Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

High Resolution Sensing Of Nitrate Dynamics In A Mixed-Use Appalachian Watershed: Quantifying Nitrate Fate And Transport As Influenced By A Backwater Riparian Wetland, Alexandria Kosoma Jensen

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

As harmful algal blooms begin to appear in unexpected places such as rivers in predominantly forested systems, a better understanding of the nutrient processes within these contributing watersheds is necessary. However, these systems remain understudied. Utilization of high-resolution water quality data applied to deterministic numerical modeling has shown that a 0.42% watershed area backwater riparian wetland along the Ohio River floodplain can attenuate 18.1% of nitrate discharged from local mixed-use watersheds and improves in performance during high loading times due to coinciding increased hydrological connectivity and residence times of water in these wetlands. Loading from the Fourpole Creek watershed was …

Applying Machine Learning Techniques To Analyze The Pedestrian And Bicycle Crashes At The Macroscopic Level, Md Sharikur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents different data mining/machine learning techniques to analyze the vulnerable road users' (i.e., pedestrian and bicycle) crashes by developing crash prediction models at macro-level. In this study, we developed data mining approach (i.e., decision tree regression (DTR) models) for both pedestrian and bicycle crash counts. To author knowledge, this is the first application of DTR models in the growing traffic safety literature at macro-level. The empirical analysis is based on the Statewide Traffic Analysis Zones (STAZ) level crash count data for both pedestrian and bicycle from the state of Florida for the year of 2010 to 2012. The …

Safety Investigation Of Traffic Crashes Incorporating Spatial Correlation Effects, Khalid Alkahtani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

One main interest in crash frequency modeling is to predict crash counts over a spatial domain of interest (e.g., traffic analysis zones (TAZs)). The macro-level crash prediction models can assist transportation planners with a comprehensive perspective to consider safety in the long-range transportation planning process. Most of the previous studies that have examined traffic crashes at the macro-level are related to high-income countries, whereas there is a lack of similar studies among lower- and middle-income countries where most road traffic deaths (90%) occur. This includes Middle Eastern countries, necessitating a thorough investigation and diagnosis of the issues and factors instigating …

Fusing Freight Analysis Framework And Transearch Data: An Econometric Data Fusion Approach, Salah Uddin Momtaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A major hurdle in freight demand modeling has always been the lack of adequate data on freight movements for different industry sectors for planning applications. Freight Analysis Framework (FAF), and Transearch (TS) databases contain annualized commodity flow data. The primary motivation for our study is the development of a fused database from FAF and TS to realize transportation network flows at a fine spatial resolution (county-level) while accommodating for production and consumption behavioral trends (provided by TS). Towards this end, we formulate and estimate a joint econometric model framework grounded in maximum likelihood approach to estimate county-level commodity flows. The …

Sinkhole Detection And Quantification Using Lidar Data, Amirarsalan Rajabi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The state of Florida is highly prone to sinkhole incident and formation, mainly because of the soluble carbonate bedrock which is susceptible to dissolution and groundwater recharge that causes internal soil erosions. Numerous sinkholes, particularly in Central Florida, have occurred. Florida Subsidence Incident Report (FSIR) database contains verified sinkholes with Global Positioning System (GPS) information. In addition to existing detection methods such as subsurface exploration and geophysical methods, a remote sensing method can be an alternative and efficient means to detect and characterize sinkholes with a wide coverage. the first part of this study is aimed at developing a method …

Optimizing Chlorine Disinfection By Chlorine Injection Location And Pipe Diameter Selection In A Water Distribution System, Margaret Neff

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Due to a variety of factors chlorination is common water disinfectant for community-scale distribution systems. The town of Suyo, Peru was already equipped with a gravity fed water system and drip chlorinator which achieved 4-log inactivation of viruses throughout the town, however, it was not providing 3-log inactivation of giardia cysts at all points of the system.

This project used an EPANET model to determine and compare the potential benefits of changes which could be made to the pre-existing water system in Suyo.

