Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Predicting Traffic Crashes Using Real-Time Traffic Speed Patterns, Mohamed Abdel-Aty, Anurag Pande

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Despite of the recent advances in traffic surveillance technology and ever-growing concern over traffic safety, there have been very few research efforts establishing Jinks between the real-time traffic flow parameters and crash occurrence. This study aims at the identification of the patterns in the freeway loop detector data, which potentially precede traffic crashes. This would have impOltant implications for Advanced Traffic Management Centers (ATMC). ATMCs could then be able to predict the potential for crashes on freeways and take action to reduce this hazard by warning drivers or introducing variable speed limits. Solution approach to this research problem essentially involves …

Development And Calibration Of A Large-Scale Thermal Conductivity Probe, James L. Hanson, Stefan Neuhaeuser, Nazli Yesiller

Civil and Environmental Engineering

A large-scale probe has been developed for measuring the thermal conductivity of geomaterials. The large probe was designed to conduct tests on materials containing large particles, materials with high heterogeneity, and materials with high stiffness. The probe has dimensions of 680 mm length and 15.9 mm diameter and was constructed of stainless steel tubing. The probe operates on the principle of heating an infinite line source in an infinite medium. Initially, parametric evaluations were conducted to determine the operational and test conditions for the large probe, including power level, heating duration, and zone of heating influence. Then, tests were conducted …

Development Of Rural Bicycle Compatibility Index, Elizabeth G. Jones

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Transparency Tube Provides Reliable Measure Of Water Clarity And Suspended Solids Concentration In California Waterways, Gary M. Litton, R. Dahlgren, E. V. Nieuwenhuyse

All Faculty Articles - School of Engineering and Computer Science

We examined the efficacy of using transparency-tube measurements to estimate turbidity, total suspended solids (TSS) and particulate nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in several California waterways. Just as lowering a black-and-white disk (Secchi disk) into a lake provides a convenient way to measure its water clarity, a transparency tube offers a practical alternative for measuring water clarity and suspended solids concentrations in California streams and waterways. While transparency relationships with turbidity and TSS are strongest within a given sampling location, these relationships are relatively robust across a wide range of water bodies displaying contrasting conditions. However, transparency-tube measurements appear to have …

Evaluation Of Kentucky’S “Buckle Up Kentucky: It’S The Law And It’S Enforced” 2004 Campaign, Kenneth R. Agent, Eric R. Green

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The objective of this report was to document the results of the “Buckle Up Kentucky: It’s the Law & It’s Enforced” 2004 campaign in Kentucky. The campaign involved a combination of earned media, paid media, and enforcement. The earned media started two weeks prior to Memorial Day 2004 and continued through the enforcement period. The paid media started one week prior to Memorial Day. The enforcement period was a two-week period including the week before and the week of Memorial Day.

The evaluation of the campaign included documenting the activities associated with the program (publicity and enforcement) and evaluating the …

Performance Of Constraint-Handling Techniques Applied To A Genetic Algorithm-Based Watershed Management Model, Kwisun Park Yu

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Wet detention ponds are a commonly used structural best management practice to reduce nonpoint source pollutant loading into receiving water bodies. Design of these ponds is typically carried out individually to meet a target total suspended solids (TSS) removal level. An improvement to this approach is to generate cost-effective pond configurations that meet system-wide targets for removal of pollutant loadings, corresponding to a specific build-out land use plan. The cost-effectiveness can be further improved through appropriate land use allocation planning conducted simultaneously with the design of detention ponds. Harrell and Ranjithan (2003) presented an evolutionary algorithm- (EA-) based modeling approach …

Genetic Algorithm-Based Model For Determination Of Efficient Management Strategies For Irrigation Canal Networks, Talaat Taher El Gamel

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

An optimization model for the determination of efficient management strategies for an irrigation canal network is developed. The objective is to minimize the total water consumed while satisfying various system constraints. An unsteady flow model is used to simulate the flow in the network. A genetic algorithm- (GA-) based framework is used to solve the model. The suitable GA parameters that should be used within the model, as well as the performance of various constraint-handling techniques, are studied. Uncertainties in crop pattern and water consumption rates are incorporated into the search procedure to identify more reliable solutions. A graphical interface …

Conductive Concrete For Bridge Deck Deicing And Anti-Icing, Christopher Y. Tuan

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Handbook For Temporary Traffic Control - Construction, Maintenance, And Utility Operations, Indiana Ltap

Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Publications

This handbook gives the basic principles and provides examples for the design, application, installation, and maintenance of the various types of traffic control devices used in temporary traffic control or for incident management. The guidelines presented are in accordance with the standards provided within the Indiana Manual for Uniform Traffic Control Devices (IMUTCD). This handbook is based upon one created by the Ohio Department of Transportation, Guidelines for Traffic Control in Work Zones. Indiana LTAP expresses thanks to ODOT for their permission to reprint this material.

