Engineering Commons^™

Cwmf–Iso 19650 Information Requirements Mapping Tool, Fatemeh Hamid

Tools

The CWMF–ISO 19650 Information Requirements Tool provides a structured view of 61 information requirements identified across the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF) and supporting Infrastructure Guidelines.

The workbook allows users to review these requirements from two perspectives: a Stage Perspective, based on CWMF lifecycle stages and IG Gates, and an Appointment Perspective, which groups requirements according to their relevance to Design Team, Works Contractor and client/project appointments.

The tool is intended to support public clients and project teams in understanding, filtering and reviewing information requirements when developing project-specific Exchange Information Requirements (EIRs). It is a reference and review …

Project Information Standard - Asset Register Building, Robert Moore

Tools

This Build Digital Asset Register for Buildings provides a practical starting point for public sector clients developing asset information requirements for conventional building projects.

Based on a simplified selection of COBie information fields, the Excel workbook supports the identification, organisation and collection of asset information for building operation and maintenance. It can assist clients in defining information requirements and communicating these to project delivery teams.

The workbook is particularly suited to organisations beginning their digital asset management journey. It is intended as an adaptable guidance resource rather than a comprehensive asset management solution. More complex buildings and critical infrastructure may …

Understanding Structured Data From The Perspective Of Irish Industry Professionals, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This report examines the challenges associated with adopting structured data across the Irish construction sector, drawing on interviews with industry professionals involved in design and construction.

It explores why unstructured information remains prevalent and identifies barriers including digital knowledge gaps, inconsistent information requirements, fragmented information management systems, established working practices and contractual arrangements.

The report provides recommendations to support greater adoption of structured data, improved interoperability and more effective information exchange, helping organisations realise the benefits of digital construction.

Design Team Lead Delivery Approach - Implementation Guide, Robert Moore

Reports

This Build Digital guidance provides a practical framework for implementing the Design Team Lead information management delivery approach on public sector construction projects in Ireland, aligned with the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the Irish BIM Mandate and the ISO 19650 series.

The approach enables the Design Team Lead to undertake additional information management services on behalf of the Client (Appointing Party), while the Client retains responsibility for governance, approval of information requirements and acceptance of information.

The four-document suite comprises an implementation guide, an activities schedule and two detailed scopes of services covering Standard and Complex project requirements. These …

Delivery Approach – Read Me First Guide, Robert Moore

Reports

This Build Digital guidance provides a structured approach to selecting and implementing information management delivery arrangements for public sector construction projects in Ireland, supporting the Capital Works Management Framework (CWMF), the Irish BIM Mandate and the ISO 19650 series.

The guidance considers four delivery approaches: In-house, Third-party, Design Team Lead and Sub-consultant. It supports public sector clients in evaluating their organisational capability, available resources, project complexity, governance requirements and associated risks to determine the most appropriate delivery approach.

The accompanying four-document suite comprises a Read Me First implementation guide, a comparative guide to the delivery approaches, a project-specific risk assessment …

Toward A Core Domain Ontology For Road Asset Management: A Consolidated Model Of Domain Requirements, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This research explainer summarises a study examining how a shared conceptual model can improve interoperability in road asset management. Drawing on a systematic review of existing ontology research, the study consolidates key domain requirements into a Unified Modelling Language (UML) model. The findings provide a foundation for developing a core domain ontology to support more consistent interpretation, exchange and integration of road asset information across BIM, GIS and asset management systems.

Getting Started With Digitalisation: A Guide To Meeting Environmental Policy Requirements In The Built Environment, Conor Shaw, James .O'Donnell

Reports

This guide supports organisations across the built environment sector in adopting digital processes to meet environmental policy requirements and improve lifecycle decision-making.

It provides a practical five-step approach to digitalisation: establishing requirements, defining scope, collecting asset data, conducting calculations and interpreting results.