The model was used to compare current operating conditions of the Suyo system, 1.5 mg/L chlorine addition …

Understanding Large-Scale Natural Mine Water-Geologic Formation Systems For Geothermal Applications, Ting Bao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Geothermal energy recovery from flooded mines has been gaining momentum worldwide. Numerous mines are flooded after their closure, either naturally or artificially, in which the water in the mines can be heated by the surrounding geologic formations due to geothermal gradients, leading to sizeable man-made reservoirs of warm water. Such mine water, therefore, can be treated as a renewable geothermal resource for heating/cooling buildings, which has the potential to benefit over millions of people in the United States and much more around the world. Though some real projects and/or installations launched worldwide for the use of flooded mines for geothermal …

Hydrothermal Carbonization Of Food Waste For Nutrient Recovery And Reuse, Ifeolu M. Idowu

Theses and Dissertations

Food waste represents a rather large and currently underutilized source of potentially available and reusable nutrients. Laboratory-scale experiments evaluating the hydrothermal carbonization of food wastes collected from restaurants were conducted to understand how changes in feedstock composition and carbonization process conditions influence primary and secondary nutrient fate. Results from this work indicate that at all evaluated reaction times and temperatures, the majority of nitrogen, calcium, and magnesium remain integrated within the solid-phase, while the majority of potassium and sodium reside in the liquid-phase. The fate of phosphorus is dependent on reaction times and temperatures, with solid-phase integration increasing with higher …

Understanding Geopolymerization Process For Enhancement Of Mechanical Properties Of Fly Ash Based-Geopolymer Concrete, Lateef Najeh Assi

Theses and Dissertations

Concrete is a major construction material that is largely made up of cement. Unfortunately, the manufacturing process for the cement currently used to produce concrete releases a great deal of CO2, which endangers the environment. Hence, finding alternatives to ordinary Portland cement is of extreme importance. The intellectual contribution of this dissertation is the development of an improved understanding of the geopolymerization process so that the compressive strength of cement can be maximized while the need for external heating is minimized. The intent is to create a substance to replace commonly used cement without sacrificing other beneficial properties. The first …

The Transport Of Non-Spherical Particles In A Simulated Ocean Environment, Hannah Reed

REU Final Reports

Plastic particles contaminating the world’s oceans and accumulating in oceanic gyres has become a ubiquitous problem and the solution involving how to clean up the debris efficiently has still not been found. One particular issue is understanding where the greatest densities of debris may be. It is known that floating trash will tend to accumulate in large circular systems of ocean water called gyres, however these areas span thousands of miles of ocean. The present study aims to understand the transport of anisotropic particles in conditions similar to an oceanic environment using experimental methods in an effort to better predict …

Designing And Testing 3-D Printed Wafer-Box With Embedded Pzt Sensors To Identify The Shape Effect On Energy Harvesting, Ahmad Jami Safayet

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Piezoelectric energy has been recently paid attention in the field of alternative energy. Day by day the traditional energy sources including Coal tar and oils are becoming scarce. People are heading to an alternative energy source to meet the future energy demand. Piezoelectric energy is one of the competitive energy sources compared to the conventional renewable energy sources including solar, wind, and geothermal power and so on. This energy production method bears enormous research potential because it can be used as the roadway for a new method of power generation. This research project aimed to identify which shaped wafer-box produced …

Enhancing Frp-To-Concrete Bond Behavior By Epoxy Ribs, Cheng Jiang, Baolin Wan, John Omboko

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The bond between external bonding (EB) of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials to concrete is the weakest link in the strengthened concrete flexural members. There are three mechanisms to transfer the interfacial shear between FRP and the concrete substrate, i.e., adhesion, interlocking and friction. This paper proposes a new approach by grooving on the concrete surface before applying epoxy to make epoxy ribs to increase interlocking. An experimental program was conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed epoxy ribs. Six grooves perpendicular to the fiber direction were cut on the bonding surface of the concrete blocks. The grooves …

Bs News January/February

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Detection Of Buried Non-Metallic (Plastic And Frp Composite) Pipes Using Gpr And Irt, Jonas Kavi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research investigated alternative strategies for making buried non-metallic pipes (CFRP, GFRP, and PVC) easily locatable using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). Pipe diameters up to 12" and buried with up to 4 ft. of soil cover were investigated. The findings of this study will help address the detection problem of non-metallic pipelines and speed the adoption of composite pipes by the petroleum and natural gas industry. The research also investigated the possibility of locating buried pipes transporting hot fluids using Infrared Thermography (IRT).

