Engineering Commons^™

Skip The Grid: Energizing Navajo Nation, Eiley Q. Eichten

Construction Management

Skip the Grid is an interdisciplinary service project aimed at providing reliable and clean energy to families living in Navajo Nation. Cal Poly partnered with Heart of America, SOLV Energy, and Nextracker to help bring this plan to fruition. Twenty students were selected to contribute to the planning, coordinating, and fundraising for the project. After the preparation was completed, Cal Poly students joined representatives from Heart of America, SOLV Energy, and Nextracker. The trip commenced with a hands-on, productive five day visit to Chinle, Arizona. The first working day commenced with Cal Poly students attending a total of five schools …

How Mass Timber Supports Sustainability During Construction: An Industry-Based Analysis, Nicholas T. Mayton

Construction Management

As the construction industry explores new ways to reduce environmental impact, mass timber has emerged as a promising alternative to conventional materials. While much of the existing research on mass timber focuses on life-cycle assessments and carbon comparisons, few studies capture insights from professionals directly involved in building with it. This paper analyzes a series of industry interviews with contractors, designers, and sustainability consultants who have experience working on mass timber projects. The aim is to understand how sustainability plays out during the construction phase—not just in theory, but in practice. Using qualitative methods and word pattern analysis, three core …

Prefabrication Of Custom Cat Condos For Son Care Foundation, Jacob Marano

Construction Management

This senior project involved the design and construction of four custom cat condos for the Son Care Foundation. The goal of the project was to enhance the quality of life for cats by creating safe, functional, and enriching enclosures. The process involved developing a conceptual design, coordinating with daycare center staff, refining the final design and materials list, procuring supplies, and executing the build. The final deliverables included four completed condos with individual and shared spaces for 8 to 12 cats in total. Throughout the project, valuable lessons were learned in planning, budgeting, construction techniques, and working with a real …

Skip The Grid: Empowering The Navajo Nation Through Solar Energy, Gerardo L. Luna

Construction Management

Skip the Grid is an interdisciplinary service project through California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), aimed at providing sustainable energy solutions to underserved communities. In Spring 2025, I participated as a rooftop safety lead and solar installer in Chinle, Arizona, where our team partnered with SOLV Energy, Goal Zero, and Heart of America to bring solar power to 40 off-grid homes across the Navajo Nation. As a member of Red Team #3, I was directly responsible for ensuring safe ladder setup, supervising rooftop work, mounting solar panels, and managing exterior cable routing for 8 successful installations. Beyond …

Design And Playhouse Plan For Girls Build Summer Academy 2025, Aracely Berber

Construction Management

This project involves the development and execution of a week-long construction camp at Cal Poly aimed at introducing high school girls to the construction industry through the hands-on building of playhouses. This camp is coordinated by a professor in Cal Poly’s Construction Management Department and invites other industry professionals. The initiative not only promotes youth empowerment and gender diversity in the industry but also incorporates a strong educational and technical component. As part of the planning process, a detailed 3D model of the playhouse was created using Autodesk Revit to visualize the structure. Additionally, a materials list was created and …

The Third Annual Hasslein Caed Collaborative, Marianne Nicole Bishai

Construction Management

This paper details the planning, development, and impact of the third annual Hasslein CAED Collaborative Student Competition. The intention of the Hasslein Cup is to engage the students of the five College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) majors in an industry-like scenario. The five majors, Architecture, Architectural Engineering, City and Regional Planning, Construction Management, and Landscape Architecture, make up the workforce of the construction industry, yet there has been very little opportunity for the students to work together and replicate a professional scenario. The competition began from research conducted by Greta Stout, class of 2022, which explored the benefits …

Son Care Foundation - Pergola Preconstruction, Samuel J. Peters

Construction Management

This paper discusses the design and preconstruction aspects of a pergola constructed at Thousand Hills Pet Resort, supporting a non-profit organization called the Son Care Foundation. Founded in 1994 by Jack Gould, the foundation is committed to fostering hope through various programs including mentorship for students, service dog training for PTSD victims, basic pet training, vehicle repair and turnaround, and dog daycare and lodging. This project serves Son Care Foundation’s dog daycare and lodging program, called Thousand Hills Pet Resort. The program was established in 2005, and all profits are used to fund the other programs operated by the Son …

Building Services Engineering May/June 2025

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Industry Professionals On The Role Of Ff&E In Sustainability, Caius T. Toy-Grace

