Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

The Seasonal Effects Of Photovoltaic Cells On Sedum Eco Roof Substrate Moisture, Brook M. Thompson

University Honors Theses

This paper investigates a combined PV eco roof system and analyzes the soil moisture levels in front of the panels and directly underneath the PV Cells on an experimental ecoroof platform in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of the study was to examine how PV Cells create differences in the moisture level of the soil on the ecoroof. Four moisture sensors were set in different quadrants in four experimental testbeds, and the moisture level data was recorded from October 18^th, 2018 to September 10^th, 2019. The study found that in with heavy rainfall, the front of the …

Update To Methodology For Setting Speed Limits In Urban Areas: Spr 827, Miguel Figliozzi, Avinash Unnikrishnan, Jaclyn S. Schaefer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many cities in Oregon are requesting a comprehensive review of speed zoning guidelines and existing procedures for streets with high volumes of active travelers. The main goal of this research is to develop recommendations for alternate criteria for setting speed zones on roadways with a high percentage of active travelers. Literature pertaining to factors affecting operating speed, speed and safety, speed management, and current speed zone practices is reviewed. The selection of the site and performance criteria is discussed. Qualities and characteristics of the speed data utilized are given. Distinctions between neighborhood and non-neighborhood greenways are noted. A before and …

Statistical Modeling Of Historical Daily Water Temperatures In The Lower Columbia River, Malia Hanae Scott

Dissertations and Theses

Water temperature affects numerous aspects of aquatic life, and its stability is critical to cold water fish such as salmonids. With rising anthropogenic influence in natural environments, the future existence of these organisms is becoming less certain. In this study, I examined the evolution of historical water temperatures in the lower Columbia River by creating a statistical model to estimate daily historical water temperatures between the 1850s and 2010s. Daily air temperature and river flow measurements were used as inputs to the model, which estimated daily water temperatures at Bonneville Dam. The model used time lags between air temperature and …

Ultrasonic Coda Wave Comparison For Quality Control Of Manufactured Parts: Proof Of Feasibility, Alexei Marin-Cortes

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Manufactured parts are a staple of modern urban life, visible in homes (e.g., kitchen appliances), offices (e.g., printers), the automobile and aerospace industries (e.g., body parts), and more. This M.S. project intended to determine whether ultrasonic testing could be used in a simple and rapid manner to perform quality control of manufactured parts. Ultrasonic testing is employed for this purpose using two surface-coupled transducers, one being a transmitter and the other one a receiver. An ultrasonic pulse, which is generated by the transmitting transducer, propagates through the part, collecting information about material and geometry, as well as potential unwanted features. …

Online Survey Of Driver Comprehension Of The Flashing Yellow Arrow For Right-Turn Signal Indications, Sirisha Kothuri, Christopher Monsere, Hisham Jashami, David Hurwitz

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents the results of an online survey of licensed driver comprehension of the right-turn signal displays with a focus on the flashing yellow arrow (FYA) and also including the circular green and red and red arrow. Recruitment postcards were mailed to a random sample of 9,872 residents in Oregon. The online survey yielded 399 responses. The open-ended responses were coded for comprehension and analyzed. The results suggest that FYA for right turns is well understood by Oregon drivers despite its current novelty (only two locations at the time of the research). Importantly, survey respondents were more likely to …

Ce-Qual-W2 Hydrodynamic And Water Quality Model Of The Cedar River Municipal Watershed, Amory Spencer Cervarich

Dissertations and Theses

The laterally averaged, two-dimensional model CE-QUAL-W2 was used to develop a water quality model of the Cedar River Municipal Watershed as a reservoir management and climate change scenario tool. The 90,638-acre watershed, located 56 kilometers southeast of Seattle, WA, provides drinking water to over 1.4 million people. The watershed relies on two waterbodies for storage, Chester Morse Lake and the Masonry Pool. The Masonry Dam is the main storage structure in the watershed. The Cedar River flows downstream from the Masonry Dam for 57 kilometers to Lake Washington. The reservoir model simulated Chester Morse Lake and the Masonry Pool. The …

Dynamic Response Of Highway Bridge Superstructures Subjected To Wave Action: Experimental Analysis And Numerical Modeling, Alaa Waleed Hameed

Dissertations and Theses

Bridges are critical lifeline components of the infrastructure network, enabling economies to function under normal conditions and disaster response and recovery missions to take place after extreme events. Therefore, ensuring satisfactory performance increases community resilience and minimizes both human and economic losses. Coastal bridges, which are the focus of this PhD dissertation, are vulnerable to coastal storms. High failure rates of these bridges during two major hurricane events in the mid-2000s have spurred research activities to better understand the wave-induced forces of coastal bridges.