The guide explores how structured information and digital workflows can support environmental reporting, carbon accounting, lifecycle cost analysis and asset management, using practical examples to illustrate their application.

It helps organisations identify suitable starting points, assess their capabilities and make informed decisions about digital adoption.

Prototyping Pinhole Collimators For Imaging Irradiated Nuclear Fuel, Narrie Loftus, Ashish Avachat, Joseph T. Graham, Ryan Fronk, Jordan Fox, Rachel Shaffer, Seth Kilby

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Collimator design and fabrication is a costly and time-consuming process that does not lend itself to simplified testing. This manuscript presents an approach for the rapid prototyping of sub-millimeter pinhole collimators for nuclear fuel applications using low-melting-point, high-mass-density materials. Multiple collimators were fabricated to test collimator parameters and properties, including acceptance angle, aperture diameter, and magnification. The fabricated collimators were paired with a position-sensitive CdZnTe detector to determine the detector response convolved with the collimator. Preliminary analysis using these collimators showed that they were effective in collimating multi-energy gamma laboratory sources. Radiography was performed to confirm magnification and determine coarse …

A Review Of Gallium And Germanium Recovery From Industrial Solid Residues, Ernest V. Oteng, Marthias Silwamba, Lana Alagha, Alex Luyima

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The global demand for critical elements such as gallium (Ga) and germanium (Ge), and the shift toward circular mining has accelerated the development of new extraction and recovery processing these metals from industrial solid residues. This transition is driven by a substantial surge in demand for advanced technologies and the depletion of primary ore. Consequently, industrial solid residues, particularly zinc processing residues, smelter slags, flue dusts, and coal fly ash, are emerging as viable alternative sources. These residues incorporate Ga and Ge through isomorphic substitution in phases such as ferrites, silicates, and glassy aluminosilicates, and are enriched by industrial processes, …

Crushing Behavior Of Crash Boxes With Hybrid Honeycomb–Auxetic Fillers: Effects Of Architecture, Geometry, And Material Behaviors, A. Yudhanto, A. Jusuf, L. D. Lumanauw, M. Falyanzhuri, A. Afdhal

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Additively manufactured (AM) fillers provide new opportunities to tailor the crushing response and energy absorption of thin-walled metallic crash boxes. This study presents a combined experimental–numerical investigation of hexagonal AA6063-T4 crash boxes filled with architected structures, i.e., honeycomb, auxetic-reentrant, and hybrid honeycomb–auxetic topology. The hybrid configuration, which integrates cells with positive and negative Poisson's ratios, triggers coordinated mechanisms (that enhance folding behavior and collapse control) unattainable via single topology. Quasi-static axial compression tests were conducted to characterize force–displacement curves, deformation mechanisms, energy absorption (EA), and specific energy absorption (SEA). Finite element models developed in the explicit solver LS-DYNA were employed …

Mind The Hazard: Modeling And Interpreting Comfort With Personalized Sensing, Yufei Zhang, Matteo Favero, Patrick Chwalek, Sailin Zhong, Denis Lalanne, A. Joseph Paradiso, Clayton Miller, Andrew Sonta

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Recent advances in personalized sensing and comfort feedback have spurred the development of data-driven comfort models tailored to individual needs. However, because current models treat sequential comfort feedback independently, they are subject to unstable predictions and limited interpretability, hindering their deployment in building management. This study introduces a dynamic modeling framework that utilizes a Neural Ordinary Differential Equations-based Continuous-time Markov Chain to model the transitions in comfort states over time. Our modeling approach, developed through a field study utilizing smart glasses and mobile app feedback, tracks occupants' comfort transitions across daily activities and contexts. The results demonstrate that this model …

Electrochemical Behavior Of Passive Film On Electron Beam Powder Bed Fusion Fabricated Ti-6al-4v Alloy Under Uniaxial Tensile Stress, Hongyu Zheng, Mengdi Yan, Yun Bai, Qian Wang, Lai-Chang Zhang, Jin Xu, Hao Wang, Yingjie Ma, Shujun Li, Rui Yang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

