Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation And Development Of A Structurally Enhanced Pvc Water Pipe, Ameya Brahmanand Paradkar

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Many U.S. utilities rely upon iron pipe to deliver water through their distribution network. It has only been in the past 50 years that other products have penetrated into the water utilities' pipeline. The industry has turned to various cementitious and plastic materials largely to overcome aggressive soil and water that can be corrosive to metallic pipes. This dissertation will discuss a new pipe material called iPVC pipe manufactured by Pyunghwa Pipe Industry Inc. (PPI), South Korea. The iPVC pipe was evaluated by a series of selective testing on the pipe, including impact, stiffness, tensile, short-term hydrostatic burst pressure, fatigue …

Numerical And Experimental Investigation Of Buried Large-Diameter Steel Pipes With Controlled Low-Strength Material, Margarita Takou

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The main goal of this research was to gain an in-depth understanding of the behavior of buried large-diameter pipes with controlled low-strength material (CLSM). Design equations were developed based on extensive parametric studies that aimed for an optimized design for designers in industry. Both experimental and numerical methods were espoused in the investigating procedure. The pipe-soil structure characteristics of the experimental analysis were: (a) steel pipe diameter of 108 in., (b) steel pipe thickness of 0.47 in., (c) mortar liner applied at the inner surface of the pipe with thickness of 0.5 +1/6 in., (d) CLSM applied around the pipe …

Calibration Of Mepdg Performance Models For Flexible Pavement Distresses To Local Conditions Of Ontario, Nelson Fernando Cunha Coelho

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

The implementation of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Mechanistical-Empirical Pavement Design requires the development of a design procedure that can be used by the agencies and engineering consultants to design new and reconstructed rigid and flexible pavements. To calibrate the design procedure for a region, a large dataset representing the particular local conditions is needed. It includes traffic, climate, site material characteristics, performance requirements and historical data. The performance models were calibrated in North America using the Long Term Pavement Database Program (LTPP), therefore, the models must be calibrated to local conditions in order to …

Integrated Evaluation Of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Traditional Air Pollutants, And Economics Of Three Types Of Landfills, Reza Broun

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Despite the decreasing rate of landfilled waste due to increases in reuse and recycling, landfilling remains an enormous part of the waste industry of the United States due to population and economic growth. In addition, certain wastes are not easily recycled due to their mixed composition (i.e. a cardboard carton with a plastic lining) or their contamination (i.e. diapers). The primary goal of this research is to develop a comprehensive framework that can help landfill designers chose the best type of landfill (conventional, bioreactor, or aerobic) for a given situation based on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, traditional air pollutants and …

A Decision Support System For Traffic Diversion Around Construction Closures, Arezoo Memarian

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

As highway infrastructure ages and road congestion increases, roads need to be expanded and reconstructed. It results in creating many construction sites and work zones on highways, which leads to an unavoidable interruption in normal traffic flows and have resulted in traffic congestion, more vehicle emissions, and traffic safety problems. During roadway construction, when lanes or entire highway sections must be temporarily closed, traffic managers would like to inform motorists of alternative routes around the construction site well in advance of the project location. This would help reduce traffic demand through the construction site, enhance the safety of the workers …

Group Assignment And Annual Average Daily Traffic Estimation Of Short-Term Traffic Counts Using Gaussian Mixture Modeling And Neural Network Models, Sunil Kumar Madanu

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The grouping of similar traffic patterns and cluster assignment process represent the most critical steps in AADT estimation from short-term traffic counts. Incorrect grouping and assignment often become a significant source of AADT estimation errors. For instance, grouping a commuter traffic trend pattern into a recreational traffic trend may produce an erroneous AADT value. The traditional knowledge-based methods, often aided with visual interpretation, introduce subjective bias while grouping traffic patterns. In addition, the grouping requires personnel resources to process large amounts of data and remains inefficient with unapparent traffic patterns. The functional class grouping, a traditional method, also produces larger …

Evaluation Of Food Waste Diversion Potential And Economics Of Using Food Waste Dehydrators, Arindam Dhar

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

According to US EPA (2013), food waste is the second largest component (14.6%) of MSW composition in the US, preceded only by paper. Apart from the negative environmental impacts of food waste through methane and leachate generation, it also incurs huge cost to landfill them. Hence, food waste diversion from landfills is becoming a major issue in landfills across many US states. Though biological treatment of food waste is a potential alternative for food waste diversion, the existing scale of this type of treatment is very narrow. On-site treatment of food waste is a suitable alternative as it can be …

Impact Of Wet-Dry Cycle On Mechanical Properties Of Expansive Clay Under Low Overburden Stress, Md Ashrafuzzaman Khan

