves.

The Timber Strong senior project consisted of participating in the Timber-Strong competition, then re-purposing the structure for use as a playhouse in a pre-school. The intent …

Bridge House Restoration, Adam Mcpherson Pruitt, Ben Christopher Sykes, Samantha Sophia Solow, Christopher Ryan Levy, Severin Bechtel Elste

Architectural Engineering

Bridge House was severely neglected for years since its creation. Our team’s primary objective was to rejuvenate the structure and once again make it a priority destination for the public when visiting the Experimental Structures Laboratory. With this goal in mind, we replaced the plywood barricades with guard railings designed and fabricated by the team to complement those installed on the structure by the previous group. With the elimination of the plywood barricades, the Bridge House could once again be a sense of pride in the rich historical landscape of our Cal Poly community.

In addition, our team hoped to …

A Structural Approach To Architecture (With An Emphasis On Thin-Shell Forms), Ansel Man

Architectural Engineering

This portfolio includes various projects I have focused on throughout this quarter in ARCE 453 as well as a deep dive study into thin-concrete shells. The overall theme of the portfolio and of this class revolves around how we, as engineers and architects, can achieve a better balance between our two fields of study. I delve into how architecture can be approached from a structural, rational point of view; how a structure's form can be optimized by studying its funicular geometry; and ultimately, the irreplaceable importance of form when designing a structure.

Reduce, Reuse, Reengineer, Neil Ryan Robertson, Anthony James Beers

Architectural Engineering

Our senior project is a research exploration of renewable energy. We recognized there is a major need in the world for the advancement of green power sources. For our project, we wanted to go beyond what we have learned in our Cal Poly architectural engineering classes and to use some of our own creativity to investigate the possibilities of renewable energy from a structural perspective. The guiding question we asked ourselves was, “as architectural engineering students, how could we shift our world to use more renewable energy?” To start our journey off, was the original inspiration from the work of …

Retrofit Of Concrete Moment Frames With Masonry Infill In High Seismic Zones, Patricia Francis Pope, Madeleine Rasmussen, Zorana Tat

Architectural Engineering

Seismic events happen all throughout the world and each country has a slightly different way of handling the design of structures subjected to seismic forces. The goal of this project is to provide citizens of the Philippines with an effective way to retrofit their potentially unsafe buildings in the event of an earthquake. However, this retrofit manual will be able to help globally in other third world countries that have similar building techniques. In order to achieve this type of solution, we had to come up with options that took into account the lack of access to tools, materials, and …

Form Finding Architecture, Anna Eliza B. Sy

Architectural Engineering

More often than not an engineer takes an architects idea and tries to make it structural sound. However, an engineer can also use his or her analytical tools to determine the shape of a building. This is a portfolio of various exercise that explores using the load flow and internal forces of a structure to determine and improve its architecture. SAP2000 is the primary program used for analysis. The topics covered are: the Mueller Breslau Method, Trusses, Three-Hinged Arches, Castiglione’s Elementary School, Fisac's design for the Jorba Laboratories, and Otto's Institute for Lightweight Structures.

Pedestrian Bridge In Tanzania, Maja Sagaser, Karina Rosales

Architectural Engineering

This senior project originated to address the need of the community of Same, Tanzania. There is a deep and wide ravine which floods, making the path many adults and children take to the Majevu Primary School increasingly difficult and dangerous. This report encapsulates all of the steps taken to complete an approved final design for a footbridge to be constructed over this ravine. It includes the project overview, the architectural and structural design process, as well as the important considerations. There are also structural drawings that include plans, elevations, and details.

An Exploration Into Structurally Rational Architecture, Bridget M. Healey

Architectural Engineering

This project is a series of small explorations into modern examples of structurally rational architecture. Each investigation looks at different methods of analyzing or designing structures that combine aesthetics and economy.

