Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Sustainable Nutrient Management Through Technology-Level Evaluation And System-Level Optimization, Xiaofan Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The need for wastewater and stormwater quality control, especially the control of nutrients, has been recognized due to the widespread problem of water eutrophication. Sustainable nutrient management is essential to reduce nutrient-related impacts and supply the growing nutrient demands.

This research focused on the nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in the urban water environment with nitrogen as the nutrient of interest since nitrogen is the primary nutrient responsible for eutrophication in the coastal areas. It aimed to enhance the sustainability of urban nutrient management through technology-level evaluation and system-level optimization of technology implementation with consideration of life cycle environmental impacts and …

Development Of An Integrated Direct Membrane Filtration (Dmf) And Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (Anmbr) System For Dilute Municipal Wastewater Treatment, Ahmet Erkan Uman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The total electricity consumption due to municipal wastewater treatment in the US accounts for 1.3% of total demand. Also, a significant portion of biodegradable constituents in wastewater is converted into biomass, which needs further processing. On the one hand, an excessive amount of energy and chemicals are being used to treat wastewater, but on the other hand, resources (such as nitrogen and phosphorus, energy, and water) in wastewater are being discharged or removed rather than recovered. From this perspective, new wastewater treatment technologies are sorely needed to facilitate resource recovery from wastewater for a better, more sustainable future.

Anaerobic membrane …

Socio-Technical Transitions In The Water Sector: Emerging Boundaries For Utility Resilience In Barbados, Wainella N. Isaacs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Resilience is gaining popularity in the water sector where it described as contributing to reduced vulnerability to water-related risks and hazards including climate change. Unfortunately, literature in this area, contributed mainly from North America and Europe, is fragmented with a concentration on engineering resilience in water supply infrastructure. The absence of any scholarship on resilience for a small island nation, coupled with the absence of sociological contributors to building resilience in this sector motivated this research.

The goal of this research was to understand and evaluate how resilience is characterized and operationalized in the Barbados water and wastewater infrastructure system, …

Effects Of Physical And Chemical Characteristics Of Slags And Cements On Durability Of Portland Cement-Slag Blended Systems, Farzaneh Nosouhian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) which is a commonly used supplementary cementitious material (SCM) needs to be more investigated for improving durability of concrete elements and service life of concrete structures. This research focuses on the effect of the physical and chemical characteristics of GGBFS and portland cement on durability of portland cement-slag blended systems. The effect of cement replacement level is also investigated using control mixes (no slag) and four different levels of slag content. To this end, eight GGBFS and eight portland cements were selected based on their physical characteristics and chemical composition. Four series of experimental …

The Effects Of Surface-Water Flow On The Quality Of Groundwater And Surface-Water Systems, Quanghee Yi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research has focused on the effects of surface-water flow on the quality of groundwater and surfacewater systems. For the first part of my research (Chapter 2 ), I s tudied the effects of s urface flow system changes in the water-conservation areas and canals in southeast Florida on the quality of groundwater in the surficial aquifer system.

For the second part of my research, by developing analytical models using the superposition method, I investigated the effects of bidirectional surface-water flow on the conservative contaminant concentrations (Chapter 4) and mean residence time (Chapter 5) in streams and rivers as well …

Bio-Electrochemical Denitrification Systems And Applications For Nitrogen Removal In On-Site Wastewater Treatment, Kamal Ziad Taha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Denitrification experiments using biological cathodes (biocathodes) were conducted in three separate experiments. The first experiment was to observe whether the rate of denitrification in biocathodes could be increased with added ammonium at mass (mg/L) ratios of 0.100 (2.5/25), 0.05 (1.25/25), 0.0250 (0.625/25), and 0.0125 (0.3125/25) (parts ammonium to nitrate (NH4+-N/ NO3--N). The purpose of the ammonium present was to provide the microorganisms a starting nitrogen source for assimilation to biomass which, in theory, would encourage the removal of nitrate through dissimilatory denitrification. As mixed cultures were used, ratios tested were based on simplifying future operation of scaled-up biocathodes applied to …