A Nebraska Odor Footprint Tool For Planning Pork Facilities, Richard Koelsch

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Pork producers and rural communities are struggling to balance air quality issues (primarily odors) with the presence and growth of the industry. Currently the type of pork facility, odor control measures, prevailing wind direction, atmospheric conditions, and a community's tolerance to some degree of odor are largely ignored in the planning process because scientific tools that incorporate this information are lacking. Without such tools, decisions on setback distances and acceptable type and size of facilities are influenced by a range of arguments, often emotional in nature. In addition, pork producers lack tools to assist in evaluating impact on a rural …

Green River Ce-Qual-W2 Project: A Hydrodynamic And Water Quality Study Of The Green River King County, Washington, Tim Kraft, Robert Leslie Annear, Chris Berger, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report describes the data processing and model calibration performed for a hydrodynamic and water quality model of the Green River, located in King County, Washington. Figure 1 shows the location of the river, and the limits of the section of river that was modeled.

The Green River flows from its headwaters in the Cascade Mountain foothills through the King County, Washington communities of Auburn, Kent, and Tukwila before discharging into the Duwamish River. Two sections of the river were modeled in this project. The Middle Green River begins in the Cascade Mountain foothills east of Tacoma, and continues downstream …

Review Of The Product Development Process And Information Flow In The Manufacturing Industry: Problems And A Possible Wav Forward, E Opiyo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

No abstract provided.

Field Evaluation Of Soil Physical, Chemical And Hydraulic Property Changes Caused By Surface Water Application: A Case Study Of Ruaha-Mbuyuni Irrigation Scheme, Iringa, Tanzania, A Tarimo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The conventional metering. pyepa.vmen,' and estimates have been used in power utilities industries. The svslen,'s hare experienced many problems such as power tampering, bill tampering, ./åiluve ro receive invoices by poner unlity customers and so on. Different technologies have been investigated To overcome the problems and recently it has been realized that remote 'nonitoring sysle•ns through powerline channel is a solution offhese problems in Tanami". However. 'he powerline network has been used for electrical power IO use i,' for implementation of remote monitoring: network must be setup and has to be modeled to accommodate communications. The contribution has analyzed 'he …

Introduction Of Seismic Resistance Features In The Construction Of Buildings In Tanzania, I Rubaratuka

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Available dara indicates that a greater part of Tanzania lies within a seismic region. to date most Of the buildings in the country have been designed and constructed without considering seismic loads. In addition no design codes have been developed to guide the seismic design for buildings and other related structures in Tanzania. This paper outlines the basic design concepts, which are useful during the design of seismic resistant buildings before the seismic design code is developed and adopted in Tanzania.

Importance Of Structural Fire Protection In Reinforced Concrete Buildings: A Case Study Of Ex-Nasaco Building In Dar Es Salaam, I Rubaratuka

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Reinforced concrete is concrete that is internally reinforced with steel bars or mesh. This gives rhe malerial the compressive strength of concrete along wilh the tensile strength Of steel. Reinforced concrete does not perform well under fire conditions as it spalls and loses strength. Heating Causes a failure Of the bond between concrele and sleels bars and this results in reduction of strength of concrele. Strength of concrete decreases With increase in temperature and increase With time. In order to provide fire resistance to structural components/elements in buildings, it is important Io consider the type of aggregates to be used. …

Evaluation Of Long-Shore Sediment Transport On The Kunduchi Beach Tidal Flat, Dar Es Salaam, Alfonse Dubi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Kunduchi Beach is located approximately IO kilometres north Of Dar es Salaam City on the coasl of Mainland Tanzania. Currents and sediment concentrations were measured using a multi-sensor self-recording current meter. Waves Were measured using pressure gauges. Some physical features were visually measured. The general orientation of the shoreline is 330 degrees and the tidal flat is characterised by ripples. A1 aboul 150 m from the shoreline, ripples are 7-9 cm high and their wavelength is about 40 cm. Closer to the beach, ripple orientation is 350 degrees: ripple height is 5 cm and ripple wave length is 5 cm. …