Results from the study have shown that, using carbon fabric and aluminum tape overlay on non‑metallic pipes …

การพัฒนาคอนกรีตมวลเบาระบบเซลลูล่าผสมเส้นใยปาล์มน้ำมันและถ่านชีวภาพ, ปาณิศา แสงแก้ว

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้ได้ทำการพัฒนาคอนกรีตมวลเบาระบบเซลลูล่า (Cellular Lightweight Concrete; CLC) โดยใช้วัสดุเหลือใช้ทางการเกษตร 2 ชนิด ได้แก่ เส้นใยปาล์มน้ำมันและถ่านชีวภาพ กลุ่มตัวอย่างทดสอบแบ่งออกเป็น 4 กลุ่ม ได้แก่ คอนกรีต CLC แบบปกติ, คอนกรีต CLC ผสมเส้นใยปาล์ม, คอนกรีต CLC ผสมถ่านชีวภาพ, คอนกรีต CLC ผสมเส้นในปาล์มและถ่านชีวภาพ จากผลการศึกษาพบว่า สัดส่วนเส้นใยปาล์มที่เพิ่มขึ้นส่งผลให้ความหนาแน่น กำลังอัด กำลังดึง การถ่ายเทความร้อนของคอนกรีต CLC สูงขึ้น แต่อัตราส่วนการดูดซึมน้ำลดลง สัดส่วนของถ่านชีวภาพที่เพิ่มขึ้นส่งผลให้ความหนาแน่นเปลี่ยนแปลงเล็กน้อย กำลังอัด กำลังดึง สูงขึ้น อัตราการดูดซึมน้ำและการถ่ายเทความร้อนลดลง งานวิจัยนี้ยังศึกษาความเป็นไปได้ในการใช้งานด้านคุณสมบัติและเศรษฐศาสตร์เบื้องต้น พบว่า กลุ่มตัวอย่างที่เหมาะสมในการนำไปใช้งานมี 2 กลุ่ม ได้แก่ คอนกรีต CLC (โฟมร้อยละ 50) ผสมถ่านชีวภาพร้อยละ 15 และคอนกรีต CLC (โฟมร้อยละ 60) ผสมเส้นใยปาล์มและถ่านชีวภาพร้อยละ 1.5 และ 10 กลุ่มตัวอย่างทั้งสองกลุ่มมีคุณสมบัติผ่านเกณฑ์มาตรฐาน มีความสามารถถ่ายเทความร้อนได้ต่ำ ซึ่งช่วยประหยัดการใช้พลังงานเครื่องปรับอากาศภายในอาคารได้ ในด้านเศรษฐศาสตร์เบื้องต้นสามารถลดต้นทุนในการผลิตได้และมีประโยชน์ในการลดค่าใช้จ่ายในการกำจัดของเสียต่อปี ดังนั้นการนำวัสดุเหลือใช้ทางการเกษตรมาเป็นส่วนผสมในคอนกรีต CLC นั้น จึงช่วยพัฒนาคุณสมบัติบางประการหากใส่ในปริมาณที่เหมาะสม เป็นแนวทางในการกำจัดของเสียและสามารถพัฒนาต่อยอดการผลิตคอนกรีต CLC ได้ในอนาคต

Impact Of Highway Work Zones On Traffic Crashes: A Case Study In Michigan, Qadri Hafez Shaheen

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Infrastructure in the US is severely aged and outdated. This presents a seemingly paradoxical problem in the field of construction management: In order to fix and make roads and highways more safe, construction zones must become inherently less safe in the process. There is a high cost to taxpayers and drivers, as work zones experience a significant amount of crashes and fatalities each year. To mitigate some of the factors that contribute to these crashes, this paper attempts to deliver guidelines on how to update relevant crash data, identify relevant factors, and create recommendations accordingly. The research focused particularly on …

Integrity Assessment Of Earthen Dams And Levees Using Cross-Plot Analysis Of Seismic Refraction And Electrical Resistivity Tomograms, Leti Teklu Wodajo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Geophysical methods provide a rapid, economical, non-invasive, and spatial coverage of the subsurface in terms of geophysical properties. On the other hand, geophysical methods can generate multiple geophysical anomalies. An anomaly on a seismic refraction or an electrical resistivity tomogram is an area that has different values compared to its surrounding. Geophysical anomalies in dams and levees can be due to the overall heterogeneity of the subsurface, structures such as principal spillways, artifacts of inversion software, or to a true compromised location, such as an air void due to internal erosion or seepage. Therefore, there is uncertainty involved with using …