As medical titanium alloys inevitably undergo synergistic actions of stress and corrosion in human body, a comprehensive investigation of their relevant properties is deemed essential for ensuring their safe application. This work investigates the uniaxial tensile stress electrochemical behaviour of Ti-6Al-4V alloy fabricated by electron beam powder bed fusion under simulated implantation conditions. The results indicate that tensile stress facilitates rapid formation of a dense passive film, which contains a high proportion of high-valent oxides. As the passivation process proceeds, applied stress promotes more defects accumulation in the passive film, compromising its barrier function and reducing corrosion resistance. Under sustained …

Lrq-Solver: A Transformer-Based Neural Operator For Fast And Accurate Solving Of Large-Scale 3d Pdes, Peijian Zeng, Guan Wang, Haohao Gu, Xiaoguang Hu, Tiezhu Gao, Zhuowei Wang, Aimin Yang, Xiaoyu Song

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Solving large-scale PDEs on complex three-dimensional geometries remains a central challenge in scientific and engineering computing, often due to expensive pre-processing stages and high computational overhead. We present Low-Rank Query-based PDE Solver (LRQ-Solver), a physics-integrated deep learning framework for efficient CAE simulations of complex three-dimensional geometries in CAD-driven design analysis. Built upon the Parameter-Conditioned Lagrangian Modeling (PCLM) that embeds physical consistency into the learning process and the Low-Rank Query Attention (LR-QA) module that reduces attention complexity from O(N2) to O(NC2+C3) via covariance decomposition, LRQ-Solver supports multi-configuration analysis within iterative design workflows. On two benchmark datasets, it achieves a 28.6% error …

Machine Learning Local Potentials For Accelerated Electron-Phonon Interactions Calculations Within The Projector Augmented-Wave Framework, Yi Xia

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Electron–phonon interactions govern carrier dynamics, transport, and many optical and quantum phenomena in solids, but finite-displacement calculations within the projector augmented-wave (PAW) framework require up to 6N self-consistent supercell calculations for an N-atom system, making them costly for large, low-symmetry, and disordered materials. We introduce MLLocP, a machine learning (ML) strategy that learns the self-consistent local potential (LocP) on real-space grids and supplies its displacement derivatives to the evaluation of all-electron PAW electron–phonon matrix elements. Analysis of the PAW decomposition identifies the local-potential contribution as a natural target for machine learning, while the remaining PAW quantities are retained within the …

A Philosophical Introduction To Elements And Relations: Aspects Of A Scientific Metaphysics, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

My book, Elements and Relations*, amplifies Bunge’s characterization of the systems project as the construction an “exact and scientific metaphysics” (ESM) different from and broader than the reductionist and physicalist ontology of conventional science. This paper discusses the scientific theories constituting this project and the central notion of “system” as a structure-function dyad, where “structure” is the system’s internal order and “function” is its participation in the external order of its environment. The paper also discusses the book’s proposal of ontology and ethics as a structure-function dyad for the systems field, an ontology of problems that exemplifies the ESM idea.

Adaptive Improved Particle Swarm Optimization-Based Maximum Power Point Tracking And Energy Smoothing For Photovoltaic Hybrid Battery–Supercapacitor Storage Systems, Mohammad Aminul Islam, Guo Shaokai, Jakaria Mahdi Imam, Mohammad Khairul Basher, Nowshad Amin, Tarek Abedin, Mohammad Nur-E-Alam

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The rapid development of photovoltaic (PV) systems has made them an important component of the global clean energy strategy. However, the intermittency and non-linear characteristics of photovoltaic (PV) output remain major challenges for stable renewable energy utilization. This study proposes an adaptive improved particle swarm optimization (IPSO)-based maximum power point tracking (MPPT) strategy integrated with hybrid energy storage coordination for photovoltaic systems. The IPSO introduces adaptive inertia adjustment, velocity clamping, and stagnation reinitialization, which improve the convergence robustness under dynamic irradiance and temperature conditions. The algorithm was benchmarked against Perturb & Observe (P&O), Incremental Conductance (INC), and standard PSO using …

