Engineering Commons^™

Development Of Underground Utility Construction Course Curricula For The Granite Heavy Civil Minor, Jared T. Schlenker

Construction Management

This paper discusses the introduction of a new course into the Granite Heavy Civil Minor (GHCM) curriculum. This course revolves around underground utility construction and is designed to provide students with knowledge that neither the Construction Management nor Civil Engineering Departments provide. The additional curricula are comprised of underground construction safety, materials, and construction methods that will provide GHCM students with a competitive advantage when applying for jobs in heavy civil construction, further incentivizing the minor program. This senior project utilizes PowerPoint presentations that can either comprise an entire course or be added to existing courses as supplemental information

Perceptions Of Major Barriers On The Leed Scorecard Preventing Projects From Reaching The Platinum Level, Gavin R. Beadle

Construction Management

This paper is an overview of the main barriers faced by general contractors when working with the LEED Scorecard on their projects. Oftentimes projects either do not chase LEED certification or are held up at the gold or silver certification levels, never making it to the highest-level being platinum. The purpose of this paper is to identify the main factors general contractors are facing causing their projects to be held up at a lower certification level or not certified at all. In addition to examining the main factors, some specific credits on the scorecard will also be examined that are …

A Comparison Of Carbon-Based Calculators For Building Construction, Adam J. Walsh

Construction Management

The construction industry has a significant environmental impact, contributing to energy usage, carbon emissions, and waste generation. Efforts to promote sustainability and reduce this impact have emerged, with organizations like the U.S. Green Building Council and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency leading the way. One key aspect of sustainable construction is the use of carbon calculators, web-based tools that estimate and track carbon emissions throughout the building process. These calculators consider factors such as energy consumption, transportation, and waste disposal to provide a holistic view of a building's carbon footprint. However, there are challenges and limitations associated with these calculators, …

National Association Of Home Builders Residential Construction Management Custom/Small Build Competition Guidebook, Madison R. Lightfoot

Construction Management

Student Competitions have become increasingly popular amongst both students and recruiters, as it helps students prepare for successful careers. These competitions, such as the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Residential Construction Management Competition (RCMC), provide valuable undergraduate experience and boost students' confidence as they enter the workforce. In the NAHB RCMC Custom Home Competition students are tasked with creating a comprehensive proposal for a real home site located in the United States. To assist competing teams, a guidebook has been developed based on the advice and strategies of previous participants who placed in this competition. This guidebook covers various …

The Importance Of Implementing Safety Programs For Spanish-Only Workers In Mep, Izak J. Lozano

Construction Management

Hispanics make up 30% of the construction workers, the highest percentage of any non-Hispanic minority group. Unfortunately, evidence also suggests Hispanic and Latino workers with limited to no English language skills are not receiving an adequate amount of safety training which is a growing concern. A lack of safety training and language barriers on the jobsite are seen as the cause for Hispanic workers having 41.6% higher injuries and non-fatal injuries in construction as compared to non-Hispanics in 2020. Three contractors were interviewed about their safety training programs for Spanish-only workers to find what strategies were found to be effective. …

Understanding The Legal Impacts Of Integrated Project Delivery And Building Information Modeling, Samuel Chris Wong

Construction Management

This research paper aims to understand the legal ramifications of using integrated project delivery (IPD) and Building information Modeling (BIM) regarding shared risk and reward between parties and impacts of contract law. Using IPD and BIM allows for projects to be more collaborative and work through issues quickly. However, shared design can lead to legal issues that may cause problems if not resolved or accounted for at the beginning of the project. This paper serves as research to further understand the legal consequences of integrating IPD and BIM into construction projects in the United States. There are some differences to …

Ranking And Analyzing Soft Skills Of Cal Poly Cm Students During Their Internships And Importance Of Possessing Them In The Cm Industry, Alex Cervantes

Construction Management

Possession of a strong set of soft skills is essential to leading a successful career in the construction industry. Soft skills allow one to become an indispensable, well-respected, and effective member of one’s team. Should one need to facilitate processes, solve problems, positively influence others and even just complete day to day tasks, a well-versed construction industry professional can rely on soft skills to manage any situations that cross their path. This study determines the perception and value of certain soft skills of student interns along with construction industry professionals alike. Along the dimensions of the study, the soft skills …

Floating Dock At Santa Rita Ranch: A Design And Cost Estimate Package Prepared For The Land Conservancy Of San Luis Obispo, Sophia Ann Federico

Construction Management

The purpose of this project is to provide the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo with three design options for a floating fishing/boat dock system that they want to build on a small lake located on a plot of land that they own and preserve called Santa Rita Ranch. The design package that I created includes drawings, weight and buoyancy calculations, a cost estimate, and product specs. My approach was to utilize my estimating skills that I have acquired from my construction management classes and from my work at a general contractor’s office in the preconstruction department. The design and …