Characteristics Of A Viscous Damper: Finding The Damping Coefficient, Roman Lara Iv, Tiffany Wang

Architectural Engineering

The authors of this report are undergraduate Architectural Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. This report documents the implementation, design, and experimentation of a damper with unknown properties. This experimentation data will be used to find the damping coefficient of a viscous damper alongside damping characteristics. Using knowledge from previous courses, this report focuses on dynamic responses through an assumed viscous damper. Through forced oscillatory motion testing with specified frequency and amplitude using the seismic shake table and equipment, compactDAQ instrumentation, and damper, values can be pulled from the data experimentation, which can be used …

Damage Detection Of Identical Structures, Garrett M. Peterson, Kira Deguchi

Architectural Engineering

This study is concerned with measuring the vibrations of similar (and seemingly identical) structures, and attempting to detect damage in the structure by identifying outliers from the data. Furthermore, this study attempts to provide a logical conclusion surrounding the MPIT software by correlating each modal analysis program with MATLAB results from testing. Light poles around Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo are the subject of this study because the variability in structure among adjacent poles is hypothesized to be insignificant. A biaxial accelerometer device was mounted to each light pole and used to collect data. Initial tests were completed on six …

Bihongora Library And Community Center, Nicholas M. Dekker, Elyssa L. Adams

Architectural Engineering

No abstract provided.

Rubagabaga Village : Empowering Villages Center And Agricultural Training Center, Jenna M. Williams, Julia R. De Hart

Architectural Engineering

By partnering with non-profit organizations such as Journeyman International and Empowering Villages, undergraduate students can engage in senior projects that have far reaching humanitarian impacts. Journeyman International is well known for creating powerful teams of students who tackle design challenges in developing countries. This paper details the work of two architectural engineering students from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo on a design for the Empowering Villages Center (EVC) and Agricultural Training Facility (ATF) in Rubagabaga Village, Rwanda. The EVC and ATF project was proposed by Empowering Villages, an organization that aims to bring electricity and socioeconomic growth to …

Same Polytechnic College Campus Main Core, Bryce Daniel Gagner

Architectural Engineering

My senior project will be to continue moving forward the campus core of the Same Polytechnic College. We started with the main campus core because it can act as a small school where some classes can be taught while the rest of the construction will be completed. With the land boundaries almost finalized and a solid design for the campus, we can now start a structural design and cost estimation. These will be the main steps to begin construction of the campus.

Steel Test Set-Up For Non-Ductile Concrete Shear Walls, Colin S. Ridgley

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this project was to provide a robust test set-up for the thesis work being conducted by graduate students, Jerry Luong & Rory de Sevilla. Their research aims to evaluate the feasibility of using fiber-reinforced polymer wraps and splay anchors to retrofit non-ductile concrete shear walls through a series of tests on reinforced concrete walls.

Four key constraints governed the design of the test set-up. First, the wall can be cyclically, laterally loaded to develop data for comparison with theoretical analysis methods. Second, the wall can be axially loaded to simulate interaction effects and prevent a sliding failure …

Mòn Briyè Primary School Journeyman International, Leah E. George, Devin R. Williams

Architectural Engineering

Journeyman International (JI) is a non-profit organization that pairs emerging professionals in the architectural, structural engineering, and construction management industries with humanitarian projects in underdeveloped countries overseeing the design and construction process. The Mòn Briyè Primary School is a JI project led and funded by The 610 Project, an Alabama-based non-profit organization dedicated to the sustainable success of developing Haitian communities through education. This primary school will be located in Mornes Brieux, Haiti and consists of three buildings: one classroom building for first to fourth grade, one classroom building for fifth to eighth grades, and one building for administration. The …

Tilt-Up Concrete Wall Anchorage Design: A Trial And Error Process, John W. Lawson, David L. Mccormick

Architectural Engineering

Concrete tilt-up buildings are a common subset of a class of building referred to as rigid-wall-flexible-diaphragm (RWFD) structures. Common diaphragm types are plywood, oriented strand board, or metal deck. Masonry wall buildings with flexible diaphragms are also examples of RWFD buildings. Tilt-ups have performed poorly in past earthquakes, with the primary weakness being the anchorage between walls and roof. In the seismically active western United States, design was governed primarily by the Uniform Building Code (UBC) until the advent of the International Building Code (IBC). Before the 1973 UBC, it was common practice by design engineers to use the nailing …

The Timber Buckling Restrained Brace Frame, Jessica Resta

Architectural Engineering

With the increasing awareness on the topic of earthquake resistance, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally friendly solutions in the structural field are on the rise. The purpose of this report is to investigate the Timber Buckling Restrained Brace (TBRB), a new lateral-resisting element made of steel and lumber, applicable in residential and small commercial units. In addition to the TBRBs’ materials being readily available, the braces are easy to manufacture, reducing overall costs of production and transportation. The brace, made partly of wood, has also a low environmental impact when compared to other lateral force resisting elements like concrete shearwalls or …

