Engineering Commons^™

Low-Cost Sustainable Engineered Geopolymer Composites (Egcs) For Repair And New Construction Of Transportation Infrastructure, Hassan Noorvand, Marwa Hassan, Miladin Radovic, Svetlana Sukhishvili, Gabriel Arce, Ruwa Abufarsakh, Adriana A. Alvarado, Oscar Huang, Sang Zhen

Data

This study evaluated the use of cost-effective alternative materials in the formulation of novel low-cost Engineered Geopolymer Composite (EGC) materials for repair and new construction of transportation infrastructure in Region 6. Previous studies and reports have shown that EGCs have excellent mechanical properties, which makes them an eco-friendly and more sustainable alternative to Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECCs). However, the mass adoption of these emerging composites is expected to be hindered by their cost, which is mainly driven by the use of PVA reinforcing fibers, silica fume (SF), and manufactured microsilica sand (MS). To address this key shortcoming, novel low-cost EGC …

Development Of Robotics & Automation Roadmap For Road Construction/Maintenance Projects, Ashrant Aryal, Chao Wang, Chintan Vijay Vora, Sueed A. Willoughby

Data

Over the past few decades, there have been no significant improvements in the construction industry's productivity. Outside the construction industry, robots have proven to be beneficial in improving productivity, safety, and quality. There is a growing interest in adopting robots in the construction industry to address these issues. As robots get introduced to the project sites, human-robot interaction becomes an important consideration for wide-scale adoption. The success of deploying robots in the construction industry depends on how well humans collaborate with the robots. This project focused on investigating the perception of various construction industry stakeholders in adopting robots in their …

Rebar-Free 3d Printing Of Transportation Infrastructure, Ali Kazemian, Marwa Hassan, Hassan Noorvand, Gabriel Arce, Hassan Ahmed, Ilerioluwa Giwa

Publications

This study investigates the fresh and hardened-state properties of printing mixtures including different dosages of steel fibers, especially at higher dosages which have not been investigated before. This study also considers the effects of other parameters such as sand-to-powder ratio and the limestone content on the properties of steel fiber reinforced printing materials, to reduce the Portland cement content which has a high carbon footprint. The obtained experimental results revealed that high-performance materials incorporating up to 2.5% steel fibers (by volume) can be successfully 3D printed. The mechanical properties of the reinforced mixtures improved significantly at high fiber dosages (2% …

Resilient 3d-Printed Civil Infrastructure With Ultra-High Performance Engineered Cementitious Composites (Uhpeccs), Hassan Noorvand, Marwa Hassan, Ali Kazemian, Gabriel Andres Arce Amador, Daniel E. Game

Publications

This study aims to develop and evaluate UHP-ECC materials for 3DP applications. To achieve this, the rheological properties of the cementitious composites were designed to accommodate 3DP functionality. Additionally, this study aimed to evaluate the hardened properties of the 3D-printed UHP-ECCs and compare them to the cast UHP-ECCs. Furthermore, the effect of variables such as sand-to-binder (S/B), fly ash-to-cement ratio (FA/C), and high-range water reducer (HRWR) content on the fresh and hardened properties of the 3D printable mixtures were evaluated. Fresh properties of mixtures were assessed by means of the flowability test, setting time test, and printability test. Hardened properties …

Resilient 3d-Printed Civil Infrastructure With Ultra-High Performance Engineered Cementitious Composites (Uhpeccs), Hassan Noorvand, Marwa Hassan, Ali Kazemian, Gabriel Andres Arce Amador, Daniel E. Game

Data

This study aims to develop and evaluate UHP-ECC materials for 3DP applications. To achieve this, the rheological properties of the cementitious composites were designed to accommodate 3DP functionality. Additionally, this study aimed to evaluate the hardened properties of the 3D-printed UHP-ECCs and compare them to the cast UHP-ECCs. Furthermore, the effect of variables such as sand-to-binder (S/B), fly ash-to-cement ratio (FA/C), and high-range water reducer (HRWR) content on the fresh and hardened properties of the 3D printable mixtures were evaluated. Fresh properties of mixtures were assessed by means of the flowability test, setting time test, and printability test. Hardened properties …

Low-Cost Sustainable Engineered Geopolymer Composites (Egcs) For Repair And New Construction Of Transportation Infrastructure, Hassan Noorvand, Marwa Hassan, Miladin Radovic, Svetlana Sukhishvili, Gabriel Arce, Ruwa Abufarsakh, Adriana A. Alvarado, Oscar Huang, Sang Zhen

