Engineering Commons^™

Evaluating Ramp Metering And Variable Speed Limits To Reduce Crash Potential On Congested Freeways Using Micro-Simulation, Albinder Dhindsa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent research at UCF into defining surrogate measures for identifying crash prone conditions on freeways has led to the introduction of several statistical models which can flag such conditions with a good degree of accuracy. Outputs from these models have the potential to be used as real-time safety measures on freeways. They may also act as the basis for the evaluation of several intervention strategies that might help in the mitigation of risk of crashes. Ramp Metering and Variable Speed Limits are two approaches which have the potential of becoming effective implementation strategies for improving the safety conditions on congested …

Slope Stability Of Laterite Soil Embankments, Ikiensinma Gogo-Abite

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embankments are key elements in the infrastructural development of structures such as dams, bridges, and roads. Residual soils are generally used as fills in the construction of embankments in areas were residual soils such as laterite is the dominant soil types. Laterite soils have the characteristics of losing its shear strength with time and in fully saturated conditions and its properties varies from region to region. The soil property is influenced by the chemical composition and the environment. The binding agent iron oxide in such soils changes its composition with time and in the presence of moisture. Sudden failures of …

Quality Of Service Measures At Signalized Intersections, Kamal Goyal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The concept of using qualitative measures to describe the quality of service at signalized intersections provided by different designs and controls has been discussed in numerous conferences. Such measures may include driver's comfort, convenience, anxiety, and preferences. The primary objective of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of using the University of Central Florida's interactive driving simulator to execute several scenarios involving different unusual design and operation practices to measure the quality of service at a signalized intersection. This thesis describes the scenarios, the experiments conducted, the data collected, and analysis of results. Signalized intersections with 3 types of …

Sediment Transport In Rivers And Estuaries, John Clancy

Theses

The processes of erosion, transportation and sedimentation in rivers and estuaries have fascinated researchers for centuries. These processes have been active throughout geological time and have shaped the present landscape. To effectively study these processes analysis needs to be carried out at catchment scale level. Cork Harbour and its tributaries including the River Lee, the Owenabue River, the Glashaboy River, the Owennacurra River, and the Dungoumey River are analysed for the processes of sediment transport within their catchments and systems, and particularly river sediment loadings.

This thesis includes a literature review of the properties of sediment, river and estuary related …

Dredging And Dredge Disposal And Reuse In Ireland, Séamus Sutton

Theses

Dredging involves raising material from a river or estuary bed to the surface and transporting it some distance for disposal or reuse. It may be required to improve navigational access, to allow for port development or for mining aggregates.

This thesis includes a literature review and a detailed study of the dredging industry in Ireland. This study is partly based on a nationwide survey undertaken on dredging and dredge disposal and reuse, the results of which are included in a dredging database created for this project. All the main stakeholders in the industry were invited to complete questionnaire forms for …

Family Of Compaction Curves For Chemically Modified Soils, Radha Krishna Daita, Vincent P. Drnevich, Daehyeon Kim

JTRP Technical Reports

Lime and Lime Kiln Dust (LKD) are widely used for modifying/stabilizing pavement subgrades. The addition of lime or LKD involves chemical processes that are dependent on many parameters. For natural subgrades, quality control is based on moisture and unit weight requirements using manual interpolations of one-point test data on a family of curves. For modified soils, moisture and unit weight measurements are insufficient for quality control and other tests must be considered. Various possible quality control methods for LKD-modified subgrades were evaluated. This research produced an Excel-based program to automate the generation of a family of curves and one-point data …

Shear Reinforcement Requirements For High-Strength Concrete Bridge Girders, J. A. Ramirez, Gerardo Aguilar

JTRP Technical Reports

A research program was conducted on the shear strength of high-strength concrete members. The objective was to evaluate the shear behavior and strength of concrete bridge members with compressive strengths in the range of 10 000 to 15 000 psi. The goal was to determine if the current minimum amount of shear reinforcement together with maximum spacing limits in the 2004 AASHTO LRFD Specifications, and the upper limit on the nominal shear strength were applicable to concrete compressive strengths up to 15 000 psi.