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

The seasonal variation in the water content termed as drying-wetting cycle is one of the most important environmental factor that may cause the degradation of strength for expansive clay. Highway embankment within the north Texas region are mostly constructed on expansive clay and shallow slope failures pose a significant maintenance problem for the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Understanding the strength loss mechanism of the expansive clay will provide some useful guidelines to design embankment with adequate factor of safety for long term drained condition. Impact of wet-dry cycle on the high plastic clay strength was measured by several researchers …

Algorithms For Lidar Based Traffic Tracking: Development And Demonstration, Vamsi K. Bandaru

Open Access Theses

The current state of the art of traffic tracking is based on the use of video, and requires extensive manual intervention for it to work, including hours of painstaking human examination of videos frame by frame which also make the acquisition of data extremely expensive. Fundamentally, this is because we do not have observability of the actual scene from a camera which captures a 2D projection of the 3D world. Even if video were to be automated, it would involve such algorithms as RANSACK for outlier elimination while matching features across frames or across multiple cameras. This results in algorithms …

Response Of High-Strength Steel Reinforced Concrete Structures To Simulated Earthquakes, Lucas Laughery

Open Access Dissertations

In reinforced concrete (RC) structures expected to resist earthquake demands, substituting smaller amounts of high-strength steel for conventional steel reinforcement can help reduce reinforcement congestion and placement costs while keeping strength unchanged.

Provided cross-sectional dimensions remain unchanged, reducing the amount of longitudinal steel in a member will result in a member with similar initial stiffness but lower post-cracking stiffness. Nominal strength can be kept nearly the same if this reduction in the amount of steel is accompanied by a corresponding increase in the strength of the steel. The topic of this investigation is whether two frames with the same initial …

Modeling Of Frame Structures Undergoing Large Deformations And Large Rotations, Hui Liu

Open Access Dissertations

Numerical simulation of large-scale problems in structural dynamics, such as structures subject to extreme loads, can provide useful insights into structural behavior while minimizing the need for expensive experimental testing for the same. These types of problems are highly non-linear and usually involve material damage, large deformations and sometimes even collapse of structures. Conventionally, frame structures have been modeled using beam-frame finite elements in almost all structural analysis software currently being used by researchers and the industry. However, there are certain limitations associated with this modeling approach. This research focuses on two issues, in particular, of modeling frame structures undergoing …

Framework For Incorporating Probabilistic Building Performance In The Assessment Of Community Seismic Resilience, Henry V. Burton, Gregory Deierlein, David Lallemant, Ting Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

A framework is presented for incorporating probabilistic building performance limit states in the assessment of community resilience to earthquakes. The limit states are defined on the basis of their implications to postearthquake functionality and recovery. They include damage triggering inspection, occupiable damage with loss of functionality, unoccupiable damage, irreparable damage, and collapse. Fragility curves are developed linking earthquake ground motion intensity to the probability of exceedance for each of the limit states. A characteristic recovery path is defined for each limit state on the basis of discrete functioning states, the time spent within each state, and the level of functionality …

Finite Element Analysis For Astm C-76 Reinforced Concrete Pipes With Reduced Steel Cage, Amin Darabnoush Tehrani

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Reinforced concrete pipes (RCP) are composite pipes which have been widely used in the industry for more than ten decades. They are generally used for sewerage, water drainage, and industrial waste water. There are two methods for designing the RCP so that it will bear the soil weight and the live load on it: Indirect design (ID) and direct design (DD) methods. ASTM C76 (1) classifies pipes into five categories. The five categories of pipes have been classified in order of ascending pipe diameter with their required load and reinforcement’s area. Typically, there are two reinforcement types: circumferential and longitudinal. …

Infiltration Study Using Tdr Techniques, Saurav Sinha

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

The study of water flow or infiltration in an unsaturated soil is a highly non-linear and complex problem, simultaneous verification of field and laboratory results is a convenient and practical approach to test the results. In this study, Time domain reflectometry (TDR) sensors are installed at three different locations close to a water body (Creek) in Arlington, Texas which is a part of the National Science Foundation Project titled “Cyper SEES: Type 2: Integrative Sensing and Prediction of Urban Water for Sustainable Cities (iSPUW)”. Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) and Time Domain Transmissometry (TDT) sensors were deployed at five different depths …

A Decision Support System Tool For Dynamic Pricing Of Managed Lanes, Maryam Zabihi

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Congestion pricing and managed lanes (ML) have been recently gaining interest around the country as a congestion management tool and as a means of revenue generation for facility maintenance and expansion as well repayment of highway construction debts. Congestion pricing in MLs entails one of several strategies, including time of day pricing, dynamic pricing based on predicted/anticipated traffic conditions, and real-time dynamic pricing based on actual traffic conditions. The overall goal of this study has been to develop a Decision Support System (DSS) tool based on drivers’ revealed willingness to pay (WTP) values. This should determine more effective dynamic toll …