Publications

This study evaluated the use of cost-effective alternative materials in the formulation of novel low-cost Engineered Geopolymer Composite (EGC) materials for repair and new construction of transportation infrastructure in Region 6. Previous studies and reports have shown that EGCs have excellent mechanical properties, which makes them an eco-friendly and more sustainable alternative to Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECCs). However, the mass adoption of these emerging composites is expected to be hindered by their cost, which is mainly driven by the use of PVA reinforcing fibers, silica fume (SF), and manufactured microsilica sand (MS). To address this key shortcoming, novel low-cost EGC …

Development Of Robotics & Automation Roadmap For Road Construction/Maintenance Projects, Ashrant Aryal, Chao Wang, Chintan Vijay Vora, Sueed A. Willoughby

Publications

Over the past few decades, there have been no significant improvements in the construction industry's productivity. Outside the construction industry, robots have proven to be beneficial in improving productivity, safety, and quality. There is a growing interest in adopting robots in the construction industry to address these issues. As robots get introduced to the project sites, human-robot interaction becomes an important consideration for wide-scale adoption. The success of deploying robots in the construction industry depends on how well humans collaborate with the robots. This project focused on investigating the perception of various construction industry stakeholders in adopting robots in their …

Improvements To The Automatic Calibration Of Digital Focusing Color Schlieren Systems, Robert C. Frazee

LSU Master's Theses

As a diagnostic method, Schlieren imaging offers the unique ability to visualize flows with a completely non-intrusive method. By visualizing small changes in the refractive index of a fluid, Schlieren imaging is able to visualize changes in temperature, pressure, and composition. While historic Schlieren methods have been limited to providing largely qualitative information, modern Schlieren methods are able to extract quantitative information from flow phenomena. This is possible through either Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) or Digital Focusing Color Schlieren (DFCS) methods. While BOS is relatively flexible, it requires a large amount of computational effort to process each frame of captured …

Application Of Direct Feedback Tunable Diode Laser Absorption Spectroscopy Within A Hybrid Rocket Combustor, Connor Becnel

LSU Master's Theses

With interest in space travel and space-related science increasing in recent years, significant efforts to reduce the cost and increase the safety of rocket motors have become commonplace. Liquid rockets are currently the most commonly used system, but there is interest in the reduced complexity of hybrid rockets. For these hybrid rocket motors to become the norm, extensive research on their complex boundary layer combustion needs to be performed. Modeling these hybrid systems is of much interest to companies developing rocket motors; ultimately, small-scale experiments will help validate their behavior. This paper covers the application of a near-infrared tunable diode …

Phase Transitions And Photoluminescent Properties Of Anion-Engineered Y2o3, Maharram Jabrayilov

LSU Master's Theses

Rare earth doped metal oxides are widely employed as phosphor materials for white light LEDs (w-LEDs). The aim of this work is to engineer anionic sites of metal oxides, specifically, Y₂O₃, to investigate structural and luminescent properties relationships and energy transfer mechanisms between rare earth sensitizer and activator ions in different hosts.

A low temperature two-step hydrothermal/combustion method was employed to incorporate sulfate ions into Y₂O₃. Furthermore, annealing at 600 °C under H₂/N₂ was employed to convert Y₂O₂SO₄ to Y₂O₂S. …

Device Free Indoor Localization Of Human Target Using Wifi Fingerprinting, Prasanga Neupane

LSU Master's Theses

Indoor localization of human objects has many important applications nowadays. Proposed here is a new device free approach where all the transceiver devices are fixed in an indoor environment so that the human target doesn't need to carry any transceiver device with them. This work proposes radio-frequency fingerprinting for the localization of human targets which makes this even more convenient as radio-frequency wireless signals can be easily acquired using an existing wireless network in an indoor environment. This work explores different avenues for optimal and effective placement of transmitter devices for better localization. In this work, an experimental environment is …

Novel Texture-Based Probabilistic Object Recognition And Tracking Techniques For Food Intake Analysis And Traffic Monitoring, Robert Jacob Dibiano

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

More complex image understanding algorithms are increasingly practical in a host of emerging applications. Object tracking has value in surveillance and data farming; and object recognition has applications in surveillance, data management, and industrial automation. In this work we introduce an object recognition application in automated nutritional intake analysis and a tracking application intended for surveillance in low quality videos. Automated food recognition is useful for personal health applications as well as nutritional studies used to improve public health or inform lawmakers. We introduce a complete, end-to-end system for automated food intake measurement. Images taken by a digital camera are …

Permeable Curbs For Storm Water Pollution, Aldo Hernandez, Drew Johnson, Marcio Giacomoni

