Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Jeopardy - Water Price, Ecnomic Cost, Economic Value, Rabi Gyawali, Ali Mirchi, David Watkins, Jr.

All ECSTATIC Materials

It's Jeopardy! Test your knowledge of water prices, water cost, it's economic value, full value, and more. Information developed from a companion lecture and two readings:

1. Brett Walton. (2010). The Price of Water: A Comparison of Water Rates, Usage in 30 U.S. Cities. April 26. Circle of Blue WaterNews. Available at: https://www.circleofblue.org/2010/world/the-price-of-water-a-comparison-of-water-rates-usage-in-30-u-s-cities/.
2. Peter Rogers, Radhika de Silva, Ramesh Bhatia. (2002) Water is an economic good: How to use prices to promote equity, efficiency, and sustainability, Water Policy, Volume 4, Issue 1, 2002, Pages 1-17, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1366-7017(02)00004-1.

How many Jeopardy points can you earn?

Milwaukee Wet Weather Flow Management System Planning, David Watkins

All ECSTATIC Materials

Many older cities across the United States rely on combined sewers to convey both stormwater runoff and sanitary sewage. Combined sewer overflows (CSOs), containing untreated sewage, occur during extreme wet weather, when the capacity of these combined sewer systems is exceeded. Across the U.S., CSOs pose a serious threat to water quality in thousands of lake, river, and coastal ecosystems. In addition to harming the natural environment, they may be a threat to human health and have adverse economic consequences (e.g., beach closings, reduced aesthetics, tourism impacts).

In this assignment, students role-play engineering consultants tasked with developing a cost-effective plan …

Addressing Clay Mineralogy Effects On Performance Of Chemically Stabilized Expansive Soils Subjected To Seasonal Wetting And Drying, Bhaskar C.S. Chittoori, Anand J. Puppala, Aravind Pedarla

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Premature failures in chemically stabilized expansive soils cause millions of dollars in maintenance and repair costs. One of the reasons for these failures is the inability of existing stabilization design guidelines to consider the complex interactions between clay minerals and the stabilizers. It is vital to understand these complex interactions, as they are responsible for the strength improvement and swell/shrink reduction in these soils, in turn affecting the overall health of the infrastructure. Hence, this research study examined the longevity of chemically stabilized expansive soils subjected to wetting/drying conditions with a major focus on clay mineralogy. Eight different natural soils …

Unified Approach To Sustainability, Resiliency And Risk Assessments, Thomas Robbins, Bhaskar Chittoori, Amit Gajurel, Robert Hamilton

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Generally, researchers consider sustainability and resiliency aspects of infrastructure projects independently, without considering the relationship that exists between them. Unified approaches that combine sustainability, resiliency, and analyze risk are very minimal. This paper proposes a unified approach to assessing sustainability, resiliency, and risk for infrastructure via evaluating the performance of a tailings dam under various earthquake magnitudes. A tailings dam is typically in operation for many years, which means they may have a direct impact on the local environment, society, and economy. Due to the extended life of the dam, the probability of a major event occurring that could negatively …

Factors Affecting Minimum Dissolved Oxygen Concentration In Streams, Chistopher Robert Huhnke

ETD Archive

Modeling water quality has been shown to be a useful tool in strategizing water quality management. Dissolved oxygen (DO) has one of the largest impacts on water quality compared to other parameters. The purpose of the dissertation research is to generate a regression equation model, using the US EPA QUAL2K model as the base, to determine different factors affecting minimum dissolved oxygen concentrations in streams, to determine the critical distance for the minimum dissolved oxygen concentration, and the magnitude of impact of each parameter. Based on regression analysis, the factors affecting minimum DO in river water are effluent biochemical oxygen …

Adsorption And Microfiltration Processes To Treat Dye And Coffee Wastewater., Abhiram Siva Prasad Pamula

ETD Archive

Wastewater from coffee processing industry creates high biological and chemical oxygen demand in the surface water. In addition to coffee wastewater from coffee industry, dyes from textile industry enter surface water affecting water quality in terms of transmissivity of light. Adsorption is an economical wastewater treatment process to remove color from dye and coffee wastewater. In the current thesis, adsorption using low-cost adsorbents like peanut hull and onion peel are used to treat combined dye and coffee wastewater. Three representative dyes including acid black 48, disperse yellow 3, crystal violet certified with processed coffee is used in preparing batch adsorption …

Designing Novel Grooved Pallets For Industrial Application, Mirza Mohammed Abdullah Baig