Slab Extension At Woods Humane Society, Corey K. Smith

Construction Management

Woods Humane Society is an animal shelter that provides pet rehabilitation and adoption services to San Luis Obispo and surrounding areas. The Woods’ facility contains a number of kennels for dogs as well as numerous outdoor, fenced-in, concrete exercise yards. These yards give dogs the opportunity to play outside a few times a day allowing them to get vital exercise. One of these yards on the south side of the property had an exterior fence that was offset from an existing slab on the interior of the fence by one foot. This was an issue for the shelter as dogs …

Effects Of Admixes On The Compressive Strength Of Permeable Concrete, James T. Lyon

Construction Management

Compression tests were performed on three samples of permeable concrete to evaluate the effects of admixes on a conventional permeable concrete. The first mix served as the control, representing a standard permeable concrete sample. The second mix replicated the control but added a small amount of fiberglass, accounting for 0.5% of the cement's weight. The third mix again mirrored the control and incorporated the manufacturer's recommended amount of a water reducing admix known as "Reducer 555". The objective of testing the two new mixes against the control mix was to evaluate the potential increase in ultimate compressive strength. Four 6” …

City Farm Slo Fencing Upgrade, Jorge Ignacio Hernandez

Construction Management

This paper outlines the process of a fence upgrade that was built for a non-profit organization in San Luis Obispo, CA called City Farm SLO. The City Farm SLO is a non-profit organization that educates locals how to grow healthy and sustainable foods. This new fencing project spans a total of 422 feet with three new farm gates. The process that was approached for this project was to have it planned in three different phases. The first phase was the pre-construction phase, which consisted of meetings with the owner, creating a design, making a materials list, estimating the total cost …

The Sonoma Developmental Center Redevelopment Project: A Stakeholder Salience And Conflict Analysis Case Study, Leo Dickson

Construction Management

This analytical case study is an experimental exploration into the utilization of stakeholder salience research to analyze land redevelopment projects from a managerial perspective. The study attempted to develop and apply a simple and approachable research model to a real redevelopment project. The research design is derived from an existing mathematical model designed to quantitatively measure stakeholder salience. Stakeholder salience theory and Pawlak’s conflict theory are the fundamental concepts used to create the research design model. The objective of this research was to assess its effectiveness when applied to a rural land redevelopment setting in the United States. The Sonoma …

Mobile Classroom: City Farm, Slo, Robert Dasch

Construction Management

The Mobile Classroom project is one element of the larger “Garden for All” project at City Farm SLO. The “Garden for All” project has created a garden that is accessible to mobility limited people, such as those in wheelchairs. The Mobile Classroom is 3 picnic tables with 6 movable benches. The tables are not be connected to the benches which allow a person in a wheelchair to roll up to the table. The picnic tables are 6’ long, 40” wide, and 29” tall. The benches are 6’ long, 14.5” wide, and 18” tall. The supporting elements of the tables and …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Noise Ordinances On Residential Construction: A Case Study In San Luis Obispo, Duncan Catley

Construction Management

Construction activities inherently generate substantial noise. As a result, construction becomes a notable source of ambient sound that permeates populated areas daily. This sound, especially at extreme volumes, can be the source of significant public annoyance and anger. Studies have shown that prolonged noise exposure can lead to hypertension, distraction, and even cognitive impairment in children. For these reasons, local governments will set noise ordinances to limit when and at what volume construction sounds can be made. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of these noise ordinances set by the city of San Luis Obispo. The …

Outdoor Furniture Build For Echo, Audrey S. Mcgowan

Construction Management

This paper outlines the building of outdoor furniture to be placed in the garden at El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO). The outdoor furniture that was built included a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table, all of which were made from redwood. The client requested the construction of the outdoor furniture because they did not have any safe or quality seating in their garden for the residents and staff to enjoy. The El Camino Homeless Organization provides food and housing for homeless residents within Atascadero. The funds required to procure the building materials were donated by Niner Wine Estates. This …

Disc Analysis Of Cal Poly Cm Students And Industry Professionals, Kai Gunaratna

Construction Management

This research analyzes why type D personality, as defined by the DISC personality assessment of 123test, was by far the most common personality type in the Cal Poly Commercial Construction class of winter 2022. This is interesting, as type D is the rarest personality type, making up ~ 9% of the global population (D Style - Type D Personality, n.d.). This was investigated by collecting DISC data from other Cal Poly Construction Management students to see if winter 2022 was an outlier, or if D type prominence is indeed a Cal Poly trend. The results of this research confirm that …

United Methodist Children's Center Playground Improvements, Kyle Passey, Hayden Garcia, Mario Taurian