This PhD research represents a continuation effort to build, implement, and introduce new fundamental concepts and …

Evidence From Urban Roads Without Bicycle Lanes On The Impact Of Bicycle Traffic On Passenger Car Travel Speeds, Jaclyn S. Schaefer, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A concern raised by some motorists in relation to the presence of bicycles on urban roads without bicycle lanes, discussed in part of the traffic literature, is that cyclists will slow down motorized vehicles and therefore create congestion. This research answers this question: do bicycles reduce passenger car travel speeds on urban roads without bicycle lanes? To answer this question, a detailed comparative analysis of the travel speeds of passenger car (class two vehicles) on lower volume urban roads without bicycle lanes is presented. Speed distributions, the mean, and the 50th and 85th percentile speeds for two scenarios were examined: …

User-Rated Comfort And Preference Of Separated Bike Lane Intersection Designs, Christopher Monsere, Nathan Mcneil, Rebecca Sanders

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Improved bicycle infrastructure has become increasingly common in the United States as cities seek to attract new riders, including the demographic who do not feel comfortable riding with motor vehicle traffic. A key tool in designing low-stress networks is the use of separated or protected bicycle lanes, and intersections are the critical links. This paper presents an analysis of the perceived level of comfort of current and potential bicyclists from 277 survey respondents who rated 26 first-person video clips of a bicyclist riding through mixing zones, lateral shifts, bend-in, bend-out, and protected intersection designs. A total of 7,166 ratings were …

Chehalis River And Tributary Water Quality And Hydrodynamic Modeling: Model Setup, Calibration Analysis For 2013-2015, Tel Jensen

Dissertations and Theses

The Chehalis River is located in southwest Washington State. Its headwaters are in the Willapa Hills, and it drains parts of the Doty Hills, the western foothills of the Cascade Mountains, and the southern Olympic Mountains. The Chehalis River is over 125 miles long and its basin is over 2000 square miles spanning parts of seven counties and diverse land uses.

CE-QUAL-W2 is a widely used two-dimensional (vertical and longitudinal) hydrodynamic and water quality model developed by the US Army Corp of Engineers and the Water Quality Research Group at Portland State University. Version 4.2 includes the ability to run …

Improved Denoising Of Structural Vibration Data Employing Bilateral Filtering, Ning Liu, Thomas Schumacher

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

With the continuous advancement of data acquisition and signal processing, sensors, and wireless communication, copious research work has been done using vibration response signals for structural damage detection. However, in actual projects, vibration signals are often subject to noise interference during acquisition and transmission, thereby reducing the accuracy of damage identification. In order to effectively remove the noise interference, bilateral filtering, a filtering method commonly used in the field of image processing for improving data signal-to-noise ratio was introduced. Based on the Gaussian filter, the method constructs a bilateral filtering kernel function by multiplying the spatial proximity Gaussian kernel function …

Performance Of Us Concrete Highway Bridge Decks Characterized By Random Parameters Binary Logistic Regression, Omar Ghonima, Jason C. Anderson, Thomas Schumacher, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study employs a random parameters binary logistic regression (LR) to characterize the impact of environmental and structural parameters on concrete highway bridge deck deterioration nationwide. Two specific gaps in the literature are addressed: (1) the use of a nationwide dataset for analysis, and (2) the implementation of a methodology to account for unobserved heterogeneity. A total of 3,262 bridge deck deterioration observations derived from the authors’ nationwide concrete highway bridge deck performance inventory (NCBDPI) database were used in this study. The deterioration rate (DR) was computed as the decrease in the concrete bridge deck condition rating ( …

Sea Level, Tidal, And River Flow Trends In The Lower Columbia River Estuary, 1853-Present, Stefan Talke, Andrew Mahedy, David A. Jay, Patrick Lau, Conrad Hilley, Amanda Hudson