Two-Stage Stochastic Programming For Resource Allocation In Mobile Underwater Acoustic Networks, Sadaf Vahabli, Iftekhar Ahmad, Quoc Viet Phung, Daryoush Habibi

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Underwater Acoustic Networks (UANs) enable long-range communication for a range of applications. However, UANs are severely limited by scarce acoustic spectrum, which is shared with marine animals and can lead to disruptive interference, contributing to anthropogenic ocean noise. In addition, the underwater environment is highly dynamic, where: marine-animal presence is uncertain, channel conditions fluctuate, and Doppler effects degrade communication reliability. Prior UAN studies have addressed these challenges separately, despite their combined effect on resource allocation. Accordingly, this paper proposes a two-stage Scenario-based Stochastic Programming (SSP) framework with a hybrid risk approach that jointly treats these challenges within a single resource …

Education Before Electricity: Ai-Facilitated Capability Formation As A Pre-Condition For Productive Energy Use In Off-Grid Communities, Kevin Hallinan, Lu Hao, Bennywhite Davidson, Divinegift Morris, Confidence Onuahu, Silas Clergy

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Working Papers

Solar microgrids in sub-Saharan Africa routinely fail to generate the productive demand needed to service their investment, because the capability to convert electricity into economic activity does not exist at electrification. We report a 15-month deployment in Oloibiri, Nigeria, a community whose productive base was displaced by oil extraction, testing whether AI-facilitated learning can build that capability at a cost compatible with microgrid investment.

The Davidson AI Innovation Center enrolled 104 learners (136 accounts) with zero prior computer access. They recorded 4,134 learning sessions, and 25 individuals earned 90 certifications on unscaffolded work, for just over $20,000 in cumulative investment, …

Influence Of Particle Properties And Grain Size On Aggregation In Dry Particle-Laden Volcanic Jets, Md Miraz Hossain, Stephen A. Solovitz, Josef Dufek, Joshua S. Mendez Harper, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Mary C. Benage, Larry G. Mastin, Benjamin J. Andrews

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Explosive volcanic eruptions can inject large amounts of ash into the atmosphere. These suspended particles pose hazards to aircraft, so a better understanding of the ash residence time and transport distance is needed. Fine particles combine to form larger aggregates, altering their settling behavior. Ash aggregation is influenced by liquid bonding, electrostatic forces, and preferential concentration driven by turbulence. We examine particle aggregation through controlled, low-humidity experiments at similar particle-fluid scaling to conditions near a volcanic vent. Particle-laden jets used compressed air containing three types of particles at controlled mass loadings: hollow glass spheres (∼10 μm diameter), solid nickel spheres …

Integrated Automation Framework For Generation Retirement Studies In Transmission Planning, Mohammed Sleiman, Tianwei Xia, Zhangxin Zhou, Nathaniel Rice

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Generation retirement studies are a critical part of long-term transmission planning, as power systems transition toward higher penetration of renewable energy and the retirement of conventional generation. However, existing study workflows are often fragmented across multiple tools and platforms such as PSS/E, TARA, Python, and Excel resulting in time-intensive processes, limited scalability, and reduced reproducibility. This paper showcases an integrated automation tool developed for generation retirement studies that is designed to streamline and unify the end-to-end analytical workflow.

The proposed framework consolidates key study components, including generator retirement modeling, power flow redispatch, contingency analysis (N-1 and N-1-1), and mitigation cost …

Nitrate Plants Nominees To The Alabama Engineering Hall Of Fame Correspondence From William K. Rey, Oct. 3, 1988, William K. Rey

Correspondence

Correspondence from Chairman William K. Rey to William Lindsey McDonald confirming the nomination of the Nitrate Plants in North Alabama to the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame.