Construction Management

This study is designed to explore how professionals in the construction and design industries perceive the role of furniture, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) in building sustainability. Although FF&E is often viewed as a minor component of the overall construction process, it has the potential to significantly impact environmental outcomes through material sourcing, durability, and end-of-life recyclability. A survey was distributed to eight professionals in FF&E, construction, and sustainability-related fields. The survey included eight questions, with four multiple choice and four open-ended, designed to gather both quantitative and qualitative insights. Responses were analyzed to determine how often sustainability is considered in …

Optimizing Concrete Strength: How Nanomaterials And Ai Redefine Mix Design, Dan Huang, Guangshuai Han, Ziyang Tang

Physics and Engineering Science

Nanomaterials and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) are typically used together in efforts to enhance the performance of concrete and mitigate the environmental impact of concrete construction. However, the complex interactions between nanomaterials, SCMs, and cement make concrete mix design a challenging, iterative, and labor-intensive process, often relying on trial-and-error experimentation. Machine learning (ML) offers an opportunity to better understand the influence of input parameters and to accelerate the optimization of mix designs through data-driven insights. This study proposes an open-source and easy-to-access framework, Canopy, to support the concrete research community in optimizing mix design. Using a dataset collected from the …

Optimizing The Sustainability Of Asphalt Pavements Through Incorporating Crumb Rubber In High-Modulus Asphalt Concrete (Hmac) Mixtures In Louisiana, Heena Dhasmana, Marwa Hassan, Mohamed Abdelmageed

Publications

Asphalt mixtures are traditionally produced using the Superpave mix design method, which emphasizes volumetric properties; however, current research is shifting toward performance-based and sustainable approaches. Within this context, the French High Modulus Asphalt Concrete (HMAC) design focuses on achieving specific performance criteria for workability, stiffness, rutting resistance, and fatigue behavior, employing a hard binder with higher asphalt content and fewer air voids than Superpave mixes. In this study, HMAC mixtures were developed using crumb rubber and locally sourced Louisiana materials. Five HMAC mixes using PG 76-22 and PG 67-22 binders with 10% and 20% crumb rubber were prepared, along with …

Memory-Augmented Llm Agent For Predicting Locomotion Modes In Construction Activities, Ehsan Ahmadi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The construction industry faces significant challenges, including labor shortages, high physical demands, and safety risks, necessitating advanced assistive technologies like exoskeletons to enhance worker efficiency and reduce injuries. However, effective exoskeleton control in dynamic construction environments requires accurate locomotion prediction, a task complicated by the diversity of activities and reliance on supervised learning methods that struggle to generalize. This study investigates a multimodal approach to locomotion prediction, leveraging speech commands and visual data from smart glasses to enable adaptive and safe human-exoskeleton interaction. The research unfolds in two stages: the first develops a framework to evaluate the zero-shot capability and …

Beyond The Hard Hat: Examining Barriers Of Women In Construction, Allison Pham

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The construction industry is falling behind in female representation, with women only making up 11.2% of the industry. The existing labor shortage is further exacerbated by the limited interest among women to pursue a career in construction. The purpose of this research is to investigate the factors that contribute to the lack of women in the construction industry and explore how HR strategies can attract and retain women in construction careers. Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reports from three different industries were used to analyze the percentage of men and women employees. Multivariate regression analyses were conducted to examine whether …

Selecting Green Wall Adoption Best Solutions Using Optimization: Addressing Barriers And Maximizing Benefits, Samar Nadeem

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the potential of green walls as a sustainable solution to mitigate urban challenges and align with global climate change objectives. Despite their ecological and social benefits, green wall implementation faces significant barriers, hindering their adoption. Consequently, this study aims to develop a comprehensive framework to identify the obstacles, propose feasible solutions, and provide actionable strategies for promoting green walls. This framework incorporates an optimization model specifically designed for government-led solutions, evaluating their feasibility based on administrative feasibility, community acceptance, technical feasibility, industrial acceptance, and long-term adoption potential. By quantifying and prioritizing solutions based on their cost, feasibility, …

Bim-Based Automated System For Carbon Emissions And Construction Costs Estimation (Bas-Cc) In Modular Design And Production, Roshan Bandiwadekar

All Theses

Modular construction adopts a manufacturing-like construction process, enhancing the management of embodied carbon emissions in production and construction phases. However, estimating these emissions presents challenges due to the involvement of diverse stakeholders across various lifecycle stages. Additionally, cost considerations often influence design choices and material selections in modular constructions, neglecting the impact of embodied carbon emissions. To address these challenges, we present a proof-of-concept for an automated Building Information Modeling (BIM)-based system to estimate both carbon emissions and construction costs. This system automates the calculation of embodied carbon and cost implications of different modular designs and materials, enabling informed decision-making. …