Data

One of the problems that increased urbanization poses is storm water pollution. Several control measures exist that are used to treat and reduce pollution in our waterways, one of those being permeable concretes; but these have not been widely adopted. The goal of this project was to develop a permeable curb apparatus that could be used in retrofitting conventional streets. The permeable curb is comprised of a permeable concrete mix with a perforated pipe running through its center, this allows for water to filter through the porous concrete and continue downstream through the perforated pipe which would eventually lead to …

Coupled Situational Awareness System To Improve Transportation Infrastructure Performance During Extreme Events, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky, Md Jobair Bin Alam, Raghava Kommalapati, Hongbo Du Ph.D

Data

The dense road networks and numerous low water crossings throughout Texas may be contributing to the higher recurrence rates of floods that pose a danger to vehicles. A timely issue that should be addressed by researchers is the compounding of disaster. Flooding can be combined with other life-threatening occurrences such as power loss and interruptions of health and emergency services. During these events, rescue requests from the stranded communities overwhelm the emergency response facilities; impassable roadways and the paucity of reliable information on the affected areas and their accessibility hamper emergency response operations, causing several detours and delays that put …

Coupled Situational Awareness System To Improve Transportation Infrastructure Performance During Extreme Events, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky, Md Jobair Bin Alam, Raghava Kommalapati, Hongbo Du Ph.D

Publications

The dense road networks and numerous low water crossings throughout Texas may be contributing to the higher recurrence rates of floods that pose a danger to vehicles. A timely issue that should be addressed by researchers is the compounding of disaster. Flooding can be combined with other life-threatening occurrences such as power loss and interruptions of health and emergency services. During these events, rescue requests from the stranded communities overwhelm the emergency response facilities; impassable roadways and the paucity of reliable information on the affected areas and their accessibility hamper emergency response operations, causing several detours and delays that put …

Permeable Curbs For Storm Water Pollution, Aldo Hernandez, Drew Johnson, Marcio Giacomoni

Publications

One of the problems that increased urbanization poses is storm water pollution. Several control measures exist that are used to treat and reduce pollution in our waterways, one of those being permeable concretes; but these have not been widely adopted. The goal of this project was to develop a permeable curb apparatus that could be used in retrofitting conventional streets. The permeable curb is comprised of a permeable concrete mix with a perforated pipe running through its center, this allows for water to filter through the porous concrete and continue downstream through the perforated pipe which would eventually lead to …

Examining Drivers’ Behaviors To Connected And Automated Vehicles, Hany Hassan, Taniya Sultana

Data

It is envisioned that Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are the future of transportation as they can assist in minimizing some inefficiencies with the current transport systems. However, it is not clear how drivers of conventional vehicles would interact with CAVs in a mixed traffic environment containing both CAVs and human driven vehicles (HDVs). Thus, this study aims to investigate drivers’ behaviors towards CAVs through driving simulation experiment and national survey study. Two on-ramp and two off-ramp driving simulation scenarios were designed where drivers were asked to merge with two-lane highway in presence of HDVs and CAVs truck platoon in …

Applications Of Temperature Transient Analysis For Reservoir Surveillance, Refaat Galal Aboelfotoh Hashish

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Reservoir monitoring is a key factor in the management of oil and gas resources. With the recent developments of permanent downhole temperature monitoring tools such as Fiber-Optic Distributed Temperature Sensing (FO-DTS), temperature transient analysis has evolved as a new alternative for reservoir monitoring. In this work, different techniques of temperature data analysis are presented for monitoring and characterization of hydrocarbon and geologic carbon storage (GCS) reservoirs. The objective of this study is to present new approaches that enable monitoring injection profile through vertical and horizontal injection wells using temperature warmback analysis. Application of temperature warmback analysis is also extended for …

Examining Drivers’ Behaviors To Connected And Automated Vehicles, Hany Hassan, Taniya Sultana

Publications

It is envisioned that Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are the future of transportation as they can assist in minimizing some inefficiencies with the current transport systems. However, it is not clear how drivers of conventional vehicles would interact with CAVs in a mixed traffic environment containing both CAVs and human driven vehicles (HDVs). Thus, this study aims to investigate drivers’ behaviors towards CAVs through driving simulation experiment and national survey study. Two on-ramp and two off-ramp driving simulation scenarios were designed where drivers were asked to merge with two-lane highway in presence of HDVs and CAVs truck platoon in …

Using 2d Hec-Ras Modeling With Vertical Feature Extraction To Inform Ecological Design In The Lower Atchafalaya River Basin, Louisiana, Colin Anderson

LSU Master's Theses

A 2D HEC-RAS model was created to demonstrate applications of hydraulic modeling for informing ecological design. This was done by comparing the hydrologic conditions of a baseline year (2010) to that of the environmental flow prescription from Kozak et al. (2016). The inundation results are relevant to hydraulic connectivity and cypress regeneration.

