Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Vibration Of Steel-Framed Floors Supporting Sensitive Equipment In Hospitals, Research Facilities, And Manufacturing Facilities, Di Liu

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Floors have traditionally been designed only for strength and deflection serviceability. As technological advances have been made in medical, scientific and micro-electronics manufacturing, many types of equipment have become sensitive to vibration of the supporting floor. Thus, vibration serviceability has become a routinely evaluated limit state for floors supporting sensitive equipment. Equipment vibration tolerance limits are sometimes expressed as waveform peak acceleration, and are more often expressed as narrowband spectral acceleration, or one-third octave spectral velocity.

Current floor vibration prediction methods, such as those found in the American Institute of Steel Construction Design Guide 11, Floor Vibrations Due to Human …

The Applicability Of Western Management In The Middle East, Zamaan Al-Shabbani

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The Middle Eastern construction industry is still suffering from cost overruns, delays, and disputes. Inefficient management practices and lack of management are frequently reported reasons for such problems. Researchers attribute such problems to the traditional management practices that are utilized in the Middle East. However, International companies who practice their best management strategies are still suffering from the same problems. These issues become more significant in joint ventures when two different management styles work together. Therefore, it becomes crucial to understand the characteristics of Middle Eastern construction environment in terms of the management practices and regulations that are used and …

Life-Cycle Cost Analysis Of Reinforced Concrete Bridges Rehabilitated With Cfrp, Jeffrey L. Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The deterioration of highway bridges and structures and the cost of repairing, rehabilitating, or replacing deteriorated structures is a major issue for bridge owners. An aging infrastructure as well as the need to upgrade structural capacity for heavier trucks adds to problem. Life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA) is a useful tool for determining when the deployment of fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite components is an economically viable alternative for rehabilitating deteriorated concrete bridges.

The use of LCCA in bridge design and rehabilitation has been limited. The use of LCCA for bridges on a project level basis has often been limited to the …

Commercialization Of A Small, Lightweight, Low-Cost Seismic Borehole Receiver, Rachel Adams

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Herein, conceptualization of a recently patented seismic borehole receiver and its components is developed for commercialization. The device is significantly cheaper, lighter, and smaller than existing technologies on the market. Additionally, it has the potential to achieve better seismic readings than its competitors via patented sensor-to-borehole coupling mechanism. It is the hope that the commercialization of this device will not only provide a more affordable alternative to engineers and geophysicists in the existing market, but the significant cost difference may open new seismic measurement opportunities in the developing world. Its compact size and light weight will increase mobility, allowing investigators …

Effect Of Fly Ash Replacement Level On The Bond Strength Of Reinforcing Steel In Concrete Beams, Mahdi Arezoumandi, Trevor J. Looney, Jeffery S. Volz

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This study compares the bond strength of reinforcing steel in high-volume fly ash concrete (HVFAC) mixes. Three mixes with 0% (conventional concrete), 50%, and 70% replacement of Portland cement with a Class C fly ash investigated in this study. Three beams (simply supported four-point loading condition) as well as three pull-out specimens (based on RILEM recommendations) were tested for each mix. Test results evaluated based on different codes as well as a bond database of conventional concrete specimens. These comparisons indicate that with increasing replacement level of fly ash in concrete the bond strength of reinforcing steel in concrete increases. …

Accounting For The Short Term Substitution Effects Of Walking And Cycling In Sustainable Transportation, Daniel P. Piatkowski, Kevin J. Krizek, Susan L. Handy

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

The environmental benefits of bicycling and walking depend on the degree to which their use substitutes for car driving. Assuming that every walking and bicycling trip replaces a driving trip is likely to produce overestimates of the potential for such modes to reduce vehicle travel and city-scale greenhouse gas emissions. Measuring this ‘‘substitution effect’’ is not straightforward. There are many dimensions of the substitution effect, including trip type, substituting mode, extent, time horizon, and activity patterns. Previously used approaches to measure substitution include indirect inference and direct questioning. This study piloted an intercept survey using the direct questioning approach at …