Connecting Bim And Gis Through Bsdd: Automating Gis Data Templates And Semantic Mapping - Research Explainer, Hamza Tariq, Ciaran Mcnally

Reports

This research explainer examines how the buildingSMART Data Dictionary (bSDD) can support greater interoperability between Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Drawing on research presented at the 2026 Civil Engineering Research in Ireland conference, it explores practical approaches to automatically generating standardised GIS data templates, mapping existing asset information to common data definitions, and validating information against agreed requirements.

The explainer demonstrates how open standards and structured data can improve information quality, reduce manual processing and support more consistent asset information management throughout the asset lifecycle.

Magnetic Cellulose Nanocrystal Composites Functionalized With Benzalkonium Chloride For Potential Pathogen Control, Kishore Chand, Sydney Herzog, Mohammad Jahid Hasan, Juganta Roy, Moses Ayitey-Adjin Jr., Corbon M. Moss, Sarah Khan, Sara Tester, Monishita Deb, Katherine Schlaak, Sarah Watzman, Yvonne Sun, Esteban Ureña-Benavides, Erick S. Vasquez-Guardado

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

This study presents the design and synthesis of multifunctional magnetic cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) composites engineered for targeted adsorption and broad-spectrum antimicrobial applications. The nanocomposites were fabricated by anchoring mixed-valence Fe₃O₄ magnetic nanoparticles on eco-friendly CNC frameworks, followed by surface functionalization with benzalkonium chloride (BC), a potent quaternary ammonium biocide. Both sulfated (S) and TEMPO-oxidized CNC (T) variants were investigated across Fe₃O₄:CNC mass ratios of 1:2 and 1:4. Comprehensive structural, magnetic, and morphological characterization confirmed successful surface modification, superparamagnetic responsiveness, and uniform component dispersion. Thermogravimetric analysis confirmed precise compositional tailoring, capturing up to 87 …

A Computational Framework For Modeling Fluid And Solid Stressesin Porous Tissues With Application To The Trabeculated Embryonic Heart, Christine Buffinton, James W. Baish

Faculty Journal Articles

This study provides a framework for efficient solutions of computational fluid-solid interaction models of porous tissue, with a focus on blood flow through the developing heart wall in the critical chamber and valve formation stages, when trabeculation fills much of the ventricles. This porous, trabeculated tissue is the site of complex mechanotransduction processes, but accurately estimating solid and fluid stresses within such intricate geometries is difficult. We addressed this with three levels of modeling and verification. Images of E12.5 mouse ventricles were first obtained through confocal microscopy and 3D reconstruction. These guided creation of explicit pore-scale finite element simulations with …

50 Years Of Irrigation District Modernization In The Usa -- Then And Now, Charles M. Burt

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

Irrigation district modernization in the USA has seen changes in management attitudes, hardware, software, and the shouldering of responsibilities for environmental issues that were never envisioned fifty years ago. The pace of modernization is quite variable depending upon the state and location within the state. This paper provides some insights into the evolution of several aspects of modernization over that fifty year time span.

Comprehensive Variable-Temperature Raman And Spectroscopic Ellipsometry Investigation Of Bulk Undoped, Fe-Doped, And Ge-Doped Gan: Correlated Phonon, Carrier, Optical, And Disorder Dynamics, Manika Tun Nafisa, Sm Atiqur Rahman, Zhe Chuan Feng, Sandip Das, James N. Hilfiker, Nina Jong, Ian T. Ferguson, Benjamin Klein