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Few tidal records are available pre-1900 for the Pacific Ocean. We improve data coverage by recovering historical tabulations and digitizing analog tide rolls from Astoria, Oregon for 1853-1876. Nearly 13,500 overlapping images of tides from 1855-1870 were digitized at a 6 minute resolution using a line-finding algorithm. Available hourly and high/low tabulations were also digitized, as were nearby hourly records from 1933-1943. Uncertainty was assessed by evaluating manual staff measurements, historical documents, and leveling surveys. Results suggest that uncertainty in mean sea level varies from ± 0.07m (early 1850s) to ± 0.03m (1867-1876) and is driven primarily by datum and …

Undrained Cyclic Shear Resistance Of Low Plastic Silts, Rawan Almoumen

Dissertations and Theses

A magnitude 9 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake is expected to trigger widespread liquefaction in loose material in Oregon. The geotechnical engineering studies have determined that the Willamette Silts may be susceptible to liquefaction or cyclic softening, as their plasticity indices ranges between non-plastic to low plasticity. While the majority of past studies have focused on liquefaction of sand and cyclic behavior of clays, there is not enough data on the cyclic response behavior of silty soils and the liquefaction susceptibility of these soils. A research focus in the geotechnical engineering program at Portland State University revolves around is performing cyclic …

Robust Maximum Flow Network Interdiction Problem, Darshan Rajesh Chauhan

Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis, a maximum flow-based network interdiction problem considering uncertainties in arc capacities and interdiction resource consumption is solved. The problem consists of two entities with opposing objectives: the goal of the adversary is to maximize the flow of illicit drugs through the network, while the goal of the interdictor is to minimize the maximum flow by completely interdicting arcs given a specified amount of resources. Lack of complete information about the usage patterns of the transportation network by the adversary results in an uncertain estimate of arc capacity and resources required for interdiction by the interdictor. To account …

Analytical And Field Verification Of A 3d Hydrodynamic And Water Quality Numerical Scheme Based On The 2d Formulation In Ce-Qual-W2, Hussein Ali Mahdi Al-Zubaidi, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A new 3D hydrodynamic model was developed to simulate water quality transport in surface waterbodies. The governing equations are the continuity equation, free surface equation, momentum equation and transport equation. The 2D numerical scheme of CE-QUAL-W2 was expanded in three dimensions and modified to solve for the free surface elevation. A time splitting technique was employed to solve the momentum and transport equation. The numerical formulation of the 3D scheme used a novel solution, which resulted in a tri-diagonal matrix form for solving the free surface equation rather than a more computationally intensive penta-diagonal matrix solution. In addition, the hydrodynamic …

A Study Of The Competitiveness Of Autonomous Delivery Vehicles In Urban Areas, Miguel A. Figliozzi, Dylan Jennings

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The rapid growth of e-commerce and package deliveries across the globe is demanding new solutions to meet customers’ desire for more and faster deliveries. This research focuses on the cost competitiveness of autonomous air and ground delivery vehicles. Three types of autonomous vehicle are analyzed: drones, sidewalk autonomous delivery robots (SADRs), and road autonomous delivery robots (RADRs). Autonomous vehicles are compared against a typical delivery van. The impact of capacity, range and time constraints are analyzed. Results show that each type of autonomous delivery vehicle is suitable in different scenarios and can therefore complement each other to reduce costs or …

A Study Of Road Autonomous Delivery Robots And Their Potential Impacts On Freight Efficiency And Travel, Dylan Jennings, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Road autonomous mobile robots have attracted the attention of delivery companies and policy makers for their potential to reduce costs and increase urban freight efficiency. Established delivery companies and new startups are investing in technologies that reduce delivery times and/or increase delivery drivers’ productivity. In this context, the adoption of Road Automatic (or Autonomous) Delivery Robots (RADRs) has a growing appeal. Several RADRs are currently being tested in the United States. The key novel contributions of this research are: (a) an analysis of the characteristics and regulation of RADRs in the US and (b) a study of the relative travel, …

Understanding Roundabout Safety Through The Application Of Advanced Econometric Techniques, Hamsa Abbas Zubaidi, Jason C. Anderson, Salvador Hernandez