Sediment Organic Carbon Fate And Transport In A Fluviokarst Watershed In The Bluegrass Region, Admin Husic

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Mature karst topography is well recognized within the hydrology and geology communities to include subterranean fluid pathways that act as turbulent conduits conveying fluid from surface stream sinks called swallets to sources called springs. However, we find that little knowledge has been reported with regards to the transport and fate of terrestrially-derived sediment organic carbon (SOC) within karst watersheds. This study investigated the hypothesis that karst pathways could act as biologically active conveyors of SOC that temporarily store sediment, turnover carbon at higher rates than otherwise considered, and recharge depleted SOC back to the surface stream within the fluvial system. …

Bromide Removal From Surface Waters By Silver Impregnated Activated Carbon, Chen Chen

All Theses

Bromide is a precursor of disinfection by-products (DBPs) during potable water treatment, because it causes the formation of brominated DBPs that are more cyto- and geno-toxic than their chlorinated analogues. Due to the potential health risks of DBPs, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has been imposing increasingly stringent regulations for controlling the DBPs. Therefore, removal of bromide ions from source waters becomes critical for controlling the DBPs formation. In my study, it was hypothesized that silver impregnated activated carbon (SIAC) can be a promising adsorbent for bromide removal from water. The main research objectives of this study were …

Control System Development And Response Analysis Of An Electronically Actuated Variable-Orifice Nozzle For Agricultural Pesticide Applications, Joe D. Luck, S. A. Shearer, M. P. Sama, Santosh Pitla

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The goal of this research project was to further the development of an electromechanically controlled variable-orifice nozzle by creating an electronic control system and then evaluating that system based on step and ramp inputs. The control system was developed in a programming environment that combined an electronic data acquisition system and actuator with pressure and flow sensors. A proportional, variable-gain (based on system pressure) control system was developed to adjust nozzle flow rates to meet target application rates. The constraints were to achieve settling time of less than 1.0 s, overshoot of less than 10% of maximum flow (or minimum …

Uncertainty Considerations In Calibration And Validation Of Hydrologic And Water Quality Models, J. Hernandez

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hydrologic and water quality models (HWQMs) are increasingly used to support decisions on various environmental issues and policy directions for present and future scenarios, at scales varying from watershed to continental levels. Uncertainty associated with such models may affect the ability of the models to accurately evaluate the response of complex systems, leading to misguided assessments and risk management decisions. Current well-known HWQMs contain numerous input parameters, many of which are not known with certainty, and in other cases model users can hardly recognize the genesis of uncertainty. Uncertainty in data, model structure, and model parameters can propagate throughout model …

Fabrication And Testing Of Low-Energy Calcium Sulfoaluminate-Belite Cements That Utilize Circulating Fluidized Bed Combustion By-Products, Robert Jewell, Robert Rathbone, Tristana Duvallet, Thomas Robl, Kamyar Mahboub

Coal Combustion and Gasification Products Journal Archive

The utilization of circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFBC) ash to make cement products that provide added value and offset CO2 production is the objective of this research. CFBC burns coal in the presence of a bed of slaked limestone, which effectively absorbs sulfur dioxide (SO2) to form anhydrite (CaSO4). CFBC produces two kinds of spent bed materials, coarse bottom ash and a much finer fly ash. Both of these products are very high in calcium. When properly conditioned, these materials are capable of acting as hydraulic cements, forming both calcium aluminosulfate minerals, most importantly ettringite, as well as calcium-alumina-silica gels, …

Prediction Of The Unburned Carbon Content Of Fly Ash In Coal-Fired Power Plants, Saeid R. Dindarloo, James C. Hower

Coal Combustion and Gasification Products Journal Archive

Prediction of carbon content in fly ash is a valuable index in both designing and optimizing coal-fired boilers. In this study, methods of multiple regression (MR), decision trees (DT), and support vector regression (SVR) were used for prediction of unburned carbon content of fly ash in a 300-MW power plant with a tangentially fired furnace using a low-NOx concentric firing system. Twenty-one boiler operational and coal petrological variables from 21 experiments in a previous benchmark study were used. A variables correlation matrix was used for feature (independent variables) selection in order to reduce the dimensions (number) of input variables from …