A total of twenty I-shaped specimens were tested monotonically to failure. Sixteen specimens were reinforced concrete …

An Assessment Of Highway Financing Needs In Indiana, Kumares C. Sinha, Samuel Labi, Stacey D. Hodge, Gabriel U. Tine, Hardik Rajendra Shah

JTRP Technical Reports

In recent years highway revenues in Indiana have been eroding due to inflation, increased costs, and the increased use of fuel-efficient vehicles. It is necessary, therefore, to reliably assess the current and future needs for highway funding in order to facilitate informed fiscal planning. This study provides a methodology for tracking current and future demand for highway financing, along with a systematic modeling approach for revenue projections such that financing plans can be developed for state and local highway networks. Highway infrastructure needs for pavements, bridges, safety, and capacity improvements for the 15-year period between 2006 and 2020 are assessed …

Comparison Of Various Indot Testing Methods And Procedures To Quantify Variability In Measured Bituminous And Concrete Properties, Terhi K. Pellinen, W. Jason Weiss, Thomas Kuczek, Geoffrey Dauksas

JTRP Technical Reports

This study was designed to analyze the variability associated with several test procedures used by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) in their Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA), portland cement concrete pavement (PCCP), and superstructure concrete protocols. The aim of this work was to document the variability associated with each of these test procedures toward application of this information of the development of acceptance criteria, pay factors, and pay incentives and disincentives. The studied parameters for HMA production included the air void content and VMA of the gyratory compacted mixture, in-place density, binder (asphalt) content, aggregate bulk specific gravity and water …

Life Cycle Cost Analysis For Indot Pavement Design Procedures, Geoffery Lamptey, Muhammad Z. Ahmad, Samuel Labi, Kumares C. Sinha

JTRP Technical Reports

Given the aging of highway pavements, high traffic levels, and uncertainty of sustained preservation funding, there is a need for balanced decision-making tools such as LCCA to ensure long-term and cost-effective pavement investments. With driving forces such as ISTEA 1991, the NHS Act of 1995, and TEA-21, LCCA enables evaluation of overall long-term economic efficiency between competing alternative investments and consequently has important applications in pavement design and management. It has been shown in past research that more effective long-term pavement investment could be made at lower cost using LCCA. Current LCCA-based pavement design and preservation practice in Indiana could …

The Influence Of Ammonia And Carbon Dioxide On The Sorption Of A Basic Organic Pollutant To A Mineral Surface, Maneerat Ongwandee, Glenn Morrison, S. S. Bettinger

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Indoor surfaces have a sorptive capacity for organic pollutants which may be significantly influenced by other gases and the pH of the surface. in this research, we examine the influence of a common indoor gaseous acid, CO₂, and base, NH₃, on the adsorption of a volatile organic base, trimethylamine (TMA), to a mineral surface, zirconium silicate beads. Varying ammonia and CO₂ within concentration ranges of indoor relevance substantially influences the sorptive capacity of this mineral surface. Increasing the CO₂ mixing ratio to 1000 p.p.m. enhances surface capacity of TMA by 40-50%; increasing the NH3 …

Spatial Bioaccumulation Modeling In A Network Of Bayous, Ronaldo Luna, Karen H. Watanabe, Andrew J. Wilding

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A software system, Spatial Network Bioaccumulation Model (SNBM), was developed to model the bioaccumulation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in aquatic food webs. The SNBM uses a geographic information system as an engine to: (i) store the spatial representation of input parameters (the data related to the ecosystem), (ii) transfer input and output data to and from the food-web bioaccumulation model, and (iii) display the predicted food-web organism concentrations over a base map of the field site. The bioaccumulation model is a time-dependent, set of first-order ordinary differential equations that are solved numerically. Many sampling locations can be analyzed using …

Aggregate Gradation Optimization -- Literature Search, David Newton Richardson

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Engineered Struvite Precipitation: Impacts Of Component-Ion Molar Ratios And Ph, Jun Wang, Joel Gerard Burken, Xiaoqi Zhang, Rao Y. Surampalli