Evaluation Of Structural Capacity Of Epoxy-Coated Concrete Pipes And Its Interaction With Soil, Elmira Riahi

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Rehabilitation of concrete structures by using synthetic resins such as epoxy is increasing worldwide. Understanding the structural behavior of the resultant composite structure and the interaction between the coating and concrete can be beneficial in predicting performance of the rehabilitated structure. However, very little is known about the strength of the epoxy-coated concrete. This researcher conducted laboratory experiments designed to evaluate epoxy coated concrete specimens under different load configurations with an emphasis on its stress-strain characteristics. The tests include uniaxial compression cylindrical specimens, three-point and four-point bending and tests on beam specimens and three-edge bearing tests on concrete pipe specimens. …

Laboratory Characterization Of Ohio Gold Frac Sand, Maria Gabriela Alvarado Calle

Open Access Theses

The mechanical response of sand depends on state variables (such as density, stress state and fabric) and intrinsic variables (such as particle size distribution and particle shape). The mechanical response of sand is also a function of sand crushability. Recent research studying the cone penetration process in a unique digital image correlation (DIC) chamber is underway at Purdue University. The test sand is Ohio Gold Frac sand, which meets criteria regarding particle size and gradation related to elimination of chamber boundary and scale effects.

The mechanical behavior of this sand can be simulated by a suitable constitutive model, such as …

Role Of River Bathymetry In Hydraulic Modeling Of River Channels, Sayan Dey

Open Access Theses

Accurate geometric representation of the river channel is required for accurate hydraulic modeling of rivers. These are generally obtained through remote sensing techniques such as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR). However, these techniques lack the ability to model the submerged channel bed effectively and need to be complemented with surveyed bathymetric data for complete representation of the channel bathymetry, which can be time and cost prohibitive. An alternative to address this issue is to develop conceptual models that can estimate bathymetry.

This study aims to evaluate the potential of a conceptual model, the River Channel Morphology Model (RCMM) which estimates …

Visualizations Of Travel Time Performance Based On Vehicle Re-Identification Data, Stanley E. Young, Elham Sharifi, Christopher M. Day, Darcy M. Bullock

Lyles School of Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper provides a visual reference of the breadth of arterial performance phenomena based on travel time measures obtained from reidentification technology that has proliferated in the past 5 years. These graphical performance measures are revealed through overlay charts and statistical distribution as revealed through cumulative frequency diagrams (CFDs). With overlays of vehicle travel times from multiple days, dominant traffic patterns over a 24-h period are reinforced and reveal the traffic behavior induced primarily by the operation of traffic control at signalized intersections. A cumulative distribution function in the statistical literature provides a method for comparing traffic patterns from various …

Seismic Response Of An Older Bridge In Nevada Under Maximum Considered Earthquake, Ryan Thomas Isaac

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Given the aging infrastructure in the United States, a study was conducted on an older bridge in Nevada to determine its performance under the maximum considered earthquake. A suite of eight synthetic site-specific ground motions, including a spectrum-matched “RSP” record, were applied along both the longitudinal and transverse axes of Bridge G-953 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The supplementary materials contain the original drawings of Bridge G-953 for reference, including changes to the expansion joints and the addition of cable restrainers at the in-span hinges. A detailed model, including the effects of column nonlinearity, material degradation such as shear keys, abutment …

Experimental Investigation Of Discharge Capacity Of Labyrinth Weirs With And Without Nappe Breakers, Omer Bilhan, Emin Emiroglu, Carol J. Miller

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research Publications

Labyrinth weirs provide higher discharge capacity than conventional weirs, with the ability to pass large flows at comparatively low heads. Labyrinth weirs are primarily used as spillways for dams where the spillway width is restricted. In recent years, many research investigations have considered the hydraulic performance of labyrinth weirs, particularly as dependent on the geometric features. The previous work has improved the design basis for such weirs. However, their design still requires experimentally derived and generalized performance curves. It is especially important to observe the behavior of the weir nappe to ensure the design provides hydraulic optimization and to account …

Soil-Bentonite Slurry Trench Cutoff Wall Closeout Report, Daniel Ruffing

NSF Soil-Bentonite Slurry Trench Cutoff Wall Documents

Assessment report of the construction of a soil-bentonite slurry wall including milestone dates, work description, and quality control.

