Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Tra-968: Waterloo Region Light Rail Transit – Overview And Design Challenge, Scott Davis

Canadian Society for Civil Engineering

The Region of Waterloo rapid transit system (“ION”) will connect the Region’s three major urban centres - the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo. This presentation will focus on the Stage I Light Rail Transit (LRT) project between north Waterloo and south Kitchener. It is being implemented as a DBFOM project by GrandLinq Consortium, and AECOM is the lead designer for this project. The capital cost to construct is $818M and the cost is split approximately equally between the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, and the Region of Waterloo.

Finite Element Modeling Of The Composite Action Between Hollowcore Slabs And The Topping Concrete, Aiham Adawi, Maged Youssef, Mohamed E. Meshaly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

The ultimate strength of hollowcore slabs is greatly affected by their post-cracking behaviour. The composite action between the concrete topping and the hollowcore slab adds another level of nonlinearity. This paper presents a comprehensive finite element study to evaluate the nonlinear properties of the interface between a hollowcore slab and its concrete topping. The presented finite element modeling procedure was validated using data from a previous comprehensive experimental study by the authors. The nonlinear material behaviour of the concrete and the prestressing strands were also accounted for. The paper presents a modeling method that realistically simulates the staged construction technique …

Experimental Investigation Of The Composite Action Between Hollowcore Slabs With Machine Cast Finish And Concrete Topping, Aiham Adawi, Maged Youssef, Mohamed E. Meshaly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

Hollowcore slabs are precast/prestressed concrete elements produced at a manufacturing plant before shipping to the job site. Following installation, a layer of concrete topping is usually cast to connect the slabs and to have a level surface. According to current North American design standards, the topping should not be considered to act compositely with the slabs except if their surface satisfies a strict roughness requirement. This paper evaluates if such restriction is justified for hollowcore slabs with machine-cast finish through an experimental program that involves pull-off, push-off and full-scale tests. The surface roughness was first evaluated. The peel (bond) and …

Shear Capacity Of Rc Beams At Elevated Temperatures, Maged A. Youssef, Mohamed Diab, Salah El-Din F. El-Fitiany

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

Fire safety is a critical criterion for designing reinforced concrete structures. With the introduction of performance-based design, structural engineers need design tools to assess the capacity of different elements during fire exposure. This paper proposes an analytical method to predict the shear capacity of reinforced concrete beams exposed to elevated temperatures. The proposed method extends the use of existing ambient temperature methods by accounting for the effect of elevated temperatures on material properties. It involves heat transfer analysis, evaluation of the material properties at elevated temperatures, and application of the modified compression field theory to estimate the shear capacity. The …

Analytical Modeling Of The Interface Between Lightly Roughened Hollowcore Slabs And Cast-In-Place Concrete Topping, Aiham Adawi, Maged A. Youssef, Mohamed E. Meshaly

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

Hollowcore slabs are commonly used in different types of structures. They are usually topped with a 50 mm concrete topping. Structural engineers can use this topping to increase the slab load carrying capacity. North American design standards relate the horizontal shear strength at the interface between hollowcore slabs and the concrete topping to the slab surface roughness. This paper presents results of four push-off tests on hollowcore slabs supplied by two manufacturers and roughened using a conventional steel broom. The tested slabs sustained higher horizontal shear stresses than those specified by the design standards. Utilizing the data from the push-off …

Tornadoes In Canada: Improving Our Understanding, David Sills

Goderich August 21 2011 F3 Tornado Associated Files

Environment Canada presentation at ICLR

• What is a tornado?

• How do tornadoes form?

• How are tornadoes rated?

• Where / when do tornadoes occur?

• How does EC provide tornado alerts?

• Are tornadoes in Canada increasing in frequency and/or intensity?

In The Path Of An F3 Tornado, Bob David

Goderich August 21 2011 F3 Tornado Associated Files

the Port of Goderich Approximate path of the tornado, August 21, 2011 4:00 p.m. Direction of travel NW to SE for a distance of about 20 km.

Winds reached up to 300 km per hour. The width of the path averaged about 500 metres.

The Comparison Of Gev, Log-Pearson Type 3 And Gumbel Distributions In The Upper Thames River Watershed Under Global Climate Models, Nick Millington, Samiran Das, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The increase in greenhouse gas emissions has had a severe impact on global temperature, and is affecting weather patterns worldwide. With this global climate change, precipitation levels are changing, and in many places are drastically increasing. The need to be able to accurately predict extreme precipitation events is imperative in designing for not only the safety of infrastructure, but also people’s lives. To predict these events, the use of historical data is necessary, along with statistical distributions that are used to fit the data.