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Struvite precipitation has the potential for removing and recovering phosphorus from agricultural wastewater streams, such as concentrated animal feeding operations wastewater. However, impacts of anticipated component-ion molar ratios and potentially interfering ions are unknown as are the compounding pH relationship with respect to all potential complexes. This research experimentally investigates and mathematically models these factors. Emphasis is placed upon the composition of formed deposits and model validation with experimental data. Results show that calcium is a major interfering ion affecting the deposit composition, decreasing struvite purity. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy + energy dispersive spectrometry were used to …

Emergency Earthquake Routes; Part I, Criteria For Selection Of Primary Routes; And Part Ii: Route Seismic Vulnerability Aspects, Julio Ramirez, Srinivas Peeta, Mete Sozen, Luis Garcia, Kannan Viswanath

JTRP Technical Reports

The occurrence of a strong earthquake in Indiana or neighboring states, as has occurred in the past, has serious implications for the State Transportation System with respect to adequate response. The definition of Earthquake Emergency Routes for the State of Indiana became a priority for the Indiana Department of Transportation. These Emergency Routes take into account various aspects related to transportation including coverage of population and area and travel time along these routes, and issues related to structural and geotechnical seismic vulnerability of the roads and bridges along these routes. Part I of the overall study report formulates a multi-commodity …

Non-Destructive Estimation Of Pavement Thickness, Structural Number And Subgrade Resilience Along Indot Highways, Samy Noureldin, Karen Zhu, Dwayne Authur Harris, Shuo Li

JTRP Technical Reports

Nondestructive testing has become an integral part for evaluation and rehabilitation strategies of pavements in recent years. Pavement evaluation employing the Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) and the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) can provide valuable information about pavement performance characteristics and be a very useful tool for project prioritization purposes and estimation of construction budget at the network level. FWD deflection testing is an accurate tool for determining pavement structural capacity and estimating the required thickness of overlays and hence is an accurate tool for planning for or estimating required current and future construction budgets. GPR is the only tool that …

Procedures For The Estimation Of Pavement And Bridge Preservation Costs For Fiscal Planning And Programming, Kumares C. Sinha, Samuel Labi, Marcela Rodriguez, Gabriel U. Tine, Rucci Dutta

JTRP Technical Reports

Facility preservation generally refers to the set of activities that are carried out to keep a facility in usable condition until the next reconstruction activity. For fiscal planning and programming, it is necessary to know the expected costs of preservation projects and how long they would last. Such information, coupled with minimum standards and facility inventory data enable estimation of overall monetary needs for bridge and pavement preservation, and would assist INDOT in undertaking appropriate programming and attendant financial planning over the long term. However, detailed engineering analyses are not possible every year because of the time and effort involved, …

Its Strategies For Minimization Of Fine Particulates, Ahmed S. Soliman, Robert Bertram Jacko, Barry K. Partridge

JTRP Technical Reports

The purpose of the study was to quantify the impact of traffic conditions such as free flow and congestion on local air quality. The Borman Expressway in Northwest Indiana is considered a test-bed for this research due to the high volume of class-9-truck traffic traveling on it, as well as the existing and continuing installation of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to improve the traffic management along the highway stretch. An empirical Traffic-Air-Quality model (TAQ model) was developed to estimate the PM2.5 emission factors (g/mi) based solely on the measured traffic parameters such as average speed, average acceleration and truck …

Damage Analysis Of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements In Indiana, Part I: Finite Element Modeling And Damage Analysis, Part Ii: Indislab, A Software Tool For Jointed Plain Concrete Pavement Design, Elisa D. Sotelino, Alireza Asgari, Andrew C. Saksa, Guillermo Cedeno

JTRP Technical Reports

Current design procedures for concrete pavements do not account for several factors that can influence their service life. In this work, these factors are investigated and the findings are integrated into a procedure for better predicting longterm performance of concrete pavements. To achieve this, sophisticated finite element techniques are employed and parametric studies are performed. The findings are then integrated into a nonlinear procedure for damage accumulation. In the development of the comprehensive 3D Finite Element (FE) model several issues are studied including the geometry of the model, mesh refinement, element selection, interaction between pavement components, and loading simulation. The …