Dynamic Hotspot Identification For Limited Access Facilities Using Temporal Traffic Data, Samer Al Amili

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Crash frequency analysis is the most critical tool to investigate traffic safety problems. Therefore, an accurate crash analysis must be conducted. Since traffic continually fluctuates over time and this effects potential of crash occurrence, shorter time periods and less aggregated traffic factors (shorter intervals than AADT) need to be used. In this dissertation, several methodologies have been conducted to elevate the accuracy of crash prediction. The performance of using less aggregated traffic data in modeling crash frequency was explored for weekdays and weekends. Four-time periods for weekdays and two time periods for weekends, with four intervals (5, 15, 30, and …

Probabilistic Analysis And Resistance Factor Calibration For Deep Foundation Design Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Thuy Vu, Erik Loehr, Douglas Smith

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The method of incorporating the sources of parameter uncertainty is crucial when conducting probabilistic analysis for service limit state (SLS) design of a deep foundation. This paper describes the method of using Monte Carlo simulation for probabilistic analyses and for calibration of resistance factors of drilled shafts at SLS. The paper presents discussions on the finding of an impossible case, where the different combinations of load, variability of soil strength and target probability of failure made it impossible to calibrate the SLS resistance factors. Resistance factors for drilled shafts in shale are introduced, and were found to be responsive to …

Remotely Sensed Hydroclimatic Variability For Water Security In An Agricultural Basin, Ashish Kondal

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Indus Basin has supported agricultural practices since the Harappan civilization (3000-1500 BC). Abundance of water has always supported agriculture in the region and built the Indus Basin as one of the major agriculture based economies of the world. The obvious dependency of agriculture on weather and the vagaries of climate emphasizes the necessity of a comprehensive hydro-climate study of the region. The role of climate change in the Indus Basin has always been a contentious issue. Groundwater depletion is evident in the region, and its steady and alarmingly declining rate has brought concerns for the future of agriculture in …

Basic Highway Workzone Safety, Collin Shamberger

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this essay will be to examine, and provide information detailing work zone safety practices, and maximizing safety in construction zones. This report will examine the functionality of components of a work zone and how they work together, the use of standard construction drawings of work zones, personal protective equipment of workers, possible hazards of work zones, minimizing risks and ultimately work zone safety training. Also this report will provide a spreadsheet which can be used to calculate and layout a construction work zone based on a GPS location.

Applying Control Logic To The End Of The Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel Based On Downstream Capacity To Reduce Overflow Of Akron’S Wastewater Collection System, William Troyer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

During the Akron Waterways Renewed Program, the city of Akron is studying ways to improve efficiency in the existing sewer system while also reducing the number and scale of combined sewer overflow (CSO) events. Real time control logic can be developed to reduce CSO events by improving flow and storage capacity. Looking at one point in the system, when the target capacity of the downstream pipe was increased from 20% to 80%, the peak volume of overflow from the Ohio Canal Interceptor Tunnel decreased from 9,067 gallons to 5,965 gallons the total system overflow increased from 10.3 million gallons to …

Viability Of Graywater Reuse In Lesotho’S Lowland Agricultural District, Ryan Wagner

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Water security has become a large issue with populations rising and weather patterns changing to drier and hotter conditions in southern Africa. Lesotho, a mountainous country landlocked by South Africa, is responsible for a large amount of the rainfall in southern Africa. As such, Lesotho provides water to South Africa in exchange for national economic growth. Lesotho, however, is also prone to droughts and with water reserves being sold to South Africa, water security has become a national issue. This study looked at Lesotho’s current water use habits and found that graywater reuse could lead to much more available water. …

Assessing Exposure To Occupants In An Indoor Space Due To Expirated Aerosols: Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics, Firoza Binte Omar

Theses and Dissertations

Indoor environment is an important issue for the well-being of the society. In the United States more than 90% people spend their time indoor, indoor air pollution is more culpable than the pollution outside air. Two third of US businesses lose more than $100,000 per year due to workplace related illness. The trend of sharing the work space has an impact on total sick leaves in a company. Infectious particles released by a flu sufferer’s sneezing, coughing or even laughing can be a vital source. A thorough analysis on infectious particles’ transmission and air flow of the space can provide …