In this study, historical data from the London International Airport station has been used, along with …

Storm Damage Survey Report Goderich 2011 August, Randy Mawson, David Sills, Arnold Ashton, Ian Hay

Goderich August 21 2011 F3 Tornado Associated Files

Sifto salt mine at lakeshore had signficant damage, with various machinery, booms, and buildings damaged or destroyed. One Sifto employee was killed. The tornado struck right through the exact centre of the downtown, causing F3 damage there. At the central square with the courthouse, the north side had trees down from the north, and the south side had trees down from the south. Many heritage brick buildings heavily damaged. Vehicles tossed and rolled. Some of the buildings hardest-hit by the tornado, like the landmark Victoria Street United Church and the former opera house, have been torn down. In residential areas, …

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Energy-Economic-Climatic System: User’S Manual, Mohammad Khaled Akhtar, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Jacob Wibe, Jim Macgee, Jim Davies

Water Resources Research Report

The User's Manual is planned to assist the user in (i) understanding the ANEMI model structure; and (ii) learning how to use the model for policy simulation. ANEMI model is a research product and is not developed as a commercial software. This manual contains a brief description of the main features of the Vensim system dynamics simulation software (Ventana, 2010), as well as integrated simulationoptimization procedure developed by incorporating MATLAB (MathWorks, 2007) functionalities with Vensim system dynamics simulation. With the help of Vensim and MATLAB software packages, the user can use, modify and/or run the ANEMI models provided with the …

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Energy-Economic-Climatic System: Model Description, Mohammad Khaled Akhtar, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Jacob Wibe, Jim Macgee, Jim Davies

Water Resources Research Report

The feedback based integrated assessment model ANEMI represents the society-biosphereclimate- economy-energy system of the earth and biosphere. The development of ANEMI model is done using the system dynamics simulation approach that (a) allows understanding and modeling of complex global change and (b) assists in the investigation of possible policy options for mitigating, and/or adopting to global changing conditions, within an integrated assessment modeling framework. This report presents ANEMI model and its nine individual sectors: climate, carbon cycle, land-use, population, food production, hydrologic cycle, water demand, water quality, and energy-economy. Two versions of the model are developed and presented in the …

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change Final Report, Angela Peck, Elisabeth Bowering, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The Earth's climate is changing and these changes are documented to have a serious impact on municipal infrastructure. Current infrastructure is designed and constructed based on standards and codes developed decades ago. These standards and codes include historic climate and design storms which are no longer representative of the current climate. With the changes in climate patterns, infrastructure may no longer have the capacity to handle new climate loads. Thus, a region must adapt its policies and procedures to consider climate change and mitigate risks to municipal infrastructure. Climate modeling suggests that the City of London can expect to experience …

Water Resources Decision Making Under Uncertainty, Dejan Vucetic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Uncertainty is in part about variability in relation to the physical characteristics of water resources systems. But uncertainty is also about ambiguity (Simonovic, 2009). Both variability and ambiguity are associated with a lack of clarity because of the behaviour of all system components, a lack of data, a lack of detail, a lack of structure to consider water resources management problems, working and framing assumptions being used to consider the problems, known and unknown sources of bias, and ignorance about how much effort it is worth expending to clarify the management situation. Climate change, addressed in this research project (CFCAS, …

Development Of Probability Based Intensity- Duration-Frequency Curves Under Climate Change, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Hydrologic design of storm sewers, culverts, retention/detention basins and other components of storm water management systems are typically performed based on specified design storms derived from the rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) estimates and an assumed temporal distribution of rainfall. Use of inappropriate data or design storms could lead to malfunctions of the infrastructure systems: over-estimation may result in costly over-design or under-estimation may be associated with risk and human safety. One of the expected hydroclimatic impacts of climate change for London is the increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme rainfalls which can have serious impact on the design, operation …

Quantifying Uncertainties In The Modelled Estimates Of Extreme Precipitation Events At The Upper Thames River Basin, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Assessment of climate change impact on hydrology at watershed scale incorporates downscaling of global scale climatic variables into local scale hydrologic variables and computations of risk of hydrologic extremes in future for water resources planning and management. Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation (AOGCM) models are designed to simulate time series of future climate responses accounting for enthropogenically induced green house gas emissions. The climatological inputs obtained from several AOGCMs suffer the limitations due to incomplete knowledge arising from the inherent physical, chemical processes and the parameterization of the model structure. This study explores the methods available for quantifying uncertainties from the AOGCM …