Construction Management

The project consists of multiple pieces that were done as a team to improve the outdoor areas of the United Methodist Children’s Center. The scope of the work consists of placing gorilla hair mulch, making a bench for the kids, removing, grading, and placing artificial turf, and replacing the canvas of a shade structure. There are a few other smaller pieces that will be completed as well but those are the main pieces of the project. The project was executed by teaming up with multiple companies and getting teams of students together to construct the pieces of the project in …

Pcra-Icra Pre-Construction Risk Assessment/Infection Control Risk Assessment Course, Nicholas Dean Schorno

Construction Management

The Preconstruction Risk Assessment and Infection Control Risk Assessment (PCRA/ICRA) course is a collaboration between Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Construction Management Department, Cal Poly’s California Center for Construction Education, Green Advantage, LLC and Thomas Kommer, J.D. The goal is to create a certification course in which industry professionals become certified, signifying their knowledge and understanding of PCRA/ICRA practices associated with construction in the environment of patient care. The project began with the PCRA/ICRA manual authored by Stellar Performance, LLC. Working with Devin Deiranieh, the author developed the learning material for the course. The learning material consists of power point …

Class F Power Amplifier And Doherty Power Amplifier Design, Shreyansh Suman

Master's Theses

The main goal of this thesis is to design and fabricate a power amplifier suitable for entry in IMS 2023 High Efficiency Power Amplifier Student Design Competition. Power amplifier design requires multiple design tradeoffs, for example, efficiency and linearity are the two main conflicting design parameters that require careful tradeoff to ensure optimum performance. Two prototypes are designed and fabricated for the competition: Class F operating at 1.5 GHz and Doherty Power Amplifier designed for an operating frequency of 3 GHz. Both prototypes meet the minimum requirement for qualifying in the IMS 2023 HEPA SDC. Class F power amplifier designed …

Thermometer Servo Loop For Actuating Marine Permaculture, Anna Gabriele, Connor Grady, Jeremiah Rufus, Illan Vargas

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

This project aimed to develop a system to improve the Climate Foundation’s (CF) existing Marine Permaculture (MP) technology in the Philippines. MP is the cultivation of seaweeds and other macroalgae on submerged structures in offshore ocean waters to support food security, carbon sequestration, ecosystem restoration, and more. Current MP arrays feature a circular platform with substrate for seaweeds to grow on, manually raised and lowered by a winch on the above-surface control platform. The team designed the system to provide real-time temperature and pressure data sensing at depth, real-time platform-to-surface data transfer, real-time winch actuation, and data storage. The team …

Enhancing Construction Safety Training Of Bridges Using Augmented Reality And Virtual Reality, Mohamed Sherif Elrifaee

Theses and Dissertations

Infrastructure development projects are widely acknowledged as some of the most complex and challenging projects to undertake. The construction of bridges, in particular, has proven to be a significant safety risk for workers, with a considerable number of accidents reported on construction sites. There is a lack of comprehensive training programs specifically designed for bridge construction safety, and only a few studies have explored the use of both AR and VR to enhance safety training in construction. As such, this research aims to improve the safety of bridge construction sites through the implementation of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality …

The Feasibility Of Using High Strength Stainless Steel In Pre-Stressing Applications, Rana Khaled Morsy

Theses and Dissertations

This paper evaluates the applicability of using a corrosion-resistant reinforcement high strength stainless steel strands (HSSS) Duplex 2205 in pre-stressing applications. HSSS-Duplex 2205 is a high performance steel which can be used as an alternative to the conventional carbon steel strands, for a better service life. The high strength and corrosion resistance of the material allows it to show its impressive performance in marine structural applications. Although the use of HSSS-Duplex 2205 could be initially costly; however, the improved durability and extended service life of the concrete structures using HSSS would require less life-cycle cost. Although there is a gap …

Distributed Control Of Servicing Satellite Fleet Using Horizon Simulation Framework, Scott Plantenga

Master's Theses

On-orbit satellite servicing is critical to maximizing space utilization and sustainability and is of growing interest for commercial, civil, and defense applications. Reliance on astronauts or anchored robotic arms for the servicing of next-generation large, complex space structures operating beyond Low Earth Orbit is impractical. Substantial literature has investigated the mission design and analysis of robotic servicing missions that utilize a single servicing satellite to approach and service a single target satellite. This motivates the present research to investigate a fleet of servicing satellites performing several operations for a large, central space structure.

This research leverages a distributed control approach, …

Drinking Water Contaminants: Lead, Bruce I. Dvorak, Becky M. Schuerman

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Any lead exposure, even low levels, can be a serious health concern, especially for infants, children, and developing fetuses. This NebGuide discusses how to safely manage lead in a domestic water supply (or often referred to as a private well). This NebGuide includes discussion related to topics such as lead services lines and changes in public water supply regulations related to lead in drinking water.