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Intersections present a significant safety concern, as such in an effort to reduce the more serious injuries occurring at or near intersections, many jurisdictions have turned to implementing roundabouts. Despite the advantages that roundabouts provide, crashes still occur, and less severe crashes are on the rise. The study presented in this paper investigates a crash-based analysis to better understand the factors that may influence less severe crashes to those of more severe crashes given various roundabout configurations and crash types. Using Oregon’s crash database from 2011 to 2015 a series of log likelihood ratio tests were conducted to validate that …

Factors Affecting Injury Severity In Vehicle-Pedestrian Crashes: A Day-Of-Week Analysis Using Random Parameter Ordered Response Models And Artificial Neural Networks, Seyedmirsajad Mokhtarimousavi, Jason C. Anderson, Atorod Azizinamini, Mohammed Hadi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The high number of vehicle–pedestrian crashes in the United State has gained increased attention among transportation safety analysts in recent years. Being directly exposed to the collision force makes pedestrians more prone to becoming severely injured when in crash than other road users. Considering the fact that pedestrian-involved crashes is a serious public health problem, the current study’s aim is to investigate the contributing factors associated with injury severity of pedestrian crashes by time-of-week. Separate injury severity models for weekday and weekend crashes were developed, and the overall stability of the model estimates was examined through likelihood ratio tests. For …

Carbon Emissions Reductions In Last Mile And Grocery Deliveries Utilizing Autonomous Vehicles, Miguel A. Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

New driverless air and ground vehicles are being launched and tested to deliver products or services in the areas of retail, groceries, and healthcare. This research focuses on the efficiency of autonomous (driverless) delivery vehicles in terms of vehicle-miles, energy consumption, and carbon emissions. Drones or UAVs, sidewalk autonomous delivery robots (SADRs), and road autonomous delivery robots (RADRs) vehicles carbon emissions are compared against emissions from an electric van (e-van), a conventional internal combustion engine van, and driving to a store utilizing electric and conventional vehicles. The impacts of vehicle capacity, range, and time constraints are analyzed as well as …

Performance Evaluation Of A Carbon Nanotube Sensor For Fatigue Crack Monitoring Of Metal Structures, Shafique Ahmed, Thomas Schumacher, Erik T. Thostenson, Jennifer Mcconnell

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article describes research that investigated the ability of a carbon nanotube (CNT) sensor to detect and monitor fatigue crack initiation and propagation in metal structures. The sensor consists of a nonwoven carrier fabric with a thin film of CNT that is bonded to the surface of a structure using an epoxy adhesive. The carrier fabric enables the sensor to be easily applied over large areas with complex geometries. Furthermore, the distributed nature of the sensor improves the probability of detecting crack initiation and enables monitoring of crack propagation over time. Piezoresistivity of the sensor enables strains to be monitored …

Storm Tide Amplification And Habitat Changes Due To Urbanization Of A Lagoonal Estuary, Philip Orton, Eric W. Sanderson, Stefan Talke, Mario Giampieri, Kytt Macmanus

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent centuries, human activities have greatly modified the geomorphology of coastal regions. However, studies of historical and possible future changes in coastal flood extremes typically ignore the influence of geomorphic change. Here, we quantify the influence of 20th-century man-made changes to Jamaica Bay, New York City, on present-day storm tides. We develop and validate a hydrodynamic model for the 1870s based on detailed maps of bathymetry, seabed characteristics, topography, and tide observations for use alongside a present-day model. Predominantly through dredging, landfill, and inlet stabilization, the average water depth of the bay increased from 1.7 to 4.5 m, tidal …

Accessibility And Equity Analysis Of Common Carrier Parcel Lockers At Transit Facilities In Portland, Oregon, Katherine Keeling, Jaclyn S. Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transit goals have typically focused on commuter trips but facilitating urban last-mile freight logistics is a potential strategy to increase transit ridership and mitigate the demands of parcel distribution on the transportation network. Presently, most parcel lockers operate out of private businesses, but consumer surveys have found that transit users may be interested in locker facilities at transit connections. The implementation of an unmanned, secure, common carrier parcel locker system could have benefits for non-transit users as well. Consolidation of deliveries is expected to benefit courier companies by allowing operations at increasingly competitive rates, and retailers and consumers benefit from …