Structural And Agricultural Value At Risk In Florida From Flooding During Hurricane Irma, Alexander J. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Flooding is the most costly type of natural disaster, as well as the most frequent. To provide risk-based flood insurance, providers such as FEMA must be able to accurately determine an asset’s risk of flooding. Additionally, after a flooding event, providers need to quickly determine the direct damages that occurred to verify insurance claims and provide assistance to the affected communities. Many current approaches to flood risk and flood damage estimation involve the use of data or statistical extrapolation that can add various sources of uncertainty into the final damage estimate. In order to reduce uncertainties in flood risk analyses, …

Water Quality And Sustainability Assessment Of Rural Water Systems In The Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Panama, Corbyn Cools

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last four decades significant progress has been made on providing people access to improved drinking water. The Joint Monitoring Program (JMP) estimates that 6.7 billion people have access to at least basic drinking water services. In spite of this great achievement 785 million people still lack even basic services and eighty percent of which live in rural areas. To further complicate matters, those with access to services experience interruptions or non-functionality for handpumps and piped system long before the intended design life of the system. In the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé province in Panama there is very little information on …

Development Of An Organic Processor Assembly (Opa) For Sustainable Resource Recovery To Enable Long-Duration, Deep-Space Human Exploration (Loddshe), Talon James Bullard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Long-Duration, Deep-Space Human Exploration (LoDDSHE) missions demand robust and reliable technologies to ensure crew health, safety, and mission success. In situ food production will become essential for these missions for crew nutrition, morale, and in the event of delays or failures. At a current estimated cost $10,000/lb, mass and volume limitations will restrict necessary resources. For an anticipated thirty-month mission to Mars, these costs will increase due to more frequent resupply shipments and lengthened transit times, creating additional financial and logistical challenges (Pickett et al., 2019). Increased resource and waste recovery to achieve nearly closed-loop systems will mitigate many of …

Post-Overlay Flexible Pavement Performance Modeling And Its Application In Sustainable Asphalt Overlay Policy Making, Chunfu Xin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Highway pavement is a critical component of the highway transportation infrastructure. After the construction of a pavement system, pavement condition will deteriorate over time due to a combination effect of material aging, traffic loading, and environmental impact. To restore the pavement performance and to reduce its adverse effects on public users and environment, asphalt overlay activities are conducted frequently during the service life of a pavement. As a key component that bridges the overlay policies with future pavement performance, economic cost and environmental impact, the forecast accuracy of post-overlay pavement performance model is extremely important. However, most of previous studies …

Rapid Cross-Section Imaging With Magnetic And Impedance Sensors For Grout Anomaly Detection In External Post-Tensioned Tendons, Hani Freij

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Post-tensioned (PT) bridges have had severe corrosion issues with tendons that fail suddenly without prior notice. The corrosion of external post-tensioned tendons has been associated with grout deficiencies/anomalies from inadequate grouting. Deficiencies include voids, regions of chalky low strength grout, and regions where excessive water content or even free water is present. In those zones mechanical bonding of strand to the grout is degraded and, of more concern, the strand steel risks corrosion failure reducing the expected lifespan of the structure. As tendons are critical structural components, it is important to detect those deficiencies during inspection preferably by a cross …

Bond Life Of Structural Epoxy-Concrete Systems Under Accelerated Hygrothermal Aging, Philip W. Hopkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A laboratory study was conducted to investigate possible quantitative and qualitative methods for determining the bond life of structural epoxies externally bonded to concrete substrates. Three concrete mixtures, two surface preparation methods, and three structural epoxies were used creating eighteen combinations of bonded systems. Direct tension (pull-off) specimens were prepared from which a subset was submerged in heated water per a prescribed accelerated aging protocol for up to 200 days. A novel test fixture was designed to facilitate controlled-rate testing of the pull-off specimens. A total of 324 specimens were intermittently removed from submersion exposure and tested without replacement. An …