Design And Optimization Of Aquaculture Gear: Development Of A Cage-Integrated Reeling Mechanism For Oyster Farming, Felicity Bryant

Honors Theses

This project encompasses the design, fabrication, and testing of a cage-integrated reeling system aimed at reducing the physical labor required in oyster aquaculture at Bama Bay Oyster Farm, the last operational oyster farm in Mobile Bay. The proposed system includes two primary components: lightweight, modular oyster cages and a dual-winch reeling device for automated retrieval. Three cage prototypes—rectangular, oval, and hexagonal—were evaluated for structural performance and fabrication feasibility. The oval design was ultimately excluded due to practical fabrication limitations. The rectangular and hexagonal designs were fabricated using recycled materials and tested under the most extreme environmental conditions derived from years …

Skip The Grid: An Impactful Solar Installation Project In The Navajo Nation, John Ryan Strain

Construction Management

Over the past four years, a team of interdisciplinary students and faculty from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), Heart of America, and generous industry sponsors (SOLV, Goal Zero, NextTracker, Elite, and TCB Builders) have brought their time, effort, and resources together to complete a service trip, called Skip the Grid. The trip’s primary goal is to provide a reliable source of power, light, and refrigeration to families with school age children in the Navajo Nation where these resources are absent or unreliable otherwise. This year’s trip took place over Cal Poly’s academic break from March 23rd …

Plansyncc - A Construction Document Translation Software, Easton Richard Abreo, Ashton Lee Gandrup, Javier Solis

Construction Management

PlanSyncc was born from shared construction internship experiences, where the team observed significant language barriers between supervisors and tradesmen, leading to miscommunication, inefficiencies, and safety risk. Motivated by this problem, PlanSyncc developed an AI-powered translation software to bridge the gap by translating construction documents in real-time. To bring PlanSyncc to life, the team divided the project into three key deliverables: a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), a business plan, and a pitch deck. The MVP involved creating two Python-based translation codes, one for specifications and another for complex construction plans using tools like PyMuPDF, Tesseract, mtranslate, and others. The business plan …

Incorporating Recycled And Repurposed Plastic Into 100% Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement, Basant Bhatt

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

The increasing awareness of sustainability in the asphalt industry has driven the use of recycled materials like reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) and waste plastic. This study examines the incorporation of recycled polypropylene (rPP), recycled high-density polyethylene (rHDPE), and recycled low-density polyethylene (rLDPE) at 0.3%, 0.6%, and 0.8% dosages into 100% RAP, along with the warm mix asphalt additive Evotherm® P25. Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the mechanical and durability performance of the modified asphalt mixtures while rutting and fatigue life were evaluated using mechanistic-empirical (ME) analysis in PerRoad software. Both plastic type and dosage had a statistically significant impact …

Robot-Integrated 4d Building Information Modeling (4d Bim): Framework For Planning Safe Autonomous Construction Operations In Dynamic Environments, Hafiz Oyedimeji Oyediran

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

In the construction industry, the use of autonomous robots is considered a solution to overcome the heavy reliance on human workers to perform repetitive, strenuous, and hazardous tasks. While these robots offer the advantage of autonomous operation, ensuring their safe and efficient integration within construction sites requires precise planning. Such planning must account for the varying project complexities such as scope, site layout, tasks, timelines, existence of human workers, and other spatiotemporal conditions of the construction site. Currently, there are no methods to safely plan autonomous robot operations considering these factors within the overarching construction planning process. Thus, autonomous robots …

Pros And Cons Of Preservation Treatments, Buzz Powell

Local Transportation Asset Management Conference

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Embodied Carbon Emissions Of Post-Seismic Steel Framed Buildings, Nicholas Leavitt

Student Research Symposium

The carbon emissions of earthquake damage repairs is on average 40% of a building's total carbon emissions in 50 years.