Investigation Of Rapid Remote Sensing Techniques For Forensic Wind Analyses, Yijun Liao, Richard L. Wood, Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi, Peter J. Hughes, J. Arn Womble

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Perishable damage data resulting from severe windstorms require efficient and rapid field collection techniques. Such datasets permit forensic damage investigations and characterization of civil infrastructure. Ultimately, observed structural damage serves as a proxy approach to estimate wind speeds for storms that include hurricanes, tornadoes, straight-line winds, etc. One of the more common methods to collect, preserve, and reconstruct three-dimensional damage scenes is the use of an unmanned aerial system (UAS), commonly known as a drone. Onboard photographic payloads permit scene reconstruction via structure-from-motion; however, such approaches often require direct site access and survey points for accurate results, which limit its …

Behavior Of Cold-Formed Steel Metal Industrial Buildings, Adrianna M. Early, Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi, Richard L. Wood, Kara D. Peterma

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper presents research focused on understanding the observed behavior of cold-formed steel (CFS) metal buildings during Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall Friday, August 25, 2017 between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, Texas. Through the Geotechnical Extreme Event Reconnaissance (GEER) association (funded by the National Science Foundation) a team of structural engineers and researchers performed rapid and detailed assessments of structural damage caused by the hurricane. The National Science Foundation gathered photographs, damage assessments sheets, and three-dimensional laser point cloud data of severely damaged cold-formed steel industrial buildings. The Port Aransas County Airport experienced severe damage to several cold-formed steel …

Post-Earthquake Structural Damage Assessment Through Point Cloud Data, Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi, Richard L. Wood

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Structural damage assessment following an extreme event can provide valuable information and insight into unanticipated damage and failure modes to improve design philosophies and design codes as well as reduce vulnerability. Oftentimes, structural engineers create finite element models (FEM) of the structure in which numerous model parameters require calibration to simulate the current state. This information may include structural plan details (geometry), material characteristics (strength and stiffness parameters), as well as observed damage patterns (cracks, spalling, etc.). Ground-based lidar (GBL) scans and Structure-from-Motion (SfM) can rapidly capture dimensionally accurate point clouds of the structure or facility of interest. Furthermore, point …

Damage Assessment Of Built-Up Areas Via Uas-Sfm Derived Point Cloud Data, Mohammad Ebrahim Mohammadi, Richard L. Wood

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

In the aftermath of extreme events (e.g., earthquakes, tsunami, tornados, etc.), rapid and reliable identification of the damage in a built-up area are crucial in to rescue, recovery, and reconstruction operations. While it is critical to conduct efficient emergency response management, lack of classified or tagged damaged regions due to communications and accessibility limitations can further delay recovery operations, rescue efforts, and resource management. Furthermore, critical and perishable damage scenes can also be lost during recovery and cleanup operations immediately following the event. In recent decades, advances in remote sensing technologies demonstrate a great potential to perform rapid reconnaissance and …

Analysis Of Low-Cost Bluetooth-Plus-Wifi Device For Travel Time Research, Ernest Tufuor, Laurence Rilett

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

MOTIVATION • Collecting real-time travel data via intelligent transportation systems (ITS) rely heavily on technologies that are expensive and challenging to maintain. • Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are the most popular low-cost communication protocols that can give a good understanding of spatial and temporal nature of travel.

USEFULNESS: This will be important for two main reasons: • Allow research to be conducted in a cost effective manner on all types of facilities. • Offers the opportunity to undertake comprehensive empirical studies on link and path travel time distributions especially for arterial roads

gBT COMPONENTS AND COST • A unit of the …

Modified Design Procedures For Bridge Pile Foundations Subjected To Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spreading, Arash Khosravifar, Jonathan Nasr

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Effective-stress nonlinear dynamic analyses (NDA) were performed for piles in the liquefiable sloped ground to assess how inertia and liquefaction-induced lateral spreading combine in long- and short-duration motions. A parametric study was performed using input motions from subduction and crustal earthquakes covering a wide range of durations and amplitudes. The NDA results showed that the pile demands increased due to (a) longer duration shakings, and (b) liquefaction-induced lateral spreading compared to nonliquefied conditions. The NDA results were used to evaluate the accuracy of the equivalent static analysis (ESA) recommended by Caltrans/ODOT for estimating pile demands. Finally, the NDA results were …