Assessment Of Global And Regional Reanalyses Data For Hydro- Climatic Impact Studies In The Upper Thames River Basin, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This study evaluates NCEP-NCAR reanalyses hydro-climatic data as an initial check for assessment of climate change studies and hydrologic modeling on the basin scale. Reanalysis data set for daily precipitation, and temperature from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction-National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP-NCAR) (a) global (NNGR) and (b) regional (NARR) reanalysis project are used as input into the semi-distributed hydrologic model (HEC-HMS) during the period of 1980-2005. First, the precipitation and temperature data are interpolated to selected stations to check for their trends and similarity in means and variances. Although NARR shows some over-estimated values, mainly in estimating temperature …

Pressure-Equalized Rainscreen Wall System: A Full-Scale Experiment, Samar D. Dernayka

Digitized Theses

The pressure equalized rainscreen wall, considered as the most effective building envelope against wind induced rain penetration, requires continuous investigations to reach better performance. This research seeks the optimum pressure equalization process under external pressure conditions and wall parameters that have not previously been studied in detail. For this purpose, a single compartment full-scale wall model was built in a controlled facility at the University of Western Ontario. The cavity pressure response to external fluctuations was experimentally examined with respect to the rainscreen venting area ratio, under two types of real wind pressure distributions generated mechanically at zero degree incidence: …

Use Of An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic System In Policy Development, Christopher J. Popovich, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Gordon A. Mcbean

Water Resources Research Report

Climate change remains one of the most critical issues that humans and the natural world face today. Yet while a strong body of scientific research has identified the risks if mitigation and adaptation measures are not taken, there still remains a policy lag. This leads researchers to pose several questions: is there an identified need by the policy domain for more or different science? Is the science that is conducted made policyrelevant? If not, are there tools to better link science to policy? This report will explain the process of science-policy communication related to the development of an integrated system …

Assessment Of Climatic Vulnerability In The Upper Thames River Basin: Part 2, Leanna King, Tarana A. Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Increasing greenhouse gas emissions will cause global temperature to rise in the coming years. Understanding the effects of rising temperature on the hydrologic cycle at a local scale is important in order to assess a wide scope of climate change impacts on management of water resources. Coupled Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) are state-of-theart in climate change research, predicting the future climate based on plausible emission scenarios. Their spatial and temporal scales are quite large, so the results of their analyses must be brought to a local-scale through a downscaling process. There are several methods for downscaling AOGCM data; however …

Optimum Design Of Cable-Stayed Bridges, Mahmoud M. Hassan

Digitized Theses

Owing to their excellent structural characteristics, aesthetic appearance, low maintenance cost, and efficient use of structural materials, cable-stayed bridges have gained much popularity in recent decades. Stay cables of a cable stayed bridge are post-tensioned to counteract the effect of the bridge dead load. The solution for an optimum distribution of post-tensioning cable forces is considered one of the most important and difficult tasks in the design of cable-stayed bridges. A novel approach that utilizes the finite element method, B-spline curves, and real coded genetic algorithm to determine the global optimum post-tensioning cable forces is developed. The effect of geometric …

Assessment Of Climatic Vulnerability In The Upper Thames River Basin, Leanna King, Tarana Solaiman, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

This study provides an assessment of possible future climate conditions for the Upper Thames River Basin.

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change. Background Report #2: Hydraulic Modeling And Floodplain Mapping, Dragan Sredojevic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main objective of the research project currently under way is to provide an engineering assessment of the vulnerability of London’s public infrastructure under projected rates of climate change with special emphasis on flooding. An original systematic procedure is used to gather and examine available data in order to develop an understanding of the relevant climatic effects and their interaction with municipal infrastructure. Assessment of climate change impacts on municipal infrastructure requires floodplain maps and inundation that will correspond to examined climate change scenarios. This report presents the results of hydraulic analyses used in floodplain mapping under changing climate.