The hydraulic model was created by assimilating numerous data sources, refining the model with vertical feature (VF) extraction, and calibrating/validating the model. Several topo-bathymetric sources were combined to create the digital elevation model (DEM). Most importantly, this included bathymetry of the backswamp. Polylines of significant VFs in the …

Incorporating Geopolymer Binders To Fully Utilize Recycled Concrete Aggregates, Matthew Upshaw

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study aims to develop a geopolymer concrete binder that will yield desirable strength and durability characteristics when applied to recycled aggregate concrete. In order to achieve this, a geopolymer binder consisting of a metakaolin-silica fume aluminosilicate source material blend activated by potassium-based alkaline solutions is developed and used in place of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with four different levels of recycled aggregate replacement ratios. The properties of these concretes were analyzed and compared with the properties of OPC concretes produced with the same replacement ratio levels. The results showed that the geopolymer recycled aggregate concrete (GRAC) achieved greater than …

Evaluating Serverless Computing, Charitra Maharjan

LSU Master's Theses

Function as a Service (FaaS) is gaining admiration because of its way of deploying the computations to serverless backends in the different clouds. It transfers the complexity of provisioning and allocating the necessary resources for an application to the cloud providers. The cloud providers also give an illusion of always availability of resources to the users. Among the cloud providers, AWS serverless platform offers a new paradigm for developing cloud applications without worrying about the underlying hardware infrastructure. It manages not only the resource provisioning and scaling of an application but also provides an opportunity to reimagine the cloud infrastructure …

Ultraviolet Chiral Plasmonics, Tiago Ramos Leite Da Silva

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The far- (λ < 250 nm) ultraviolet (UV) chiroptical response from protein secondary structures can aid in understanding protein interactions for drug discovery. Chiral metasurfaces have attracted attention to enhance the intrinsically weak biomolecular optical activity for improved structural biology characterization. However, due to materials and fabrication challenges, current metasurfaces mostly operate in the visible and near-infrared regimes with limited, if any, response in far-UV. The large spectral mismatch between metasurface and biomolecular resonances limits the chiral enhancement factor. In this work, we study aluminum planar metamaterials which display optical activity in the UV region. In the first part of this work, we experimentally and computationally investigate the resonant plasmonic-biomolecular interactions in the far-UV. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first to experimentally explore these resonant interactions in the biologically relevant far-UV regime. We demonstrate experimentally and computationally enhanced chiral sensing of sub-10 nm amino acid films. We develop a full-wave computational model of a biomolecular film on an aluminum gammadion array using experimentally derived chiral parameters (κ) for L- and DTyrosine films. Our model shows that detectable enhancements in the circular dichroism (CD) and birefringence (CB) signals from small amounts of biomolecules are only possible when tight spectral overlap exists between the plasmonic and biomolecular chiroptical signals. We support this conclusion experimentally by fabricating aluminum gammadion arrays on fused silica substrates and sublimating ultrathin racemic, L- and D- Tyrosine films on the arrays. Complete Mueller matrix analysis of the resonant plasmonic-biomolecular system agrees with our computational results and demonstrates the importance of using far-UV active metasurfaces for enhancing natural optical activity. In the second part of this work, we study hybrid aluminum reflective metasurfaces, which leverage both local and propagating surface plasmons (PSP). These materials display strong bi-anisotropy with rich polarization conversion properties. We explore several geometries and verify how their symmetry properties affect their far-field response. Our observations provide an opportunity for researchers to improve the chiral response of plasmonic metasurfaces, especially in the challenging ultraviolet regime.