Emissions Pathways, Climate Change, And Impacts On California, Katherine Hayhoe, Daniel Cayan, Christopher B. Field, Peter C. Frumhoff, Edwin P. Maurer, Norman L. Miller, Susanne C. Moser, Stephen H. Schneider, Kimberly Nicholas Cahill, Elsa E. Cleland, Larry Dale, Ray Drapek, R. Hanemann, Laurence S. Kalkstein, James Lenihan, Claire K. Lunch, Ronald P. Nielson, Scott C. Sheridan, Julia H. Verville

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

The magnitude of future climate change depends substantially on the greenhouse gas emission pathways we choose. Here we explore the implications of the highest and lowest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change emissions pathways for climate change and associated impacts in California. Based on climate projections from two state-of-the-art climate models with low and medium sensitivity (Parallel Climate Model and Hadley Centre Climate Model, version 3, respectively), we find that annual temperature increases nearly double from the lower B1 to the higher A1fi emissions scenario before 2100. Three of four simulations also show greater increases in summer temperatures as compared with …

Coordinated Regional And City Planning Using A Genetic Algorithm, Michael B. Lowry

Theses and Dissertations

Improved methods of planning are needed to deal with today's issues of traffic congestion, sprawl, and loss of greenspace. Past research and recent legislation call for new methods that will consider a regional perspective. Regional planning is challenged with two difficult questions:

1.Is it possible to achieve regional goals without infringing upon the local autonomy of city planners?

2.Is it possible to objectively analyze the thousands, even millions, of land use and transportation plans to find the best design?

Metropolitan regions across the country have made great efforts to answer the first question. Unfortunately, effective methods for harmonizing the goals …

Development Of A Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral, Samuel Bogan Daniels, Bouzid Aliane, Jean Nocito-Gobel, Michael Collura

Engineering and Applied Science Education Faculty Publications

To operate effectively in today’s workforce engineers need to have a muti-disciplinary perspective along with substantial disciplinary depth. This broad perspective cannot be achieved by merely taking 2 or 3 engineering courses outside of the major, but rather will require a radical change in the way we educate engineers. The faculty of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of New Haven have developed a new approach: the Multidisciplinary Engineering Foundation Spiral. This curricular model provides the needed mix of breadth and depth, along with the desired professional skills, by providing carefully crafted, well-coordinated curricular experiences in …

A Case Study Of S-Curve Regression Method To Project Control Of Construction Management Via T-S Fuzzy Model, Ting-Ya Hsieh, Morris Hsiao-Lung Wang, Cheng-Wu Chen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In the contractual business, construction firms are generally more concerned with short-term financial strategies than the longterm ones. Working capital management is the central issue of all short-term financial concerns. Thus, it's urgent to study the cash portion of working capital management to rationalize the amount of cash and current assets possessed in certain time. The S-curve is quite suitable to represent the relationship between project duration and complete progress in practical usage of construction management. Based on the technique of Takagi-Sugeno (T−S) fuzzy model, the fuzzy regression model is constructed for curve fitting problems. According to the cash flow …

3-D Liquefaction Potential Analysis Of Seabed At Nearshore Area, Chih-Hsin Chang, Lien-Kwei Chien, Yao-Hsien Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this research, we discussed about the wave induced seabed liquefaction at nearshore based on the viewpoint of marine geotechnical engineering. The behaviors of seabed sand under wave loading were evaluated by experiments carried out in the Chien’s cyclic triaxial testing system (type II). Different loading periods, effective confining pressure and relative densities affected the liquefaction resistance of seabed sand that we sampled at northeastern coast in Taiwan. Furthermore, this study proposed the 3-D evaluation method of seabed liquefaction at Yi-Lan nearshore in case that combined the liquefaction resistance of seabed sand and Nearshore Spectral Windwave (NSW) model. The new …

A Selection Model For In-Terminal Container Handling Systems, Wen-Chih Huang, Chin-Yuan Chu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This paper describes the main characteristics of in-terminal container handling systems and analyzes the factors affect the total cost of these handling technologies. A cost model is developed for decision making. It includes land cost, equipment procurement cost, maintenance cost, handling efficiency, labor cost, etc. A handling cost comparison indicator Ri/j is also proposed to make the pair comparisons between handling systems and thus to determine the most economical handling technology in the container yard. The results show that for yard cranes to be more economically operation only when procurement cost, yard size, interest rate, number of handlings per container …

Stability Analysis On The Initial Surface-Wave Generation With An Air-Sea Coupled Shear Flow, Wu-Ting Tsai, Mei-Ying Lin