ETD Archive

The purpose of this study was to model an improved pallet design which could overcome the drawbacks and failures of the pallets available in the market today. The new modeled pallets were designed to improve the capacity of the individual pallets and thereby increase the efficiency of the material handling process. The new modeled pallets were also designed with the aim to replace the racking system used for storage in the warehouse industry. The study was performed using two finite element analysis software, SOLIDWORKS and ANSYS, as analysis tools to study the behavior of the design under various real world …

Analysis Of Micromixers To Minimize Scaling Effects On Reverse Osmosis Membranes, Jeremy Walker

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

ANALYSIS OF MICROMIXERS TO MINIMIZE SCALING EFFECTS ON REVERSE OSMOSIS MEMBRANES

by

Jeremy Walker

December 2018

Advisor: Dr. Shawn McElmurry

Major: Civil Engineering

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

Structural elements, typically mesh spacers, are required between membrane leaves in spiral

wound elements to ensure flow through reverse osmosis (RO) modules. The standard diamond-shaped

mesh spacer results in non-ideal hydrodynamics that can lead to fouling, which ultimately reduces the

flux of water through the membrane and the operational life of the unit. Additionally, traditional mesh

feed spacers do not allow for reverse flow cleaning due to obstructed flow paths and, once …

Land Suitability Analysis For Emergency Medical Services Posts Along State Highways: A Case Study Of California, Ernest Tufuor, Laurence Rilett, Yunwoo Nam, Antonio Hurtado Beltran

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The response time of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) to road accidents can be the difference between life and death. The California strategic highway safety plan highlight the need to improve the response time and recognizes that: 37% and 8% of the fatal crashes are 30 or more miles away from a trauma center in rural and urban areas respectively.

The paper seeks to: (1) demonstrate the viability of using spatial multi-criteria analysis in road safety management, and (2) provide a good scientific justification in selecting optimal counties for EMS posts. The goal is to propose areas that are close to …

Econometric Modeling Analysis Of Public Transit Ridership: Application For Orlando Region, Moshiur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Policy makers are considering several alternatives to counter the negative externalities of personal vehicle dependence. Towards this end, public transit investments are critical in growing urban regions such as Orlando, Florida. Transit system managers and planners mostly rely on statistical models to identify the factors that affect ridership as well as quantifying the magnitude of the impact on the society. These models provide vital feedback to agencies on the benefits of public transit investments which in turn act as lessons to improve the investment process. We contribute to public transit literature by addressing several methodological challenges for transit ridership modeling. …

A Joint Econometric Approach For Modeling Crash Counts By Collision Type, Tanmoy Bhowmik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there is growing recognition that common unobserved factors that influence crash frequency by one attribute level are also likely to influence crash frequency by other attribute levels. The most common approach employed to address the potential unobserved heterogeneity in safety literature is the development of multivariate crash frequency models. The current study proposes an alternative joint econometric framework to accommodate for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity – referred to as joint negative binomial-multinomial logit fractional split (NB-MNLFS) model. Furthermore, the study undertakes a first of its kind comparison exercise between the most commonly used multivariate model (multivariate …

Understanding How, Where And How Much Freight Flows Using 2012 Commodity Flow Survey Data, Nowreen Keya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, with increased economic globalization, growing e-commerce and internet based shopping, freight movement patterns are undergoing a transformative change. The shipment size distribution is moving towards a higher share of smaller size shipments affecting transportation mode and vehicle type requirements. In addition, freight transportation mode is closely affected by the destination location (and its attributes). In our dissertation, we contribute to freight research by developing a comprehensive framework to examine the how, where and how much freight flows in US. Specifically, we study the following dimensions of freight flow: (1) transportation mode, (2) mode and shipment weight choice …

Performance Predication Model For Advance Traffic Control System (Atcs) Using Field Data, Masood Mirza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reductions in capital expenditure revenues have created greater demands from users for quality service from existing facilities at lower costs forcing agencies to evaluate the performance of projects in more comprehensive and "greener" ways. The use of Adaptive Traffic Controls Systems (ATCS) is a step in the right direction by enabling practitioners and engineers to develop and implement traffic optimization strategies to achieve greater capacity out of the existing systems by optimizing traffic signal based on real time traffic demands and flow pattern. However, the industry is lagging in developing modeling tools for the ATCS which can predict the changes …

Investigation Of Factors Contributing To Fog-Related Single Vehicle Crashes, Jiazheng Zhu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fog-related crashes continue to be one of the most serious traffic safety problems in Florida. Based on the historical crash data, we found that single-vehicle crashes have the highest severity among all types of crashes under fog conditions. This study first analyzed the contributing factors of the fog-related single-vehicle crashes' (i.e., off road/rollover/other) severity in Florida from 2011 to 2014 using association rules mining. The results show that lane departure distracted driving, wet road surface, and dark without road light are the main contributing factors to severe fog-related single vehicle crashes. Some suggested countermeasures were also provided to reduce the …