Recycling Of Lignite Coal Fly Ash By Its Conversion Into Zeolites, Silviya Boycheva, Denitza Zgureva, Annie Shoumkova

Coal Combustion and Gasification Products Journal Archive

The present study emphasized the conversion of fly ash from lignite coals into zeolites by a double-stage fusion-hydrothermal synthesis. The raw and the converted fly ashes were characterized with respect to their morphology, composition, and crystallinity. The effects of process parameters such as fusion temperature, concentration of the alkaline activator, and the duration of the hydrothermal incubation on the zeolitization process were studied. The experimental results indicate that the fusion temperature does not influence the process mechanism in the range 550–850uC, but it has an acceleration effect. The elevation of the sodium hydroxide/fly ash ratio from 1.6 to 2.0 enhances …

Evaluation Of Strength And Hydraulic Properties Of Buried Pipe Systems Used For Stormwater Harvesting, Mario Samson Mena

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Water scarcity has been identified as a global issue. Both water harvesting and an efficient water piping system are some of the important factors to meet the water demand. In this study, high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipes used as an underground storage was evaluated and a Microsoft EXCEL based model was developed, called PIPE-R Model. To study the structural integrity of the pipes, laboratory and field testing were conducted. For the water harvesting, UCF Stormwater Management Academy designed an EXCEL based model to simulate the system's performance to store and redistribute water for an average year. The purpose of PIPE-R Model …

Selection Of A Realistic Viscous Vortex Tangential Velocity Profile For Computer Simulation Of Vortex-Structure Interaction, M. N. Strasser, R. P. Selvam

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Structure loading by vortices is a relevant phenomenon in numerous fields of engineering significance. Computer modelling is a powerful tool that can be used to study the loading produced on structures by impacting vortices. Realistic simulation of vortex-loading of structures necessitates the use of a realistic vortex tangential velocity profile (TVP). The present study compiles measured TVPs from various types of experimentally-produced vortices as well as real-world tornado and hurricane vortices. The measured TVPs are compared with commonly-used, analytical TVPs. Analytical TVPs that realistically represent the range of measured TVPs are identified and selected for use in future computer simulation …

Is Service-Learning Worth It?: A Mixed-Methods Study Of Faculty’S Service-Learning Experiences, Joan M. Blakey, Shirley Theriot, Mary Cazzell, Melanie L. Sattler

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

Service-learning benefits students, communities, institutions of higher learning, and faculty. Most studies have focused on the impact of service-learning on students; however, there is a dearth of mixed-methods research examining faculty use of service-learning. Using a two-phase, exploratory, mixed-methods design, the purpose of this study was to understand the factors that influenced 24 faculty fellows’ engagement with service-learning. The qualitative component examined four faculty’s in-depth experiences with service-learning to understand the meaning they assigned to those experiences and to identify key themes that affected engagement. The quantitative phase of the study explored the extent to which 20 additional faculty fellows’ …

Development Of A Simplified Flexible Pavement Design Protocol For New York State Department Of Transportation Based On Aashto Me Pavement Design Guide, Ali Qays Abdullah

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) has used the AASHTO 1993 Design Guide for the design of new flexible pavement structures for more than three decades. The AASHTO 1993 Guide is based on the empirical relationships developed for the data collected in the AASHO Road Test in the early 1960's. A newer pavement design method, called the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide (MEPDG) was developed by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program to provide a more efficient and accurate design method and based on sound engineering principles. The MEPDG models have been incorporated in the AASHTOWare Pavement ME 2.1 software …

Design Of Piles In Liquefied Soils For Combined Inertial And Kinematic Demands, Arash Khosravifar, J. Ugalde, T. Travasarou