Influence Of Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Wraps On Corrosion Progression Of Bridge Piles In Marine Environments, Shayan Yazdani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Friendship Trail Bridge connecting Tampa to St. Petersburg was demolished in 2016. Thirteen 20 inches. by 20 inches. reinforced concrete piles supporting its superstructure were part of research studies conducted between 2004 and 2008 to explore the role of glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) in corrosion repair. During demolition, piles were typically cut at the pile cap and in the splash zone. The resulting segments varied in length between 3 to 4 ft. These remnants were transported to the University of South Florida (USF) campus for postmortem analysis. The overarching goal was to establish the role of GFRP in …

Enhanced Fluoride Removal In Biosand Filters Using Aluminum Oxide Coated Media And Modified Filter Design, Madison Leigh Rice

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2010, the UN formally stated that access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a human right. Yet, one in three people globally do not have access to safe drinking water. Contaminated drinking water can negatively impact the health of consumers. This is a challenge that disproportionally affects developing regions, where limited access to resources exacerbates the problem. One drinking water contaminant of concern is fluoride. Fluoride is often added in low concentrations to drinking water to enhance consumers’ dental health. However, when water with high concentrations of fluoride is consumed frequently, it can have negative health effects, such …

Enhanced Nitrogen, Organic Matter And Color Removal From Landfill Leachate By Biological Treatment Processes With Biochar And Zeolite, Bisheng Gao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Leachate percolating through landfills must be collected and properly treated. However, high concentrations of ammonia (NH4+), refractory organic matter [measured as chemical oxygen demand (COD)], water color and heavy metals in leachate interfere biological processes in conventional wastewater treatment plants. Constructed wetlands (CWs) have been used in the past to treat leachate, but their design and performance has not been properly optimized. In particular, low cost adsorbent materials, such as zeolite and biochar, have the potential to adsorb ammonia and organic compounds, respectively. This increases their retention in the wetland and reduces their toxicity to microorganisms and plants in the …

Implementation Of Large-Scale Anaerobic Digestion Of Food Waste At The University Of South Florida, Karamjit Panesar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Food waste represents a major sustainability issue in the United States. Food waste represents 18% of landfill space and is the largest contributor of landfill methane emissions. US EPA’s Food Recovery Hierarchy recommends alternatives to landfilling food waste, including source reduction, food donation and anaerobic digestion.

The Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) Food Recovery Project aims to follow suggestions outlined by the US EPA Food Recovery Hierarchy to encourage the University of South Florida (USF) to become a zero-waste campus. A multi-disciplinary approach aims to source reduce wasted food, look for opportunities for source reduction and anaerobically digest any remaining …

Low-Grade Kaolin Clay Natural Resource For Use As A Supplementary Cementitious Material In Structural Concrete Elements, Brandon X. Lorentz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At the turn of the century, low-grade kaolin clay (LGK) was presented as a widely available and potential natural resource of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) for producing high performance concretes. In using LGK as an SCM, clinker production is reduced, aiding environmental concerns with associated CO2 emissions. These types of clays have very heterogeneous mineralogy and microstructural characteristics, causing unique influences on concrete structural and flow performance, although these influences are not well understood. This research studies LGK natural to the state of Florida and assesses their potential use as high performance SCM.

Ten kaolin clays were obtained through a …

Investigating Factors Affecting Road Freight Overloading Through The Integrated Use Of Blr And Cart: A Case Study In China, Yikai Chen, Kai Wang, Yu Zhang, Renjia Luo, Shujun Yu, Qin Shi, Wenting Hu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Overloading of road freight vehicles accelerates road damage, creates unfair competition in the transport market, and increases safety risk. There is a dearth of research on the mining of data of highway Freight Weight (FW), and this paper therefore aims to discover factors affecting road freight overloading based on highway FW data, with a view of developing strategies to mitigate such occurrences. A comprehensive sampling survey of road freight transportation was conducted in Anhui Province (China). Vehicle Characteristics (VC), Operation Mode (OM), and transportation information from a total of 3248 trucks were collected. In order to take advantage of the …