Architectural Engineering Institute: 2019 Student Design Competition - Jack H. Miller Center For Musical Arts, Mark W. Wright, Logan D. Wright

Architectural Engineering

The 2019 Student Design Competition is an annual interdisciplinary competition for students in Architectural Engineering (AE) programs around the nation. The central focus of the project was exploring interdisciplinary workflow and collaboration between the disciplines of the built industry. The 2019 Cal Poly design team, Sotto Voce, consisted of 3 Architecture, 2 Architectural Engineering, and 2 Construction Management students. The team was given a set of architectural drawings of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts at Hope College in Holland, Michigan and tasked with finalizing the design. The primary design challenge, to create an innovative venue and community …

Structural Reconnaissance Findings Of The 2017 Mexico City Earthquake, Rachel Garcia Chandler

Architectural Engineering

The author of this document is an undergraduate student at California Polytechnic State University - San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) who was deployed to Mexico City to participate in reconnaissance efforts October 27^th to November 4^th, 2017 as part of a larger group of academics and professionals. The work was funded through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant #1811084 “The Effects of the 2017 Central Mexico Earthquake on Reinforced Concrete Buildings” with the overarching objective of collecting data on reinforced concrete building damage for understanding and further improving the seismic performance of these structures and the resilience …

Clt Shearwall Dovetail Connection, Alexander Eduardo Esser, August Messano

Architectural Engineering

As cross-laminated timber has become an increasingly popular construction material, its use as a shear wall element has also demanded attention. Primary obstructions to the use of CLT shear walls have been the lack of an economic connection type that does not compromise the structural integrity and has the robustness that CLT shear wall panels deserve. Dovetail connections provide a great option for the connection of CLT shear walls. With more experimentation, the optimal dovetail geometry can be further developed. The small-scale testing done in conjunction with this report proved that very deep pins and tails will result in bearing …

Tanzanian Cement Block, Emmanuel Castano-Bonilla, Leah Holleran, Kristy Sanchez

Architectural Engineering

The construction plans for a polytechnic college are being developed in the town of Same, Tanzania, Africa. This project is sponsored by the Mbesese Initiative for Sustainable Design (MISD), a non-profit that has partnered with design firms such as ARUP and KLA architects to complete the work. Considering that the site is located in rural Tanzania, material availability is limited. A local block maker produces a mechanically pressed brick that consists solely of sand, cement and water. The bricks are unconventional when compared to those made in the United States. The purpose of this study is to understand the block …

Kind Gestures: Longtime Aci Members Shape The Career Of Younger Generations, Anahid A. Behrouzi

Architectural Engineering

In this article, an Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic State University describes how her involvement with ACI has helped her to embark on projects that, as a young faculty member, she could have never envisioned. She also tells of her first ACI convention in Spring 2013, her first interaction with ACI Committee 133, Disaster Reconnaissance, in 2014, and using the ACI 318 Building Code in the classroom.

The Evaluation Of Current Wall-To-Roof Anchorage Force Provisions For Single-Story Concrete And Masonry Buildings With Lightweight Flexible Diaphragms, John Lawson, Maria Koliou, Andre Filiatrault, Dominic Kelly

Architectural Engineering

Along the seismically active west coast of the United States (US), heavy concrete and masonry walled buildings with lightweight wood or steel flexible roof diaphragms are commonplace and have grown in size over the years. The current force levels found in ASCE’s Minimum Design Loads and Associated Criteria for Buildings and Other Structures (ASCE 7-16) for designing the out-of-plane wall anchorage system in these buildings is the result from a series of California earthquakes, causing a series of structural failures and subsequently revisions to the Uniform Building Code (UBC). This trial-and-error approach is the basis for current wall anchorage code …

An Introduction To Deep Learning, Maria Pantoja, Anahid A. Behrouzi, Drazen Fabris

Architectural Engineering

Deep learning (DL) is currently being researched and implemented to solve civil engineering related problems, including autonomous inspection and inventory of civil infrastructure projects. The article introduces DL, specifically a convolutional neural network and the supervised learning process used to train a model that will enable professional structural engineers to automatically detect types of earthquake damage.