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The design of piles penetrating liquefiable soils poses a number of challenges, including 1) accounting for the effects of liquefaction on lateral soil springs (p-y), 2) estimating liquefaction-induced kinematic demands (lateral spreading displacements) including pile-pinning effects, and 3) combining the effects of inertial demands from superstructure and kinematic demands from liquefied ground. This paper illustrates two approaches to address the above questions: A) a simplified decoupled approach adopting equivalent static analysis (ESA), and B) a detailed, coupled approach adopting nonlinear dynamic analyses (NDA). These approaches are presented through example projects showing the limitations and the potential conservatism associated with the …

Modeling The Impact Of Future Climate On Drainage Infrastructures, Tyler J. Baumbach

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has shown a potential 20% increase in future heavy and extreme precipitation events over the Midwestern States. Drainage infrastructures designed using current design conditions may not be able to convey projected runoffs resulting in flooding and damage to infrastructure. The objective of this paper is to determine the effects of future climate variability on culvert selections in a southwest South Dakota watershed. The scope of the study was defined through a comprehensive literature review. Future climate events were based on a 20% increase in current annual precipitation over the Upper White River Subbasin Watershed. A portion of the White …

Development Of Composite Pcms By Incorporation Of Paraffin Into Various Building Materials, Shazim Ali Memon, Wenyu Liao, Shuqing Yang, Hongzhi Cui, Syed Farasat Ali Shah

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this research, we focused on the development of composite phase-change materials (CPCMs) by incorporation of a paraffin through vacuum impregnation in widely used building materials (Kaolin and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS)). The composite PCMs were characterized using environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) techniques. Moreover, thermal performance of cement paste composite PCM panels was evaluated using a self-designed heating system. Test results showed that the maximum percentage of paraffin retained by Kaolin and GGBS was found to be 18% and 9%, respectively. FT-IR results show that …

Evaluation Of Oxidization Of Crumb Rubber-Modified Asphalt During Short-Term Aging, Amir Ghavibazoo, Magdy Abdelrahman, Mohyeldin Ragab

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Asphalt binder is subjected to aging during the construction process and service life of pavement. Aging substantially changes the chemical composition and physical properties of asphalt and leads to premature distresses on pavement. It is speculated that crumb rubber modifier (CRM) reduces the susceptibility of asphalt to aging, but its mechanism is not fully understood. Also, the impact of interaction parameters and exchange of components on the aging behavior of a crumb rubber-modified binder is not fully understood. In this study, the effect of CRM on the short-term aging of asphalt was investigated through an analysis of the distinctions between …

Effect Of Used Motor Oil On The Macro And Micromechanical Properties Of Crumb Rubber Modified Asphalt, Magdy Abdelrahman, Mohyeldin Ragab, Daniel Bergerson

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The need to be more environmentally conscious has recently shifted toward the forefront of society. With this new focus on environmentally responsible behavior comes the practice of using recycled materials in construction when possible. Used motor oil (UMO) is an example of waste materials that can be utilized in numerous applications to alleviate its environmental disposal burden. In the current work, the effect of UMO on the internal structure of crumb rubber modified asphalt is investigated. This is carried out by employing rheological analysis including dynamic shear rheometer and microindentation testing. Rheological analysis was employed to determine the change in …

Differences In Waste Generation, Waste Composition, And Source Separation Across Three Waste Districts In A New York Suburb, Omkar Aphale, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Six tonnes of discards and recyclables from three waste districts in a New York suburb were sorted in 2012. The districts were chosen because one had a higher recycling percentage, one had median performance, and one was a low performing district. ASTM standards were followed for the waste composition sorting. The results showed, as expected, that the waste district with the highest recycling rate appeared to have the highest separation efficiencies, leading to greater amounts of recyclable materials being source separated. The waste districts also had different overall waste generation, both in terms of the amounts of wastes generated, and …

A Management Framework For Municipal Solid Waste Systems And Its Application To Food Waste Prevention, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Waste management is a complex task involving numerous waste fractions, a range of technological treatment options, and many outputs that are circulated back to society. A systematic, interdisciplinary systems management framework was developed to facilitate the planning, implementation, and maintenance of sustainable waste systems. It aims not to replace existing decision-making approaches, but rather to enable their integration to allow for inclusion of overall sustainability concerns and address the complexity of solid waste management. The framework defines key considerations for system design, steps for performance monitoring, and approaches for facilitating continual system improvements. It was developed by critically examining the …