Evaluation Of Fresh And Hardened Properties Of 3d-Printed Engineered Cementitious Composites (Ecc) Designed For Sustainable And Resilient Infrastructure Systems, Maryam Hojati, Muhammad Saeed Zafar, Amir Bakhshi

Data

3D concrete printing is a cutting-edge construction technique that has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry due to cost-saving in terms of labor and formwork costs, efficiency in construction, lower safety-related risks, and a higher degree of automation. However, several issues still make its adoption relatively slower on a large scale. Engineered cementitious composites (ECC), a class of ultra-high-strength concrete, can be a potential solution to some problems, such as reinforcement and durability. The preliminary phase of a Tran SET project focused on the design of 3D printable ECC, considering the concrete mix design proportions and their potential effects …

Evaluation Of Fresh And Hardened Properties Of 3d-Printed Engineered Cementitious Composites (Ecc) Designed For Sustainable And Resilient Infrastructure Systems, Maryam Hojati, Muhammad Saeed Zafar, Amir Bakhshi

Publications

3D concrete printing is a cutting-edge construction technique that has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry due to cost-saving in terms of labor and formwork costs, efficiency in construction, lower safety-related risks, and a higher degree of automation. However, several issues still make its adoption relatively slower on a large scale. Engineered cementitious composites (ECC), a class of ultra-high-strength concrete, can be a potential solution to some problems, such as reinforcement and durability. The preliminary phase of a Tran SET project focused on the design of 3D printable ECC, considering the concrete mix design proportions and their potential effects …

Alternative Supplementary Cementitious Materials In Ultra-High Performance Concrete, Craig Newtson, Seyedsaleh Mousavinezhad, Gregory J, Gonzales, William K. Toledo, Judit M. Garcia

Data

Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an emerging material with remarkable mechanical and durability properties that contains large amounts of cementitious materials. Silica fume is a main supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in UHPC, however, it is more expensive than cement and other SCMs, so it is often substituted with inexpensive class F fly ash. Unfortunately, future availability of fly ash is uncertain as the energy industry moves toward renewable energy. Fly ash shortages create an urgent need to find cost-effective and environmentally-friendly alternatives for fly ash. This study investigated replacing cement, fly ash, and silica fume in UHPC mixtures with ground …

Effectiveness Assessment Of E-Ticketing Technology In Construction Of Transportation Projects, Sharareh Kermanshachi, Karthik Subramanya

Data

The construction of highway infrastructure has devoted significant resources towards e-Construction to reduce the paperwork and automate the tasks in daily operations. Electronic Ticketing (e-Ticketing) is one such component of e-Construction that aids in the digital transfer of material tickets such as asphalt and concrete which accounts for more than fifty per cent of construction costs. Despite the benefits of e-Ticketing, many state departments and agencies are unwilling to transition into this technology. No studies have identified the cause of the delay in the implementation process, developed a framework to comprehend the platform's full potential, quantified savings, and suggested strategies …

Development Of A Machine Learning-Based Model To Determine The Optimum And Safe Restriping Timing Of Thermoplastic Pavement Markings In Hot And Humid Climates, Momen R. Mousa, Marwa Hassan

Publications

Due to limited budget, most transportation agencies restripe their thermoplastic pavement markings based on a fixed schedule or based on visual inspection instead of monitoring the retroreflectivity and restriping when the retroreflectivity drops below a pre-determined threshold. These strategies are questionable in terms of efficiency and economy. Therefore, previous studies proposed degradation models to predict the retroreflectivity of thermoplastic markings based on key variables. Yet, most of these studies reported low R² (as low as 0.1), which placed little confidence in these models. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate and predict the field performance of thermoplastics …

Development Of A Machine Learning-Based Model To Determine The Optimum And Safe Restriping Timing Of Thermoplastic Pavement Markings In Hot And Humid Climates, Momen R. Mousa, Marwa Hassan

Data

Due to limited budget, most transportation agencies restripe their thermoplastic pavement markings based on a fixed schedule or based on visual inspection instead of monitoring the retroreflectivity and restriping when the retroreflectivity drops below a pre-determined threshold. These strategies are questionable in terms of efficiency and economy. Therefore, previous studies proposed degradation models to predict the retroreflectivity of thermoplastic markings based on key variables. Yet, most of these studies reported low R² (as low as 0.1), which placed little confidence in these models. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate and predict the field performance of thermoplastics …

Alternative Supplementary Cementitious Materials In Ultra-High Performance Concrete, Craig Newtson, Seyedsaleh Mousavinezhad, Gregory J. Gonzales, William K. Toledo, Judit M. Garcia

Publications

Ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC) is an emerging material with remarkable mechanical and durability properties that contains large amounts of cementitious materials. Silica fume is a main supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in UHPC, however, it is more expensive than cement and other SCMs, so it is often substituted with inexpensive class F fly ash. Unfortunately, future availability of fly ash is uncertain as the energy industry moves toward renewable energy. Fly ash shortages create an urgent need to find cost-effective and environmentally-friendly alternatives for fly ash. This study investigated replacing cement, fly ash, and silica fume in UHPC mixtures with ground …