A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Reduction Of Disjoint Bilinear Programs Via Symbolic Variable Elimination, Jihwan Jeong, Scott Sanner, Akshat Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A disjointly constrained bilinear program (DBLP) has various practical and industrial applications, e.g., in game theory, facility location, supply chain management, and multi-agent planning problems. Although earlier work has noted the equivalence of DBLP and mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) from an abstract theoretical perspective, a practical and exact closed-form reduction of a DBLP to a MILP has remained elusive. Such explicit reduction would allow us to leverage modern MILP solvers and techniques along with their solution optimality and anytime approximation guarantees. To this end, we provide the first constructive closed-form MILP reduction of a DBLP by extending the technique of …

Multi-Sensor And Multi-Scale Remote Sensing Approach For Assessing Slope Instability Along Transportation Corridors Using Satellites And Uncrewed Aircraft Systems, Marta Zocchi, Anush Kasaragod, Abby Jenkins, Chris Cook, Richard Dobson, Thomas Oommen, Dana Van Huis, Beau Taylor, Colin Brooks, Roberta Marini, Francesco Troiani, Paolo Mazzanti

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Rapid slope instabilities (i.e., rockfalls) involving highway networks in mountainous areas pose a threat to facilities, settlements and life, thus representing a challenge for asset management plans. To identify different morphological expressions of degradation processes that lead to rock mass destabilization, we combined satellite and uncrewed aircraft system (UAS)-based products over two study sites along the State Highway 133 sector near Paonia Reservoir, Colorado (USA). Along with a PS-InSAR analysis covering the 2017–2021 interval, a high-resolution dataset composed of optical, thermal and multi-spectral imagery was systematically acquired during two UAS surveys in September 2021 and June 2022. After a pre-processing …

Deconstructed Plastic Substrate Preferences Of Microbial Populations From The Natural Environment, Lindsay I. Putman, Laura G. Schaerer, Ruochen Wu, Daniel G. Kulas, Ali Zolghadr, Rebecca Ong, David Shonnard, Stephen Techtmann

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Over half of the world's plastic waste is landfilled, where it is estimated to take hundreds of years to degrade. Given the continued use and disposal of plastic products, it is vital that we develop fast and effective ways to utilize plastic waste. Here, we explore the potential of tandem chemical and biological processing to process various plastics quickly and effectively. Four samples of compost or sediment were used to set up enrichment cultures grown on mixtures of compounds, including disodium terephthalate and terephthalic acid (monomers of polyethylene terephthalate), compounds derived from the chemical deconstruction of polycarbonate, and pyrolysis oil …

A Study On The Design And Production Of A Desktop Vaccuum Cleaner, Aaryan Manoj Nair, Emanuel Pichardo, Isaiah Ortiz, Naeem Kotadia

Publications and Research

The goal of this project was to design a desk-top vacuum cleaner that is compact, portable, and effective in cleaning desktops and tabletops. Two concepts were proposed and compared using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and various metrics, including in-use purposes and market, technical feasibility, ease of use, durability, and cost. The two concepts were a lifting design with hydraulics and a differently sized offset wheel design. After thorough analysis, it was determined that the lifting design with hydraulics was the better concept due to its adjustability and ability to reach different heights and angles on tabletops. The proposed product title …

Investigation Into Oxygen Diffusion As It Relates To Alpha Case Formation In Ti-6al-4v Based On Different Forging Thermal Cycles, Tyler J. Meador, Jon Leduc, Francesca Hope

Materials Engineering

An investigation into the growth kinetics of alpha case in Ti-6Al-4V in the presence of oxygen was conducted for different forging thermal cycles. This was done to determine whether the alpha case should be removed after each thermal cycle or as the final step after forging. The thermal cycles consisted of four hours at 1750 °F. Samples were subjected to this treatment one, two, three, and four times along with a continuous sixteen hour hold. Four cycle and Hold samples were subjected to an additional thermal cycle above the beta transus at 1925 °F. These then went through a final …

Surface Characterization Of Low-Density Polyethylene Mulch, Risha Shah

Materials Engineering

Plastic pollution in aquatic systems has traditionally been highlighted in past and current research due to the increase in plastic production every year. Unfortunately, quantitative and qualitative data regarding plastic pollution on land systems such as agricultural mulch is limited. Agricultural mulch breaks down into macroplastics and then degrades into microplastics. The microplastics investigated in this study are all secondary microplastics: microplastics that form due to weathering of larger fragments of plastic. Weathering can occur due to a variety of factors; however, UV radiation and mechanical weathering have been the factors of focus on most current research in microplastic formulation. …