Combined, …

City Of London: Vulnerability Of Infrastructure To Climate Change, Hyung-Il Eum, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The climate is changing and these changes may induce severe impacts on both, global and local scales. The Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee (PIEVC) established by Engineers Canada conducted an assessment of the vulnerability of Canadian Public Infrastructure to changing climatic conditions. The major conclusion of the assessment is that water resources infrastructure failures due to the climate change will be common across Canada. As a follow up, the City of London took an initiative to evaluate the impacts of climate change on its municipal infrastructure. An original systematic procedure is used to gather and examine available data in order …

Integrated Reservoir Management System For Adaptation To Climate Change Impacts In The Upper Thames River Basin, Hyung-Il Eum, Vasan Arunachalam, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

Climate change is one of the more pressing issues that attract the attention of scientists and policy makers. Many scientists are developing necessary methodologies to better understand the impacts of climate change, and support the development of appropriate adaptation measures. Literature on the application of adaptation measures to changing climatic conditions is very limited and the need for more work is evident on the development of adaptation strategies for mitigating negative impacts of climate change in water resources management practice.

This study presents an integrated reservoir management system for the Upper Thames River basin that includes: (1) a Weather Generator …

Energy Sector For The Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic Model, Evan G. R. Davies, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The system dynamics-based energy sector described here adds a representation of energy supply and demand dynamics, and their associated carbon emissions, to a larger society-biosphere-climate model previously described in Davies and Simonovic (2008). The inclusion of an energy sector expands the earlier model considerably, and provides new avenues for its application to policy development.

Five interconnected components constitute the full energy sector: demand, resources, economics, production, and emissions. The energy demand component calculates changes over time in heatenergy and electric-energy demand as a result of economic activity, price-induced efficiency measures, and technological change. Energy resources models changes in the amounts …

Updated Rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency Curves For The City Of London Under The Changing Climate, Slobodan P. Simonovic, Angela Peck

Water Resources Research Report

The main focus of this study is the update of rainfall IDF curves for the City of London under the conditions of changed climate. Predicted future climate change impacts for Southwestern Ontario include higher temperatures and increases in precipitation, leading to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle. One of the expected consequences of change is an increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (e.g. high intensity rainfall, flash flooding, severe droughts, etc.). Changes in extreme events are of particular importance for the design, operation and maintenance of municipal water management infrastructure. Management of municipal water infrastructure (sewers, storm …

A Fuzzy Set Theory Based Methodology For Analysis Of Uncertainties In Stage-Discharge Measurements And Rating Curve, Rajesh R. Shrestha, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

River stage and discharge records are essential for hydrological and hydraulic analyses. While stage is measured directly, discharge value is calculated from measurements of flow velocity, depth and channel cross-section dimensions. The measurements are affected by random and systematic measurement errors and other inaccuracies, such as approximation of velocity distribution and channel geometry with a finite number of measurements. Such errors lead to the uncertainty in both, the stage and the discharge values, which propagates into the rating curve established from the measurements. The relationship between stage and discharge is not strictly single valued, but takes a looped form due …

Optimization Using Differential Evolution, Vasan Arunachalam

Water Resources Research Report

The book explains in detail the working of Differential Evolution optimization algorithm. It also provides documentation for the use of Differential Evolution computer program to solve user-defined optimization problems. The computer program is written in C language for Windows environment. The book also demonstrates how to modify the program using an example optimization problem.

An Integrated System Dynamics Model For Analyzing Behaviour Of The Social-Economic-Climatic System: Model Description And Model Use Guide, Evan G. R. Davies, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The society-biosphere-climate model described here takes an integrated assessment approach to simulating global change. It consists of eight individual sectors that reproduce the main characteristics of the climate, carbon cycle, economy, land use, population, surface water flow, and water demand and water quality sectors at a global scale, each of which is described individually in the report, both in terms of the theoretical foundation and mathematical basis, and then connected through feedbacks to other sectors in order to recreate the whole system. Several of the sectors build on previous modelling work, but their manner of integration is novel, as are …

Development Of Rainfall Intensity Duration Frequency Curves For The City Of London Under The Changing Climate, Predrag Prodanovic, Slobodan P. Simonovic

Water Resources Research Report

The main focus of this study is the analysis of short duration high intensity rainfall for London, Ontario under the conditions of the changed climate. Predicted future climate change impacts for Southwestern Ontario include higher temperatures and increases in precipitation, leading to an intensification of the hydrologic cycle. One of the expected consequences of change is an increase in the magnitude and frequency of extreme events (e.g. high intensity rainfall, flash flooding, severe droughts, etc.). Changes in extreme events are of particular importance to the design, operation and maintenance of municipal water management infrastructure.

Municipal water management infrastructure (sewers, storm …