Hierarchical Corridor Safety Analysis Using Multiple Approaches, Saif Alarifi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traffic crashes are a major cause of concern globally. Extensive efforts from transportation professionals have been made to investigate new methods to identify the contributing factors to crashes at various locations on the road network. Corridors, among other road network's components, play a vital role in moving people and goods between primary zones in different areas, and the safety and operational improvements of them have been the focus of many studies since they carry the most traffic on the road network. Corridors contain mainly intersections and segments, and previous corridor studies have focused on a sole type of road entity. …

Investigating And Facilitating The Transferability Of Safety Performance Functions, Ahmed Tarek Ahmed Farid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Safety performance functions (SPFs) are essential analytical tools in the road safety field. The SPFs are statistical regression models used to predict crash counts by roadway facility type, crash type and severity. The national Highway Safety Manual (HSM) is a generic guidebook used for road safety evaluation and enhancement. In it, default SPFs, developed using negative binomial (NB) regression, are provided for multiple facility types and crash categories. Roadway agencies, whether public or private, may opt to not invest their resources in data collection and processing to develop own localized SPFs. Instead, the agencies may adopt the HSM's. However, the …

A Decision Support Model For Autonomous Trucks Strategies, Ahmad Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We examined the potential to improve the movement of freight using Truck Platooning Lane strategies on limited access highways in the State of Florida. In the First part of this research, we investigated the potential benefits from dedicating one lane from existing lanes for autonomous trucks only. In this regard, a general framework tool was developed to evaluate and compare different measurements (e.g., travel tim and emissions) to better assist decision makers to determine the most effective freight transportation strategy. Additionally, the travel time, level of service and emissions on Florida Strategic Intermodal System (SIS) were systematically analyzed using a …

Explore Contributing Geometric Factors And Built-Environment On Bicycle Activity And Safety At Intersections, Scott Castro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to explore all factors associated with bicycle motor-vehicle crashes at intersections in order to improve bicycle safety and bicycle activity. Factors such as exposure (bicycle and vehicle volumes), existing facilities (bike lanes, sidewalks, shared-use paths), geometric design (# of lanes, speed limit, medians, legs, roadway conditions), and land-use were collected and evaluated using Poisson, Zero-Inflated Poisson, and Negative Binomial models in SAS 9.4 software. Increasing the bicycle travel mode can have positive lasting effects on personal health, the environment, and improve traffic conditions. Deterrents that keep users from riding bicycles more are the lack of facilities and …

Accommodating Exogenous Variable And Decision Rule Heterogeneity In Discrete Choice Models: Application To Bicyclist Route Choice, Bibhas Dey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The thesis contributes to our understanding of incorporating heterogeneity in discrete choice models with respect to exogenous variables and decision rules. Specifically, we evaluate latent segmentation based mixed models that allow for segmenting population based on decision rules while also incorporating unobserved heterogeneity within the segment level decision rule models. In our analysis, we choose to consider the random utility framework along with random regret minimization approach. Further, instead of assuming the number of segments (as 2), we conduct an exhaustive exploration with multiple segments across the two decision rules. Within each segment we also allow for unobserved heterogeneity. The …

Understanding Crisis Communication And Mobility Resilience During Disasters From Social Media, Kamol Roy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rapid communication during extreme events is one of the critical aspects of successful disaster management strategies. Due to their ubiquitous nature, social media platforms offer a unique opportunity for crisis communication. Moreover, social media usage on GPS enabled devices such as smartphones allow us to collect human movement data which can help understanding mobility during a disaster. This study leverages social media (Twitter) data to understand the effectiveness of social media-based communication and the resilience of human mobility during a disaster. This thesis has two major contributions. First, about 52.5 million tweets related to hurricane Sandy are analyzed to assess …

Development And Application Of An Optimization Approach For Cost-Effective Deployment Of Advanced Wrong-Way Driving Countermeasures, Adrian Sandt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wrong-way driving (WWD) is a dangerous behavior, especially on high-speed divided highways. The nature of WWD crashes makes it difficult for agencies to combat them effectively. Advanced WWD countermeasures equipped with flashing lights, detection devices, and cameras can significantly reduce WWD. However, these countermeasures' high costs mean that agencies often cannot deploy them at all exit ramps. To help agencies identify the most cost-effective deployment locations for advanced WWD countermeasures, an innovative WWD countermeasure optimization approach was developed. This approach consists of a WWD hotspots model and a WWD countermeasures optimization algorithm. The WWD hotspots model uses non-crash WWD events, …