Development And Assessment Of A Groundwater Sustainability Index In Climatically Diverse Groundwater Irrigated Regions In Nebraska, Maria A. Mulet Jalil

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of regional change in ET on groundwater level changes and the assessment and development of a groundwater sustainability index for climatically diverse regions across Nebraska during 2000-2014. Irrigation in the selected regions is predominantly supplied by groundwater. The hypothesis is that groundwater use can become sustainable if the regional evapotranspiration (ET) is managed so that it equals the ET of vegetation that is native to the region. Site locations were Box Butte, Chase, Dundy, Holt LNNRD and York Counties and 3 ecosystems were evaluated: native vegetation, dryland and irrigated cropping …

Fire-Spotting Modelling And Parametrisation For Wild-Land Fires, Inderpreet Kaur, Gianni Pagnini

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This article describes a mathematical formulation for simulating the effects of firebrands on the propagation of the wild-land fires. Among the different approaches available in literature, this formulation is defined in a way to provide a versatile approach for application to operational wildfire models. Most of the operational wildfire models like WRF-SFIRE and ForeFire model only the evolution of the fire-line according to the definition of the rate of spread, fuel characterisation and the average fire properties and concurrent atmospheric conditions. But this information is not enough to simulate the effects of turbulence and fire-spotting. The formulation presented here can …

A Generator Of Landuse Application For Complex And Heterogeneous Agricultural Practices, Odile Leccia-Phelpin, Jean-Marie Lescot, Françoise Vernier

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Non-point source pollution from agriculture has become a major concern for water managers and institutional stakeholders. To reduce diffuse pollution, agricultural conservation measures are widely used with efficiency. On non-monitored territories environmental modelling enables the assessment of their long term impacts on water and soils and to evaluate land-use change scenarios. We developed an innovative Generator of Landuse (GenLU) application in order to build up multi-year spatial crop successions from identified crop rotations with their related management schedule s. GenLU can be used solely for generating landuse or coupled with the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model so as …

Water Supply System Classification For Water Quality Improvement, Bruno Melo Brentan, Gustavo Meirelles Lima, Edevar Luvizotto Junior, Joaquín Izquierdo, Rafael Pérez-García

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Universal access to drinkable water is a constitutional right guaranteed in Brazil. However, not all cities in this country are able to supply the population with the expected quality. Important actions should be taken to improve the supply of drinkable water. To define a strategic plan for this purpose, classification tools can facilitate the design of plans, by grouping cities with similar quality conditions. During the last decades, neural network approaches have been used in environmental models, allowing more accurate representation of some complex systems. This work proposes the use of self-organizing maps (SOM’s) coupled with the k-means algorithm …

Optimal Land Use?! – A Review On Optimization Techniques Used In Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Andrea Kaim, Anna Cord, Martin Volk

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agriculture, forest management, conservation planning and other related disciplines have specific land use demands, and thus different perspectives on how land should be used in an “optimal way”. One way to solve arising land use conflicts is employing the ecosystem services concept together with methods from the field of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA). Especially optimization techniques provide the possibility to include socio-economic and ecological aspects as well as the protection of biodiversity. In this study, we give an overview of these methods, focusing especially on their application in agricultural areas. We explore their abilities for the identification of ecosystem service …

The Economics Of Agricultural Water Productivity In The Blue Nile, Imeshi Weerasinghe, James Booker, Wim Bastiaanssen, Lisa-Marie Rebelo, Ann Van Griensven

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Agricultural Water Productivity (AWP) is often simplified as the ‘crop per drop’, described as the output in terms of yield or biomass per unit of water input. This purely physical measure of Water Productivity (WP) using only a single factor input (water) does not consider: (1) the level of other inputs used in conjunction with water, (2) the opportunity cost of water as an input, (3) the value of the output and (4) the costs of production for different crops. This study presents a justification and methodology for incorporating these factors into WP indicators. The application of these extensions to …

Atlas: A Tool To Model Spatial-Temporal Dynamics Of Processes Influencing Ecosystem Services, Hugo Thierry, Aude Vialatte, Claude Monteil, Annie Ouin

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Biodiversity provides various benefits to humankind throughout what is defined as ecosystem services. Within a specific ecosystem, a wide range of ecosystem services can be identified. During the past decades, human intervention has aimed to increase some services such as food production through agricultural intensification, at the expense of other services such as water regulation. Mapping, evaluating and quantifying each of these ecosystem services provided by biodiversity to crop production could help to increase the multi-functionality of agricultural landscapes. In this context, we developed a spatially-explicit model called ATLAS (AgriculTural LandscApe Simulator). ATLA …

Understanding The Relationships Between Sanitation And Health In Nicaragua And Honduras, Through Data Mining Tools, Ginevra Marina Lazerini, Josep Nualart, Sergio Ruiz-Cayuela, Maialen Urbina, Miquel Sànchez Marrè, Karina Gibert

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The aim of this work is to analyze water and sanitation supply data from Nicaragua and Honduras by using different data mining tools. The data has been provided by SIASAR (Rural Water and Sanitation Information System), which is a water and sanitation management and information platform created through the joint effort of different Central American Governments and the World Bank. In the study data from a survey performed in all the rural communities in Nicaragua and in a sample of the rural communities in Honduras from 2012 to 2015 is analyzed. Database contains 10206 communities described by 23 numerical variables …