Engineering Commons^™

Seismic Response Analysis Along The Coastal Area Of Bengkulu During The September 2007 Earthquake, Lindung Zalbuin Mase

Makara Journal of Technology

A strong earthquake of 8.4 Mw occurred at the Sumatra Subduction Zone in September 12, 2007. The area that underwent the impact of the earthquake was located along the coastal area of the Bengkulu Province. A seismic ground response study was then performed with reference to the event. Several site investigations, including standard penetration test and shear wave velocity tests, were conducted to understand the subsoil condition. The data were used to analyze a ground response during the earthquake. The amplification factor of each site was obtained, and a comparison of the spectral accelerations was performed. The results showed that …

Coax-Fed Dipole-Type Applicator For Hepatic Cancer Rf Ablation, Basari Basari, Aditya Rakhmadi, Kazuyuki Saito

Makara Journal of Technology

Cancer is the third leading cause of mortality in the world and is one of the most difficult diseases to detect and cure. This fact motivates us to investigate a treatment method by using radiofrequency (RF) ablation. RF ablation therapy kills cancer cells by electromagnetically heating them up. The treatment uses an applicator that is inserted into the body to heat the cells. The cancer cells are exposed to a temperature of more than 60 °C in short duration (a few seconds to a few minutes), thereby causing cell destruction locally. To ensure effective treatment, a minimally invasive method is …

Structural Identification And Assessment Of The Inverted Tee Girder Bridge System, Garrett P. D. Martindale

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

The Inverted Tee (IT) girder bridge system was originally developed in 1996 by the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) and Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) engineers. This bridge system currently accounts for over 110 bridges in Nebraska used for both state highways and local county roads. Excessive transverse and longitudinal deck cracking has been observed and noted in numerous bridge inspection reports. Since the IT girder bridge system is relatively new, limited data and knowledge exist on its structural performance and behavior. This study evaluates the IT girder bridge system by conducting twenty field observations as well as recording accelerometer time …

Simplified Approach For Structural Evaluation Of Flexible Pavements At The Network Level, Karthikeyan Loganathan

Civil Engineering Theses

Currently, there is no simple procedure available to identify structurally weak pavement sections using Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) data at the network level (e.g., city, state or province). A simple method is needed to determine the structural condition of pavement sections that can be directly implemented and automated in the current pavement databases. The method needs to be simple enough to be used with a network level FWD database for the purpose of numerically ranking pavement sections at the network level from good to poor. Backcalculation has been utilized to obtain layer moduli and determine overlay (new added surface pavement …

Artificial Recharge Of Groundwater As A Management Tool For The Kabul Basin, Afghanistan, Mohammad Farid Masoom

LSU Master's Theses

Decades of war and political instability, consecutive droughts, population increase and displacement, caused serious infrastructural damages to water resources of Afghanistan. The main source of water supply for people in Afghanistan is groundwater. However, over-exploitation of groundwater has led to groundwater level declines in most parts of the country. Kabul, the largest city of Afghanistan, is the capital city with a population of 4.5 million and the fifth fastest-growing city in the world. The city has observed groundwater level declines of 5-10 meters (m) since 1980. Decline of about 30 m has also been observed in one of the monitoring …

Value Engineering And Its Applications In Civil Engineering, Mohamed Abdel-Raheem, Victoria Burbach, Ahmed Abdelhameed, Grecia Silva Sanchez, Linda Navarro

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Value engineering (VE) can be a very valuable tool in the field of civil engineering and the construction industry. VE has tremendous benefits in both cost-saving and project improvement areas. Between the pay-offs and wide variety of applications, it is unsurprising that more firms are adopting the principles of VE in the design and construction phases of their projects. Many studies have been conducted on the invention of new tools for VE while others focused on the application aspect of VE in different engineering domains. This paper presents an overview of VE and its applications in the field of civil …

Comprehensive Comparison Of Steel Framed Fabric And Conventionally Constructed Aircraft Hangars, Justin M. Iungerich

Theses and Dissertations

Through the life of the United States Air Force (USAF), the accepted method for constructing permanent aircraft hangars is the use of materials such as steel and concrete. However, the emerging type of construction known as steel framed fabric (SFF) construction shows potential to meet the requirements of the USAF at a lower life-cycle cost and with faster construction delivery. A comprehensive comparison to conventional hangars is conducted through the means of an extensive literature review, case study analysis, structural analysis with the use of finite element analysis (FEA) software, and a life-cycle cost comparison. Through examination of Department of …