A Holistic Analysis Of The Long-Term Challenges & Potential Benefits Of The Green Roof, Solar Pv Roofing, And Gripv Roofing Markets In Orlando, Florida, Carolina Kelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Green roofs and roof-mounted solar PV arrays have a wide range of environmental and economic benefits, including significantly longer roof lifetimes, reductions in urban runoff, mitigation of the urban heat island (UHI) effect, reduced electricity demand and energy dependence, and/or reduced emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other harmful pollutants from the electricity generation sector. Consequently, green roofs and solar panels have both become increasingly popular worldwide, and promising new research has emerged for their potential combination in Green Roof Integrated Photovoltaic (GRIPV) roofing applications. However, due to policy resistance, these alternatives still have marginal market shares in the U.S., …

Seismic Response Of Moment Resisting Frames Coupled With Rocking Walls, Mehrdad Aghagholizadeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the inelastic response of yielding structures coupled with rocking walls. This topic is of major significance in the design of tall moment-resisting buildings, since during recent major earthquakes several tall, moment-resisting frames that had been designed in an accordance to the existing seismic code provisions, exhibited a weak-story failure. Utilization of this structural system can help reducing maximum story drifts, prevents weak story failure and minimize residual deformation of the structure. This study first examines different configurations of both stepping rocking walls and pinned rocking walls that have been reported in the literature. Next, effect of additional …

Seepage And Stability Analysis Of The Earth Dams Under Drawdown Conditions By Using The Finite Element Method, Salama Al-Labban

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One of the major concerns in the behavior of an earth dam is the change in the exit gradient and the impact on the slope stability under drawdown conditions. Drawdown can cause increased seepage forces on the upstream slope which may result in the movement of soil particles in the flow direction and cause erosion problems. In this research, a numerical approach, based on the finite element method (FEM) is used to analyze the seepage through the dam and its foundation to study exit gradients and slope stability under both steady-state and transient conditions. The results show that a central …

Development Of Soil Compressibility Prediction Models, Scott Kirts

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The magnitude of the overall settlement depends on several variables such as the Compression Index, Cc, and Recompression Index, Cr, which are determined by a consolidation test; however, the test is time consuming and labor intensive. Correlations have been developed to approximate these compressibility indexes. In this study, a data driven approach has been employed in order to estimate Cc and Cr. Support Vector Machines classification is used to determine the number of distinct models to be developed. The statistical models are built through a forward selection stepwise regression procedure. Ten variables were used, including the moisture content (w), initial …

Evaluation Of 2-Cell Rc Box Culverts, Hossein Sharifi

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Reinforced Concrete Box Culverts (RCBCs) are an integral part of the national and international transportation infrastructure. The National Bridge Inventory Standards (NBIS) requires that all bridges, which include culverts with spans ≥ 20 ft. (6.1 m), be load rated for safe load carrying capacity in accordance with the AASHTO Manual for Bridge Evaluation (MBE). In Kentucky, the Transportation Cabinet manages more than 15,500 bridges, of which almost 1,400 are bridge size culverts. Of the 1241 bridge size RCBCs that were being evaluated in Kentucky between 2015 and 2018, 846 were 2-cell culverts (or 68%). The objective in this study is …

Effect Of Socioeconomic And Demographic Factors On Kentucky Crashes, Aaron Berry Cambron

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The goal of this research was to examine the potential predictive ability of socioeconomic and demographic data for drivers on Kentucky crash occurrence. Identifying unique background characteristics of at-fault drivers that contribute to crash rates and crash severity may lead to improved and more specific interventions to reduce the negative impacts of motor vehicle crashes. The driver-residence zip code was used as a spatial unit to connect five years of Kentucky crash data with socioeconomic factors from the U.S. Census, such as income, employment, education, age, and others, along with terrain and vehicle age. At-fault driver crash counts, normalized over …

Evaluation And Augmentation Of Traffic Data From Private Sector And Bluetooth Detection System On Arterials, Yaobang Gong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traffic data are essential for public agencies to monitor the traffic condition of the roadway network in real-time. Recently, public agencies have implemented Bluetooth Detection Systems (BDS) on arterials to collect traffic data and purchased data directly from private sector vendors. However, the quality and reliability of the aforementioned two data sources are subject to rigorous evaluation. The thesis presents a study utilizing high-resolution GPS trajectories to evaluate data from HERE, one of the private sector data vendors, and BDS of arterial corridors in Orlando, Florida. The results showed that the accuracy and reliability of BDS data are better than …