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The temporal instability of a two-dimensional perturbed wave in a coupled air-water shear flow is considered to study the generation and initial growth of wavelets by the air flow. A robust numerical method is developed to solve the coupled Orr-Sommerfeld equations and the interfacial conditions governing the linear viscous instability of the perturbed flow. Calculations of the growth rates and phase speeds of the unstable wavelets compare well with the early theoretical as well as numerical predictions, and also reveal that the discrepancy in the numerical results of Wheless and Csanady (1993) indeed are due to erroneous calculations. Dependence of …

A Recommendation For An Enhanced Fujita Scale (Ef-Scale)

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

Background

National Weather Service (NWS) personnel who are responsible for rating tornadoes have expressed frustrations in applying the Fujita Scale in a consistent and accurate manner. Weak links in a structural system or a slow-moving storm sometimes lead to an overrating of a tornado event. Several technical articles suggest that wind speeds associated with some descriptions of damage are too high. For example, a 260 mph wind speed is not required to completely destroy a well constructed house and blow away the debris. The damage occurs at significantly lower wind speeds. Minor et al. (1977) and Phan and Simiu (2003) …

Debt Capacity And Debt Limits: A State Road Fund Perspective, Merl Hackbart, Suzanne Perkins Sapp, Yongbeom Hur

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

State governments are facing major transportation infrastructure financing challenges as highway or Road Fund revenue growth has slowed and resistance to tax increases has strengthened. As a result, state transportation officials have turned to other financing methods to maintain momentum in meeting highway construction and maintenance needs. Among the financing methods being considered is the expansion of bond or debt financing. Changes in federal legislation that permits states to “pre-obligate” future federal funds, among other considerations, has made debt financing an attractive alternative for the states. As states consider the expanded use of this financing strategy, several financial management questions …

Implementation Of Conductive Concrete Overlay For Bridge Deck Deicing At Roca, Nebraska, Christopher Y. Tuan, Sherif A. Yehia

Civil Engineering Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Conductive concrete is a relatively new material technology developed to achieve high electrical conductivity and high mechanical strength. In research sponsored by Nebraska Department of Roads, a conductive concrete mix specifically for bridge deck deicing was developed. In this application, a conductive concrete overlay is cast on top of a bridge deck for deicing and anti-icing.

This technology has been successfully implemented in a demonstration project at Roca, about 15 mi south of Lincoln, Nebraska. The Roca Spur Bridge has a 36-m (117-ft) long and 8.5- m (28-ft) wide conductive concrete inlay. Temperature sensors and a microprocessor-based controller system were …

Kentucky Highway User Survey 2004, Ronald E. Langley, Ted Grossardt

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The purpose of this study was to continue the efforts begun in 1997 to monitor Kentucky public opinion regarding the quality of highway systems, including a portion to measure satisfaction with current drivers’ license and registration renewal processes. Kentucky’s 2004 public opinion is compared to data colleted in previous years to gauge the state’s progress.

Assessment Of Data Collection For Esal Determinations For The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Division Of Planning, David Q. Hunsucker, R. Clark Graves

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Cabinet’s Division of Planning collects weight data, traffic volume data, and vehicle classification data. These data are used as inputs to determine ESALs (equivalent single axle loads). ESALs are used in the pavement design process to determine pavement thickness. There have been inconsistencies observed during the computation of the ESALs during the past three or four years. These inconsistencies have resulted in a significant inflation in the estimate of ESALs per year, which if used in the design process would result in significantly thicker pavements. For example, the ESALs per truck axle for rural principal arterials …

U-Turns At Signalized Intersections, Nikiforos Stamatiadis, Teja Banu Kala, Kenneth R. Agent

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The objectives of the study were to examine the safety consequences from the installation of U-turns at signalized intersections in Kentucky and to develop a set of guidelines for using this alternative in the future. The literature review indicated that the use of U-turns is very effective in reducing delays as well as crash rates. The most efficient configuration is that of stop-controlled median U-turns. An analysis of the crash data shows that the U-turn design in the Kentucky locations did not result in a large number of crashes involving U-turning vehicles. Also, at the Somerset location where the design …

Maintenance And Operations Plan For Intelligent Transportation Systems In Kentucky, Jennifer R. Walton, Joseph D. Crabtree

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

This report presents a Maintenance and Operations Plan for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in Kentucky. It was developed using substantial stakeholder input and provides recommendations and specific strategies for supporting and coordinating ITS maintenance and operations activities throughout the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

A literature review and national survey helped to identify other states and urban areas that had already completed work on ITS maintenance and operations. From this information, best practices were developed that represented the lessons learned and practices implemented (or suggested for implementation) by these states. Another survey was conducted to determine the current state of ITS maintenance …