An Empirical Study Of The Impacts Of Bicycles On Passenger Car Speeds On Urban Roads Without Bicycle Lanes, Jaclyn S. Schaefer, Miguel Figliozzi, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Higher bicycle mode share has been suggested as part of a solution to reduce the burden of congestion in urban areas. As strategies to promote bicycling are implemented, concerns have been raised by some road users and stakeholders citing simulation based traffic studies that indicate that an increase in the bicycle mode share generates major travel time delays via reduced vehicle speeds unless bicycle lanes are provided. The current research investigates the effects bicycles may have on motorized vehicle speeds on a variety of lower speed and volume urban roads without bicycle lanes. A detailed comparative analysis of passenger car …

A Case Study Of Drone Delivery Reliability For Time-Sensitive Medical Supplies With Stochastic Demand And Meteorological Conditions, Travis B. Glick, Miguel Figliozzi, Avinash Unnikrishnan

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Drones are increasingly being utilized to deliver medical supplies, and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend. Drones arrive quickly by taking more direct paths and avoiding ground-based obstructions. However, drones are not completely reliable and may also experience failures and delays. For consumer products, delivery delays are an inconvenience, but for some medical supplies, delays may be fatal. This research focuses on the drone reliability of one particular type of supply and event: automatic defibrillators for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA). A modeling framework is developed to analyze drone delivery reliability with stochastic demands and meteorological conditions. Using probability distributions …

Tide-Storm Surge Interactions In Highly Altered Estuaries: How Channel Deepening Increases Surge Vulnerability, Ramin Familkhalili, Stefan A. Talke, David A. Jay

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We develop idealized analytical and numerical models to study how storm surge amplitudes vary within frictional, weakly convergent, nonreflective estuaries. Friction is treated using Chebyshev polynomials. Storm surge is represented as the sum of two sinusoidal components, and a third constituent represents the semidiurnal tide (D2). An empirical fit of storm surge shows that two sinusoidal components adequately represent storm surge above a baseline value (R2 = 0.97). We find that the spatial transformation of surge amplitudes depends on the depth of the estuary, and characteristics of the surge wave including time scale, amplitude, asymmetry, and surge‐tide relative phase. Analytical …

Detailed Energy Efficiency Strategies For Converting An Existing Office Building To Nzeb: A Case Study In The Pacific Northwest, Ali Alajmi, Abby Short, Janna Ferguson, Kalina K. Vander Poel, Corey T. Griffin

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper is an attempt to identify a methodology for converting conventional energy consumption buildings to net-zero energy buildings (NZEB). The first step was rather different from the usual energy audit, which is to analyze a facility’s energy consumptions from both macro- and micro-scales. To implement such an approach, a governmental office building (Metro) in Portland, OR, was chosen as a case study. After a building model was validated against a real measurement, it was then used to evaluate different energy efficiency strategies (EESs) so as to reduce the energy consumption. The EESs showed a reduction in energy use intensity …

Right-Hook Crash Scenario: Effects Of Environmental Factors On Driver's Visual Attention And Crash Risk, Mafruhatul Jannat, Hagai Tapiro, Christopher Monsere, David Hurwitz

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A right-hook (RH) crash is a common type of bicycle–motor vehicle crash that occurs between a right-turning vehicle and through-moving bicycle at an intersection in right-hand driving countries. Despite the frequency and severity of this crash type, no significant driver-performance based evidence of the causes of RH crashes at signalized intersections was found in the literature. This study examined the driver’s visual attention in a right-turning scenario at signalized intersections with bicycle lanes but no exclusive right-turning lanes while interacting with a bicyclist to develop an understanding of RH crash causality. Fifty-one participants in 21 simulated road scenarios performed a …

Evaluation Of A Novel Remote Displacement Sensor Prototype Using Video And Laser-Based Technology For Civil Infrastructure Applications, Nicholas J. Brown

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Deflection measurements on structures, especially with regards to long-term monitoring, continues to be a challenge with current sensor technologies. Material degradation and changes in the mechanical properties due to aging (for example, creep and shrinkage in concrete bridges) directly impact the deflections exhibited by a structure. In this article we introduce and discuss the evaluation of a novel laser and video-based displacement sensor prototype to monitor displacements and rotations in structures remotely. The sensor is both inexpensive, using off-the shelf components, but also accurate and practical for situations that do not allow the use of conventional displacement sensors, which require …