Quantification Of Food Waste Disposal In The United States: A Meta-Analysis, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes, Jessica Gurevitch

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Food waste has major consequences for social, nutritional, economic, and environmental issues, and yet the amount of food waste disposed in the U.S. has not been accurately quantified. We introduce the transparent and repeatable methods of meta-analysis and systematic reviewing to determine how much food is discarded in the U.S., and to determine if specific factors drive increased disposal. The aggregate proportion of food waste in U.S. municipal solid waste from 1995 to 2013 was found to be 0.147 (95% CI 0.137-0.157) of total waste, which is lower than that estimated by USEPA for the same period (0.176). The proportion …

Sustainable Disposal Of Coal Processing Waste Streams, Mohammad Rezaee

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

Modern coal preparation facilities incorporate a wide array of solid-solid and solid-liquid separation processes for rejecting mineral matter to meet market specifications. The coarse mineral matter is typically placed into engineered refuse piles whereas the fine refuse is either stored in impoundments or co-disposed with the coarse refuse. The discharge water from the refuse material represents an environmental concern due to the potential release of trace elements, and the subsequent elevation of total dissolved solids and conductivity. The research findings reported in this dissertation addresses sustainable coal processing waste disposal through using strategies aimed at minimizing the environmental impacts. To …

Integrated Freight Network Model: A Gis-Based Platform For Transportation Analyses, Ted H. Grossardt, John Ripy, Benjamin L. Blandford, Michael Shouse

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The models currently used to examine the behavior transportation systems are usually modespecific. That is, they focus on a single mode (i.e. railways, highways, or waterways). The lack of integration limits the usefulness of models to analyze the intermodal movement of freight. This project developed a GIS-based model of the three primary surface modes as well as intermodal connections. The resulting Integrated Freight Network Model (IFNM) accommodates highly detailed about shipping costs, transfer costs, traffic volumes (including non-freight auto traffic), and network interconnectivity properties. As a proof of concept, the research team conducted an exploratory analysis that asked what the …

Geostatistical Examination Of The Geotechnical Portland Bes Databases With Emphasis On Silt, Alex K. Baumann

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Willamette Valley silt deposits from historical catastrophic flood events present a difficult problem for subsurface engineers practicing in the Portland, Oregon area. Silts exhibit behavior of two very well-documented soil types, but publications containing mechanical properties for silts are scant, especially for local silts. Thus, the need for links between real Portland site investigation data and silt properties is high. To further exemplify the need for documented knowledge of local silts, this project reveals the evolving state of practice to incorporate more Pacific Northwest seismic analyses in preparation for a subduction zone earthquake. The geotechnical Portland BES databases contain thousands …

Comparing Mode Shares For Non-Residential Destinations In Urban And Suburban Environments, Tasnia Subrin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

To ensure facility for multimodal transportation is one of the most important concerns in today's transportation sector, with initiatives being taken to make multimodal transportation popular. The built environment variables have a strong relationship with transportation mode choice, but whether that relationship holds true in urban and suburban neighborhoods in the same manner has not been considered. Using data for three non-residential land uses, this research explores whether the built environment variables in suburban areas influences mode share like it does in urban areas. We used survey data conducted at the establishments regarding respondents' travel characteristics from a previous study, …

A Shear-Based Parameterization Of Turbulent Mixing In The Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layer, Jordan M. Wilson, Subhas K. Venayagamoorthy

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, shear-based parameterizations of turbulent mixing in the stable atmospheric boundary layer (SABL) are proposed. A relevant length-scale estimate for the mixing length LM of the turbulent momentum field is constructed from the turbulent kinetic energy Ek and the mean shear rate S as. Using observational data from two field campaigns-the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) experiment and the 1999 Cooperative Atmosphere-Surface Exchange Study (CASES-99)- is shown to have a strong correlation with LM. The relationship between LM and corresponds to the ratio of the magnitude of the tangential components of the turbulent momentum flux …