Assessment Of Drinking Water Quality Management And A Treatment Feasibility Study For Brick By Brick Water Storage Tanks In Rakai Uganda, James V. Murduca

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reliable access to safe drinking water is one necessity for humans to live without concern for major health risks. The overall goal of this research is to improve the public health, through improved drinking water, for communities in the Rakai District in Uganda, directly, and other communities in the world, indirectly, via dissemination of knowledge. This study specifically assessed the knowledge of drinking water quality in regards to public health, their sanitation measures, and water treatment methods for users of Brick by Brick rainwater harvesting tanks in the Rakai District (N = 28) by using a knowledge, attitudes, and practice …

Defining Success In Air Force Infrastructure Asset Management Through Use Of The Delphi Method, Brendan J. Maestas

Theses and Dissertations

Asset Management has a history of policy mandates within the US Government dating back to 1990’s. In order to accomplish these many directives, the Air Force Civil Engineer community has adopted a mindset and framework commonly referred to as Asset Management. Despite numerous references and guidance to establish Asset Management principles, the Air Force has not yet developed a clear and concise way to define or measure overarching success in Asset Management. This research effort focuses on closing the knowledge gap between issued policy and implementation. It examines Asset Management implementation efforts in other government agencies, private industries, and in …

Modeling Corrosion Damage And Repair To A 3, Joseph R. Scott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to investigate and implement a repair design for corrosion damaged bridge bents in order to resist lateral loading, such as wind loads or ship impact. Using the results from a one-third scale bridge bent constructed and tested for a previous study, non-linear modeling was used to simulate the same corrosion damage and load response. The principle variable considered was damage, represented as a percent of effective area loss of prestressing steel within a designated damage zone along the length of piles. Other influencing variables included: prestress transfer length, localized loss in prestress due …

Bio-Inspired Hybrid Vibration Control Methodology For Intelligent Isolated Bridge Structures, Mariantonieta Gutierrez Soto

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Inspired by evolutionary game theory, the biological game of replicator dynamics is investigated for vibration control of bridge structures subjected to earthquake excitations. Replicator dynamics can be interpreted economically as a model of imitation of successful individuals. This paper uses replicator dynamics to reduce vibrations while optimally allocating the control device forces. The control algorithm proposed is integrated with a patented neural dynamic optimization algorithm to find optimal growth rate values with the goal of achieving satisfactory structural performance with minimum energy consumption. A model is described for hybrid vibration control of smart highway bridge structures subjected to earthquake loading.

Feasibility Of Using Graphene Oxide Nanoflake (Gonf) As Additive Of Cement Composite, Jinwoo An, Matthew Mcinnis, Wonseok Chung, Boo Hyun Nam

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The object of this study is to investigate the feasibility of ball-milled graphene oxide nanoflakes (GONFs) produced by a mechanochemical process as an additive in Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)-based paste and concrete. Different percentages of GONFs (0.01–1 wt. %) were added in OPC paste mix to find the optimum content of GONF in GONF-combined cement composites. To investigate the effect of the changes in the mix design on OPC paste, two mix design methods were employed: (1) Dry-mix, where GONFs and OPC powders are mixed prior to paste formation and (2) Wet-mix, where sonicated GONFs solution is used as the …

Helipad Design And Best Practices, Andrew Swanson

Purdue Road School

Heated Permeable Concrete Helipads for Safety and Surety - The latest in helipad construction technologies has combined with aeronautical consultant-guided design to create helipads that are safe and environmentally friendly and that meet the guidelines of the FAA, state, local agencies, and first responders. Join us to learn about heated permeable concrete helipads, which offer safety to flight crew, patient, and helicopter by eliminating ice and snow on the pad and pathways.

Rehabilitation Of Central Avenue Historic Stone Arch, Katlyn Shergalis

Purdue Road School

Indianapolis’s Central Avenue Historic Arch over Fall Creek was in immediate need of rehabilitation. Due to the historic nature of the structure, coordination was required with all of the state agencies to resolve issues and conflicts while maintaining the original integrity. We will share lessons learned as they relate to the complexity of the design with regard to the historic arch, the mapping of stones, and the plan details required to identify all features.

Incorporating Ada And Aps Work On Traffic Contracts: Design Guidance And Construction Standards, Joseph Bruno

Purdue Road School

The presentation provides an overview of the Indiana Department of Transportation's design guidance and construction standards on curb ramps and accessible pedestrian signals. The presentation also summarizes the Indiana Department of Transportation's policy on when existing curb ramps and pedestrian pushbuttons must be upgraded as part of a traffic construction contract and when an upgrade is optional.