Valuing Public Transport Customer Amenities: International Transit Agency Practice, Chris De Gruyter, Graham Currie

Journal of Public Transportation

Public transport customer amenities cover a range of measures that can enhance the quality of the passenger experience, such as information provision and station quality. While much research has determined the value that users place on amenities, there is little understanding of current practice in the use of customer amenity valuations in project appraisal. A survey of transit agencies in 11 cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland, London, Paris, Toronto, Vienna, Oslo and Singapore) was undertaken showing that Australasian cities, albeit Melbourne, generally have widespread inclusion of customer amenities as part of advanced appraisals for all relevant types of public …

Exploring Low-Carbon Bus Options For Urban Brt Systems: The Case Of Amman, Rana Imam, Seong-Cheol Kang, Diana Quezada

Journal of Public Transportation

Being able to provide high-quality, metro-like transit service at a fraction of the cost of other options, bus rapid transit (BRT) has been viewed as one of the most cost-effective public mass transport systems suitable for urban areas. Considering significant amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions are attributed to the transport sector, deploying low carbon buses for BRT systems should be of high priority. With a view to promoting low carbon buses instead of diesel buses for a BRT system currently being planned in Amman, Jordan, this paper evaluates several low carbon bus options – hybrid, plug-in …

Covid-19 And Public Transportation: Current Assessment, Prospects, And Research Needs, Alejandro Tirachini, Oded Cats

Journal of Public Transportation

The COVID-19 pandemic poses a great challenge for contemporary public transportation worldwide, resulting from an unprecedented decline in demand and revenue. In this paper, we synthesize the state-of-the-art, up to early June 2020, on key developments regarding public transportation and the COVID-19 pandemic, including the different responses adopted by governments and public transportation agencies around the world, and the research needs pertaining to critical issues that minimize contagion risk in public transportation in the so-called post-lockdown phase. While attempts at adherence to physical distancing (which challenges the very concept of mass public transportation) are looming in several countries, the latest …

Extracting Bus Transit Boarding And Alighting Information Using Smart Card Transaction Data, Zhen Chen, Wei Fan

Journal of Public Transportation

The smart card–based automated fare collection (AFC) technologies provide new opportunities for transportation data collection since smart card data (SCD) contain a significant amount of archived information that can be gathered and leveraged to help estimate public transit origin-destination (OD) matrices. Both boarding and alighting location detection are important particularly when there is no automatic vehicle location (AVL) system or other information in the database. With the analysis of raw data using limited information in this paper, an algorithm for boarding stop identification is presented after the trip direction and boarding cluster identification. Alighting stops are then identified based on …

High Ammonia Strength Wastewater Treatment Using Algae, Bacteria And Ion Exchange, Nadezhda Zalivina

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen pollution has been considered one of the major problems of the 21st century. Discharge of nitrogen from improperly treated wastewaters into surface water bodies causes eutrophication and hypoxia, which results in significant environmental, public health and economic damages. In addition to the incoming flow, wastewater treatment plants generate internal highly concentrated ammonium streams, such as anaerobic digestion sidestream. As a current practice, sidestream without prior treatment is returned to the head of the plant, which increases the total incoming nitrogen load by 20-30% and often exceeds the treatment capacity. The most commonly used conventional biological nitrogen removal processes are …

Innovating Green Stormwater Infrastructure For Nutrient Management: Long-Term Field And Modeling Studies Of Conventional And Modified Denitrifying Bioretention Systems, Emma V. Lopez-Ponnada

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban stormwater and nutrient management are increasingly important topics to address globally, as coastal urbanization increases, disturbing the natural landscape, hydrology, and water quality. Untreated urban stormwater runoff carries pollutants that enter our waterways, such as rivers and marine environments, which serve as drinking water sources, recreational sites, and locations for economic livelihood. One pollutant and nutrient of concern for water quality is reactive nitrogen (N). Since pre-industrial time, reactive nitrogen has doubled from human activity. When found in excess in waterways, nitrogen causes an overabundant growth of algae, which can result in eutrophic and hypoxic conditions, impacting ecosystems, human …