Faculty Articles

Bulk gallium nitride (GaN) substrates with controlled electrical compensation and doping are foundational materials for high-power electronics, optoelectronics, and emerging spintronic devices. Despite extensive studies on epitaxial GaN thin films, a complete and correlated understanding of crystal, phonon, free-carrier, birefringence, optical, and disorder-driven processes in high-quality bulk GaN crystals remains limited. In this work, a comprehensive temperature-dependent (25–300 °C) investigation of free-standing bulk undoped, Fe-doped, and Ge-doped GaN substrates using Raman spectroscopy, spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been presented. A detailed analysis of phonon evolution, apparent Raman-shift-derived biaxial stress and in-plane strain, longitudinal optical phonon–plasmon coupling …

Distinguishing Auroral-E And Sporadic-E In Gnss Radio Occultation Measurements, Sharjeel Hyder, Jeffrey M. Holmes, Kyle E. Fitch, Kyle D. Roberts, Also: Themens, David R.; Emmons, Daniel J., Nimalan Swarnalingam, Dong L. Wu, Cornelius C. J. H. Salinas, David R. Themens, Daniel J. Emmons

Faculty Publications

GNSS radio occultation (RO) is widely used to detect metallic-ion sporadic-E layers on a global scale, but in auroral environments, particle precipitation-driven ionization can produce auroral-E structures with similar RO signatures. This overlap complicates reliable identification of sporadic-E and may bias high-latitude occurrence rate estimates. In this study, we quantify auroral contamination in RO-based sporadic-E detection and evaluate the performance of both threshold-based and multivariate classifier approaches. A dataset of 106 conjunction events was constructed using RO observations from the Spire and COSMIC-1 constellations, together with co-located ionosonde and magnetometer measurements at two high-latitude sites and an ionosonde at a …

Integrating Tacit And Explicit Knowledge Across Construction Projects: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis Of Knowledge Transfer, Lessons Learned, And Organizational Learning, Felix M. Delmonte

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Abstract

Construction projects rely on knowledge distributed among temporary, multidisciplinary teams, firms, and lifecycle stages. Practical judgment often remains with experienced participants, while written accounts may omit the conditions and reasoning needed for later use. This research examines how construction scholarship explains the movement of project knowledge from capture through sharing and retrieval to reuse on another project. It treats these activities as distinct, and considers tacit expertise alongside explicit records, with attention to who contributes knowledge, who needs it, and where it must travel. The planned approach is a qualitative synthesis of published, peer-reviewed research from 2022–2026. The available …

Source Page Evaluation Of Local Rag Retrieval For Engineering Safety: Implications For Mechanical And Civil Engineering, Sherif Sorour, Areej El Mufti, Mohamed Nabawy, Anwar Sahbel

Civil Engineering

Industrial safety question answering requires access to the exact source material that supports an answer, not merely a related document. This study evaluates the retrieval stage of a local retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system at the source page level. Eighteen documents on lockout/tagout, machine guarding, and personal protective equipment were prepared in raw, cleaned, and metadata-enriched forms. Best Matching 25 (BM25), latent semantic analysis (LSA), and reciprocal rank fusion (RRF) hybrid retrieval were tested on 54 questions: 36 answerable, 12 safety-related but unsupported, and 6 outside the covered topics. Raw BM25 achieved the highest mean reciprocal rank (0.492) and Hit@5 (0.722), …

Green Lithium Extraction From Alkaline Brines Using A Dibenzoylmethane Octanol System, Maryam Gonbadi, Shayan Abrishami, Ozra Gholipour, Ana Vafadar, Amir Razmjou

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The escalating global demand for lithium necessitates the development of efficient, selective, and environmentally sustainable extraction technologies from brine resources. This study presents a novel solvent extraction system employing dibenzoylmethane (DBM) as a lithium-selective β-diketone chelating extractant and 1-octanol as a biodegradable diluent for lithium recovery from alkaline salt lake brines. The effects of critical process parameters, including aqueous phase pH, extractant concentration, and total dissolved solids (TDS), on lithium extraction efficiency and selectivity were systematically investigated. Under optimized conditions (pH 12, 0.3 M DBM in 1-octanol), the system achieved a single-stage lithium extraction efficiency of 80.8% with exceptional separation …