Transforming Yekaterinburg Into A Safe, Resilient-Smart And Sustainable City, S. A. Timashev, V. N. Alekhin, L. V. Poluyan, I. Fontanals, A. Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The initiative (since 2014) project described in this paper is a product of a joint innovative research and implementation effort of the Civil Engineering and Architecture Institute, Ural Federal University, the Science and Engineering Centre "Reliability and Safety of Large Systems and Machines", Ural Branch Russian Academy of Sciences (both Yekaterinburg), Start-up OptiCits, Barcelona, Spain and the Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA. The project is based on using the MAICS convergent technology [1] to create a versatile multi-purpose tool for optimizing the science and art of risk based governance of resilience-smart and sustainable city infrastructure and communities operating in …

การออกแบบระบบขนส่งผู้สูงอายุเพื่อกิจกรรมในชุมชน กรณีศึกษา: ชุมชนวังทองหลางและบึงยี่โถ, ทรงพร สุวัฒิกะ

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

วิทยานิพนธ์นี้เป็นการวิเคราะห์และออกแบบระบบการขนส่งให้กับผู้สูงอายุเพื่อการเข้าร่วมกิจกรรมในชุมชน เพื่ออำนวยความสะดวกให้กับผู้สูงอายุในการเดินทางเข้าร่วมกิจกรรมได้อย่างปลอดภัย โดยพื้นที่ที่ทำการศึกษาคือชุมชนในเขตวังทองหลางและชุมชนในตำบลบึงยี่โถ ซึ่งเป็นชุมชนที่มีศูนย์กิจกรรมสำหรับผู้สูงอายุเป็นการเฉพาะ งานวิจัยนี้แบ่งการสำรวจเป็น 2 ขั้นตอน โดยขั้นแรกเป็นการสำรวจพฤติกรรมการเดินทาง การเลือกรูปแบบการบริการขนส่ง และการสัมภาษณ์เจ้าหน้าที่ที่เกี่ยวข้อง ซึ่งผลจากการสำรวจขั้นแรกนำไปสู่แบบสอบถามการจำลองสถานการณ์การเลือกระบบขนส่งภายในชุมชน โดยทำการสอบถามกับผู้สูงอายุรวม 400 ท่าน โดยระบบขนส่งที่ผู้สูงอายุต้องการมีรูปแบบการบริการที่คล้ายกัน โดยทั้งสองชุมชนต้องการการบริการขนส่งที่มีตารางเวลาที่แน่นอน ต้องการค่าโดยสารที่มีราคาต่ำ ส่วนรูปแบบรถแตกต่างกันออกไป ชุมชนวังทองหลางซึ่งอยู่ในเขตเมือง ผู้สูงอายุมีรายได้ต่ำ สนใจรถสี่ล้อเล็ก ส่วนชุมชนบึงยี่โถซึ่งเป็นชุมชนชานเมือง ผู้สูงอายุมีรายได้ต่ำเช่นเดียวกัน สนใจรถกอล์ฟและนำผลจากการสำรวจมาวิเคราะห์ด้วยแบบจำลองสมการถดถอยเชิงเส้นเพื่อหาปริมาณการเดินทางในแต่ละระบบขนส่ง และผลจากแบบจำลองพบว่า ปัจจัยที่มีผลต่อการเลือกระบบขนส่งภายในชุมชนที่มีนัยสำคัญทางสถิติ สำหรับชุมชนในเขตเมืองได้แก่ เพศหญิง รายได้ ระยะการเดินทาง รูปแบบการเดินรถ รูปแบบรถบริการ และค่าโดยสาร ส่วนชุมชนชานเมืองได้แก่ เพศหญิง อายุ รายได้ ระยะการเดินทาง รูปแบบการเดินรถ รูปแบบรถ และค่าโดยสาร และผลจากการสำรวจนี้สามารถนำมาใช้ประมาณการต้นทุนและรายรับที่คาดว่าจะเกิดขึ้น สามารถหาระบบขนส่งที่เหมาะสมกับผู้สูงอายุภายในชุมชน ทั้งนี้หน่วยงานที่ดูแลผู้สูงอายุสามารถนำมาวางแผนและเตรียมงบประมาณในการสนับสนุน หรือเป็นข้อเสนอแนะในการวางแผนการจัดระบบขนส่งที่มีความยั่งยืนให้กับชุมชน และงานวิจัยนี้จะเป็นแบบอย่างให้กับพื้นที่อื่นๆ ต่อไป