Synergistic Impact Of Entrained Air And Fly Ash On Chloride Ingress In Concrete Pavement: An Electrical Resistivity Model Approach, Youngguk Seo, Jin Hwan Kim

Faculty Articles

Ensuring the durability of concrete pavements against chloride ingress is critical, yet the relationship between electrical resistivity and chloride penetration remains underexplored. This study evaluates the effectiveness of entrained air and fly ash in mitigating chloride ingress using an electrical resistivity model and surface resistivity tests. Concrete samples with varying entrained air contents (0% to 10%) and Class C or Class F fly ash underwent three-year ponding tests in temperature-controlled indoor water baths and outdoor CaCl2-NaCl brine solutions. The results indicate that lower entrained air contents led to a more rapid increase in resistivity, with concrete mixes incorporating Class C …

The Impact Of Visual Stimuli And The Properties Of Green Walls On Human Well-Being In Built And Immersive Virtual Environments, Alireza Sedghikhanshir

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The built environment significantly influences human well-being, particularly in the context of stress recovery and cognitive restoration. This dissertation investigates the impact of visual stimuli, particularly green walls, on human responses related to stress, restoration, and thermal comfort. The research is guided by three primary objectives: (1) examining the role of visual stimuli and their properties in promoting stress recovery and restoration, (2) evaluating the potential of Immersive Virtual Environments (IVEs) as tools for delivering and studying restorative environments, and (3) investigating the influence of green walls on indoor environmental conditions.

A series of experimental studies were carried out to …

Innovative Design Methodology For Durable Open-Graded Friction Course Asphalt Mixtures, Anas Abualia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Open-graded friction course (OGFC) is a thin asphalt mixture surface layer with a high percentage of coarse aggregates and high interconnected air voids, which provides improved skid resistance, visibility, and decreased pavement-tire noise. However, construction personnel at DOTD reported that conventional OGFC mixtures have short service life (raveling distress). Further, their structural contribution to the pavement structure is commonly neglected and designed only for functionality purposes.

The objective of this study was to develop a rational mix design methodology to improve the durability of OGFC asphalt mixtures. Specific objectives are to: (1) conduct a rheological and chemical characterization of polymer-, …

Integrating Standards For Infrastructure Improvement And Resilience In University Curricula, Lisa Greenwood, Jennifer Schneider, Sumita Mishra, Yewande S. Abraham, Shriram Karpoora Sundara Pandian

Articles

In today’s ever-changing world, we are increasingly vulnerable to shocks and stresses that disrupt industry and society. Persistent threats from natural and manmade hazards require our communities and infrastructure to be resilient despite possible disruption. Creating robust infrastructures is founded on operational and physical standards to withstand and respond to threats such as environmental exposures, climate change, and informational security breaches. The significant U.S. investment in infrastructure projects through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has amplified the need for professionals in engineering and related fields who – in addition to technical knowledge - possess the necessary knowledge and skill …

Gis Cpd Geospatial Skills, Niamh O'Reilly

Case studies: Digital Education

The GIS CPD programme is delivered to people from industry wishing to develop their Geospatial skills in GIS. For many this is an important skill. Many organisations and companies encourage and pay for their staff to attend the programme and get the CPD Students gain important skills for managing, analysing and presenting geospatial data in a GIS environment. certificate. Students come from many different industries including local authorities, semi state bodies, National mapping agency, transport consultant practices, cable companies, environmental companies. The programme has been running for almost 30 years by my former colleague Eamonn Donnelly. Up until the pandemic …

Building Services Engineering March/April 2025

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Framework For Integrating Industry Knowledge Into A Large Language Model To Assist Construction Cost Estimation, Prashnna Ghimire

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

The construction industry generates a large amount of data across projects produced by digital devices, tools, and methods, and this volume is rapidly increasing. However, the industry lags behind in adopting data-driven technologies. On the other hand, the rapid advancement of generative AI (GenAI) in recent years, especially state-of-the-art large language models (LLMs), shows great potential and has been increasingly adopted in many industries; however, the construction industry is behind in adoption. While academic studies have proposed various machine learning applications for construction, industry implementation has lagged due to a disconnect between these proof-of-concept developments and practical industry needs. Also, …

Key Characteristics Of Long-Lived Portland Cement Concrete Airfield Pavements In The United States Air Force Enterprise, Cameron J. Palmer

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force maintains a $30 billion portfolio of airfield pavements essential for national security. Despite their importance, budget constraints have limited average annual repair funding to $260 million over the past decade, requiring pavements to last significantly longer than their typical life span. This project addresses the central question: What design features or characteristics contribute to the longevity of Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) airfield pavements? Utilizing data from AFCEC's Airfield Pavement Evaluation (APE) team and the PAVER sustainment management system, this study employed linear regression, logistic regression, and deep artificial neural network (ANN) modeling techniques to identify …