When To Use Midwest Guardrail System (Mgs) W-Beam Guardrail, Katherine Smutzer

Purdue Road School

In this session we will discuss when MGS w-beam guardrail should be placed on state and local projects and review pertinent INDOT Design Memos released over the past year.

The Quest For Hydrological Signatures: Effects Of Data Transformation On Bayesian Inference Of Watershed Models, Mojtaba Sadegh, Morteza Shakeri Majd, Jairo Hernandez, Ali Torabi Haghighi

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hydrological models contain parameters whose values cannot be directly measured in many field-scale projects, hence need to be meaningfully inferred through calibration against historical records. Much progress has been made in development of efficient search algorithms in order to find optimal parameter values and their underlying uncertainty distributions. Yet, relatively little is known about the effects of calibration data (or error residual) transformations on the identifiability of model parameters and reliability of model predictions. Effects of calibration data transformations on the posterior parameter distribution and predictive capability of two parsimonious hydrological models are analyzed herein. Our results depict that calibration …

A Digital Image Analysis Of Gravel Aggregate Using Ct Scanning Technique, Jiangfeng Wu, Linbing Wang, Yue Hou, Haocheng Xiong, Yang Lu, Lei Zhang

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Particle shape was one of the most important factors which affects the gravel aggregate’s properties. It was also one of the important factors that directly affects the performance of asphalt pavements. In this paper, the gravel aggregate of quartzite was studied by using the industrial CT instrument. MATLAB was used to capture the aggregate slice properties including reverse color, median filtering, noise reduction, binarization and so on. The 3D aggregate model was reconstructed by using the software of MIMICS. The three-dimensional model of the aggregate was further optimized. The best fitting cuboid, cylinder, cone and sphere information of the aggregate …

Educating And Developing Construction Professionals: Integrating The Co-Op Program With Construction Engineering Education, Yong Bai

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Bs News March/April

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Occupational Noise Dose Reduction Via Behavior Modification Using In-Ear Dosimetry Among Usaf Personnel Exposed To Continuous Impulse Noise, Jesse A. Trawick

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to investigate the use of in-ear noise dosimetry and worker feedback to reduce noise exposures among combat arms instructors and heavy equipment operators in the Air Force. Specifically, this thesis sought to determine how effectively hearing protection devices (HPDs) are being utilized currently, and whether providing at-ear noise exposure data to workers results in reduced noise exposures or changes in worker attitude. These questions were addressed by performing a six-month field study using dosimeters to record worker noise exposures under HPDs. Subjects served as their own control, receiving feedback in only the latter half …

A Framework For Assessing The Economic Feasibility Of Leed For Homes Guidelines For Water Efficiency, Mohamed Abdel-Raheem, Jennifer Lima

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Sustainable practices have been on the rise during the last decade. From recycling to alternative energy sources, many studies have been conducted to incorporate green practices into people’s daily lives. However, cost efficiency can be a significant deterrent to begin or continue these practices. Homes are responsible for the consumption of a large portion of water in the United States. As such there is a need for more studies directed toward the assessment of the practical implementation of water efficiency. This study follows LEED v4 for homes guidelines to examine the feasibility of adopting green practices for water reduction. The …

Advancing Distributed Data Management For The Hydroshare Hydrologic Information System, Hong Yi, Ray Idaszak, Michael Stealey, Chris Calloway, Alva L. Couch, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

HydroShare (https://www.hydroshare.org) is an online collaborative system to support the open sharing of hydrologic data, analytical tools, and computer models. Hydrologic data and models are often large, extending to multi-gigabyte or terabyte scale, and as a result, the scalability of centralized data management poses challenges for a system such as HydroShare. A distributed data management framework that enables distributed physical data storage and management in multiple locations thus becomes a necessity. We use the iRODS (Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) data grid middleware as the distributed data storage and management back end in HydroShare. iRODS provides a unified virtual file system …

Two-Stage Concrete As A Sustainable Production, Hakim Salem Abdelgader, Ali Said Ahmed El-Baden, H. A. Abdurrahman, A. S.M. Abdul Awal

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Two-stage concrete (TSC) is a sustainable concrete which is produced by forcing a flowable cement grout mixture through the voids of a skeletal mass made of compacted preplaced aggregates. From the technical and economic aspects, TSC is particularly useful for construction and repair of concrete structures especially foundations, underwater construction, nuclear reactors, concrete dams, heritage structures and in constructions with closely spaced reinforcement. TSC differs from ordinary concrete in that it contains a higher proportion of stone aggregate and the aggregate stays in point-to-point contact as placed. Thus, the mechanical characteristics of the TSC in failure conditions are distinctly different …