Dynamic Prediction Of Runway Configuration And Airport Acceptance Rate, Yuan Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Automated prediction of runway configuration and airport capacity is critical for the future generation of air traffic management. In the future aviation industry, multi-sources weather forecast information will be available for air traffic decision-making units; how to use these data efficiently is key for overall efficiency of air traffic management. Currently, air traffic management personnel lack tools to assist them to translate weather forecast data into real-time airport capacity. Runway configurations and AARs of airports in a multi-airport system are determined by different air traffic controller personnel. The lack of synchronization may lead to the loss of efficiency of the …

Enhancing Concrete Pavement Service Life Using Multiple Strategies To Reduce Cracking Potential, Dhanushika Mapa Mudiyanselage

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past years, prevention of cracking in concrete structures, especially at early age, has been a challenge facing transportation agencies. During early age, restraint of thermal and moisture related volume changes causes cracking in concrete. This research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of different cracking mitigation strategies that can be implemented, in different concrete elements, to reduce early-age cracking incidents and therefore enhance concrete service life. To this end, a battery of field and laboratory testing were conducted, and finite element analysis was performed to better understand the mechanisms of primary significance on minimizing cracking risks commonly associated with …

Effects Of Reservoir Conditions And Trace Co-Contaminant Gases On Geological Carbon Sequestration, Ram Kumar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Geological carbon sequestration in a saline formation is a promising technology for large-scale carbon dioxide (CO2) mitigation. Several factors such as temperature, pressure, salinity, hydraulic conductivity, and mineralogy of a formation affect the CO2 sequestration in saline formations. These factors can vary widely depending upon the type of formation or the degree of heterogeneity within a formation. In addition to these properties of the repositories, the CO2-rich flue gas streams captured from point sources often contains small amounts of impurities such as sulfur oxides (SOx) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which may have serious implications on the chemistry of the repositories …

Thermo-Oxidative Degradation Of Hdpe Geomembranes: Effect Of Phenolic Antioxidant And Hindered Amine Light Stabilizer Concentrations, Yasin Kocak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High density polyethylene (HDPE) geomembrane is most common geomembrane which is mainly used for civil engineering applications. However, HDPE geomembrane loses its properties under oxidative degradation progress. This study aims to assess geomembranes which have different percentage of phenolic antioxidant and hindered amine light stabilizer (HALS) with under the six months of the thermal-oxidative degradation. The interactions between phenolic antioxidant, HALS and carbon black can affect the mechanical, physical and chemical properties. To monitor these properties, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX), Melt Index tests, …

Chemolithotrophic Denitrification Of Nitrate Contaminated Groundwater Using Sulfur-Bearing Minerals, John Sutton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nitrate contamination in groundwater resources poses a serious threat, not only to the health of those who would drink it, but also as a potential nutrient for eutrophication. Current methods of nitrate removal can efficiently remove nitrate below 10 mg/L as nitrogen, but may require resources unavailable to small community water systems (SCWS). Sulfur-oxidizing biological denitrification is a promising alternative that may be more suitable for SCWS. Sulfur-oxidizing denitrification has previously been shown to have a high nitrate removal efficiency; however, it produces water high in sulfate. Utilization of sulfide-bearing minerals, rather than elemental sulfur as an electron donor, may …

Impact Of The Number Of Lane-Changing Times On Throughput By Fundamental Diagram Based On Ngsim Data, Gangyan Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the present report, the characteristics of the fundamental diagram (FD) are exploited to delve into the effect of the number of times of lane changes on traffic throughput. The NGSIM data are classified and screened by splitting the regions of US-101 and I-80; the relevant traffic variables (e.g., traffic flow, density and speed) are calculated. Appropriate statistical approaches are employed to verify the correlation of the impact of lane changes on different traffic variables. Lane changes could affect traffic throughput in light congestion instead of in heavy congestion. The causes of the effects of lane changes on throughput are …