Revisiting Earthquake Lessons: Wall Anchorage To Flexible Diaphragms, John W. Lawson

Architectural Engineering

In the 1971 San Fernando earthquake, large numbers of concrete tilt-up warehouse buildings had partial roof collapses as perimeter walls separated from the roof. The culprit was a design flaw that relied upon wood ledgers in cross-grain tension/bending for anchorage of the wall to the roof diaphragm. In the 1984 Morgan Hill and 1989 Loma Prieta earthquakes, instrumented tilt-up buildings indicated that past code-level anchorage forces were too low; and in the 1994 Northridge earthquake it was observed that anchorage systems had insufficient ductility and overstrength to resist the high force demands.

Celebrating 20 Years Of The Exceed Teaching Workshop, Allen C. Estes, Stephen J. Ressler, Camilla M. Saviz, Brock E. Barry, Carol L. Considine, Dion Coward, Norman D. Dennis Jr., Scott R. Hamilton, David S. Hurwitz, Tanya Kunberger, Thomas A. Lenox, Tonya Lynn Nilsson, Leslie Nolen, James J. O'Brien Jr., Robert James O'Neill, David A. Saftner, Kelly Salyards, Ronald W. Welch

Architectural Engineering

In response to the clear need for faculty training, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) developed and funded Project ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) which is celebrating its twentieth year of existence. For the past two decades, 38 ExCEEd Teaching Workshops (ETW) have been held at six different universities. The program has 910 graduates from over 267 different U.S. and international colleges and universities. The ExCEEd effort has transformed from one that relied on the grass roots support of its participants to one that is supported and embraced by department heads and deans. This paper summarizes the history …

Adjusting To The New Abet Criteria 3 And 5: It’S Really Not Very Hard, Allen C. Estes, Peter Laursen, Pamalee A. Brady

Architectural Engineering

ABET has revised the criteria 3 (Student Outcomes) and 5 (Curriculum) of the general criteria. These changes have made it through the rigorous approval process and will be effective for the 2019-20 academic year. This paper analyzes the differences between the existing criteria and the proposed changes. Through a specific detailed example, the paper illustrates how an existing assessment system can seamlessly be adjusted for the new criteria. Most of the embedded indicators and direct measures of attainment can still be used. The results simply need to be organized differently.

Deep Learning For Automated Image Classification Of Seismic Damage To Built Infrastructure, B. Patterson, G. Leone, Maria Pantoja, Anahid A. Behrouzi

Architectural Engineering

The amount of structural damage image data produced in the aftermath of an earthquake can be staggering. It is challenging for a few human volunteers to efficiently filter and tag these images with meaningful damage information. The proposed solution is to automate post-earthquake reconnaissance image tagging activities by training a computer algorithm to classify each occurrence of damage per building material and structural member type. The approach is based on deep learning (DL), a subset of machine learning loosely based on the operation of a biologic neural system, which aims to learn and extract accurate representations from large data sets. …

Photo Tagging Tool For Rapid And Detailed Post-Earthquake Structural Damage Identification, Anahid A. Behrouzi, Maria Pantoja

Architectural Engineering

A significant task in earthquake reconnaissance is to conduct rapid and accurate assessments of damage to built infrastructure. This can be accomplished, in part, by analyzing the large volumes of high-resolution image data collected after a seismic event. However, detailed image tagging remains a task for trained human volunteers, which is both time-intensive and error prone. The authors developed a software tool to simplify and standardize the process of assigning damage and structure pairs to sub-regions of images. The goal of the tool is to facilitate the tagging of thousands of images from historic and recent earthquakes to train a …

Seismic Performance Of Slender C-Shaped Walls Subjected To Unii- And Bi-Directional Loading, Anahid A. Behrouzi, A. Mock, D. Lehman, L. Lowes, D. Kuchma

Architectural Engineering

Reinforced concrete structural walls are common as the primary lateral load resisting system in modern mid- and high-rise buildings constructed in seismic regions, yet few research programs have investigated the seismic performance of modern, slender walls with nonplanar cross-sectional geometries. Three large-scale, C-shaped wall specimens, designed per ACI 318-08, were tested under uni- and bi-directional loading at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). This paper presents experimental results including the cyclic load-deformation response and measured versus nominal flexural/shear strengths as well as a description of damage sequence. Final failure occurs due to a flexure-tension failure of boundary elements where …