Analysis Of Cross-Cultural Training Provided To United States Air Force Civil Engineer Officers, And How Engineering Efforts Are Affected On Overseas Air Force Installations: A Delphi Study, Bianca E. Boney

Theses and Dissertations

U.S. military personnel perform a wide array of roles and missions at locations all over the world. As such, this research investigates and describes the current process of cultural training, its adequacy, and examines how cultural differences and collaboration efforts may impede or enhance project management and engineering efforts. This qualitative analysis is conducted through a Delphi study of U.S. Air Force officers consisting of 15 subject matter experts (SMEs) with experiences from 13 different countries. All reported to have daily to weekly interactions with locals and foreign partners due to job requirements; however, no set standard of cultural training …

Stabilization Of Lead (Pb) And Zinc (Zn) In Contaminated Rice Paddy Soil Using Starfish: A Preliminary Study, Deok Hyun Moon, Inseong Hwang, Agamemnon Koutsospyros, Kyung Hoon Cheong, Yong Sik Ok, Won Hyun Ji, Jeong Hun Park

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) contaminated rice paddy soil was stabilized using natural (NSF) and calcined starfish (CSF). Contaminated soil was treated with NSF in the range of 0-10 wt.% and CSF in the range of 0-5 wt.% and cured for 28 days. Toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test was used to evaluate effectiveness of starfish treatment. Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) analyses were conducted to investigate the mechanism responsible for effective immobilization of Pb and Zn. Experimental results suggest that NSF and CSF treatments effectively immobilize Pb and Zn in treated rice paddy soil. TCLP levels for …

Electro-Kinetic Remediation Processes -- A Brief Overview And Selected Applications, Chandra Mouli Tummala, Sanjay Tewari

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this growing world the need for in-situ remediation has grown importance for various reasons. In-situ remediation is the application of remediation in the subsurface – as compared to ex-situ remediation, which applies to media readily accessible above ground and many times involves excavation and disruption of the soil. In-situ remediation may be applied in the unsaturated/vadoze zone or in saturated soils and groundwater. Anthropogenic activities (municipal and industrial) have resulted in contamination in subsurface soil/water environment. There are several in-situ remediation methods for example bio-remediation, thermal desorption, soil vapor extraction, and soil flushing just to name a few.

The …

Fully Probabilistic Analysis Of Frp-To-Concrete Bonded Joints Considering Model Uncertainty, Dongming Zhang, Xiang-Lin Gu, Qian-Qian Yu, Hongwei Huang, Baolin Wan, Cheng Jiang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This work presents a full reliability-based analysis framework for fiber-reinforced polymer(FRP)-to-concrete bonded joints considering model uncertainty. Eight frequently used bond strength models for FRP-to-concrete bonded joints were calibrated by defining a model factor. A total of 641 well-documented tests were considered. Four of the eight models had model factors that correlated with input design parameters and the systematic part of the model factor was removed by a regression equation f. By doing this type of characterization, all eight model factors could be comparatively uniform and described by lognormally distributed random variables. The merit of the uniform model uncertainties …

Evaluation Of Continuous Monitoring As A Tool For Municipal Stormwater Management Programs, Walter M. Mcdonald, Randel L. Dymond, Vinod K. Lohani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the uncertainty attributable to inadequate temporal sampling of stormwater discharge and water quality, and understand its implications for meeting monitoring objectives relevant to municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). A methodology is presented to evaluate uncertainty attributable to inadequate temporal sampling of continuous stormflow and water quality, and a case study demonstrates the application of the methodology to six small urban watersheds (0.8-6.8 km²) and six large rural watersheds (30-16,192 km²) in Virginia. Results indicate the necessity of high-frequency continuous monitoring for accurately capturing multiple monitoring objectives, including …

Spot-R By Triax, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Triax’s Spot-r system was developed to tackle the construction industry’s unique safety and productivity challenges, stemming from a demonstrated lack of total jobsite visibility and automatically collected, easily accessible field data. Spot-r by Triax combines a proprietary mesh network with sensor technology to record and transmit previously unattainable workforce and equipment location, activity and safety data within a defined area – all in real-time.

The Spot-r network is installed around the site and operates in a 900 MHz network, with a subset using a cellular connection to forward Spot-r sensor data to Triax’s custom, cloud dashboard. In the hazardous construction …