Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Design And Implementation Of The Manitoba Constrained-Width Tall Wall Barrier, Harald P. Larsen, Scott K. Rosenbaugh, Andrew Pankratz, Diana Emerson, Jennifer Schmidt, Ronald K. Faller, Elizabeth M. Regier

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Manitoba Infrastructure (MI) desired a new, tall concrete median barrier capable of satisfying the Test Level 5 (TL-5) safety requirements of the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH). It needed to fit within the footprint of an existing F-shape median barrier located in a narrow median. It also was required to address headlight glare from opposing traffic. The barrier was designed with a height of 1,250 mm, a maximum width of 600 mm and to resist a load of 845 kN applied at the top of the barrier. The Manitoba Constrained-Width, Tall Wall was optimised to withstand the design load …

System-Dynamics Modeling Of Source Mass-Depletion And Risk-Exposure Evolution For Natural Attenuation Processes In The Vadose Zone, Aspasia Kalomoiri, Agamemnon Koutsospyros, Washington Braida, Julius Pavlov

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Public health is potentially at risk after a contaminant of concern (COC) is released into the ecosphere. The extent of contamination depends on numerous factors; modeling a contaminant’s dynamic behavior is challenging, given the multitude of relevant parameters and the fluid nature of processes involved. For example, weather events (e.g., wet or dry periods) may affect the mass depletion and the fate and transport of COCs, and hence, the risk assessment of current and potential future exposures. Thus, to give realistic estimates for potential risks, a contaminant’s dynamic behavior must be taken into account in decision-making processes. In this paper, …

Biologically Active Filters: An Advanced Treatment Process For Pharmaceuticals And Personal Care Products, Shuangyi Zhang

Dissertations

With the increasing concern of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in source water, this study examines the hypothesis that existing filters and adsorbents in water treatment plants can be converted to biologically active filters (BAFs) to treat these compounds. Removals through bench-scale BAFs are evaluated as a function of media, granular activated carbon (GAC) and dual-media, empty bed contact time (EBCT), and pre-ozonation. For GAC BAFs, greater oxygen consumption, increased pH drop, and greater DOC removal normalized to adenosine triphosphate (ATP) are observed indicating a different microbial community compared to dual-media BAFs. ATP concentrations in the upper portion of …

Aquacrop-Os: An Open Source Version Of Fao’S Crop Water Productivity Model, T. Foster, N. Brozovic, A. P. Butler, C. M. U. Neale, D. Raes, P. Steduto, E. Fereres, T. C. Hsiao

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Crop simulation models are valuable tools for quantifying crop yield response to water, and for devising strategies to improve agricultural water management. However, applicability of the majority of crop models is limited greatly by a failure to provide open-access to model source code. In this study, we present an open-source version of the FAO AquaCrop model, which simulates efficiently water-limited crop production across diverse environmental and agronomic conditions. Our model, called AquaCrop-OpenSource (AquaCrop-OS), can be run in multiple programming languages and operating systems. Support for parallel execution reduces significantly simulation times when applying the model in large geospatial frameworks, for …

In-Situ Observation And Transport Modelling Of Arsenic In Gangetic Plain, India, Pankaj Kumar Gupta, Pranjay Joshi, Jahangeer

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The focus of this study is to investigate the arsenic movement and impacts on the residual concentrations on groundwater pollution load. The Gangetic plain area in the Ballia, Uttar Pradesh is selected as study area, which is also reported to extreme arsenic pollution in soil-water system. A modelling approach is developed to assess the arsenic flux in partially saturated zone using data of soil texture, soil hydraulic properties and stratigraphy. Soil type, slope, and land-use cover is considered for estimating the transient flux at the top boundary from daily precipitation and evapotranspiration data of the study area. Solute transport in …

Paid To Pump: How A Tax Credit Could Discourage Conservation Of The High Plains Aquifer, S. Polzkill,, A. Stejskal, H. Wilke, Anna Wistrom, Katherine E. B. Gibson, Mindy J. Spiehs, Nicholas Brozovic

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In 1965’s United States v. Shurbet case, an irrigator from Texas asserted his claim for a depletion tax deduction for groundwater pumped from the High Plains Aquifer. He argued that the unique conditions of the southern High Plains region - a plateau where the shallow aquifer is recharged only through precipitation at a slow rate - meant the groundwater resource would be depleted in time. The state argued that groundwater was not fundamentally an exhaustible natural deposit, but the Supreme Court concluded the tax deduction was appropriate given the “peculiar” conditions in the area. It was stated the decision was …

Pathways To Increasing Farmer-Led Investments In Sustainable Agricultural Water Management In Sub-Saharan Africa, Douglas J. Merrey, Peter G. Mccornick, Molly C. Nance

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Without a transformative leap forward in the use of irrigation, Africa will continue falling short in the struggle to feed its growing population, improve its people’s nutrition, grow its economies, adapt to the impacts of climate change, and eliminate poverty. While Africans must lead this transformation for it to be successful, the international community can help African countries substantially increase the use of more productive and sustainable water management practices and unlock the potential of farmer-led irrigated agriculture. Achieving highly productive irrigated agricultural systems in Africa requires an enabling environment that facilitates the full engagement of farmers, public and private …

Harmful Algae Bloom Prediction Model For Western Lake Erie Using Stepwise Multiple Regression And Genetic Programming, Amin Daghighi

ETD Archive

The Great Lakes are most important freshwater bodies providing water resources and other various related businesses to the northeastern part of North America. However, harmful algal blooms (HABs) are more often and severe in those lakes than before and thus threatening lake environments and economies. Researchers have studied the factors influencing HABs characteristics using different scientific methods. In this study, all possible predictors and predictand variables were collected from various data source and then eight final predictors and one predictand were selected based on correlation between predictors and predictand variables. This study tests two machine learning techniques, Stepwise Multiple Regression …

A Review Of Approaches To Solving The Problem Of Bim Search: Towards Intelligence-Assisted Design, Hamed Khademi, Avril Behan

Conference papers

Due to the growing adoption of BIM and the rising popularity of cloud computing, BIM models are increasingly stored in central cloud repositories or Common Data Environments. Effective management and exploitation of these models creates the requirement for BIM retrieval systems. Thus far, the BIM industry has utilized general-purpose, text-based search techniques that operate on BIM metadata. This paper highlights the need for a domain-specific BIM search engine and reviews various approaches to address the problem of BIM search. Three main approaches were identified as context-, geometry-, and content-based BIM retrieval. For a comprehensive BIM retrieval system, all three approaches …

Characterizing A Small-Scale, Constructed Wetland For Stormwater Treatment, Madeline Pritchett, Yuezhi Yuan

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Research Publications

Because of the efficient treatment processes of wetlands, engineered treatment wetlands are increasingly being used to treat stormwater and wastewater, and especially combined sewer overflows (CSO). Constructed treatment wetlands are low-cost, require minimal maintenance, can be implemented in a decentralized fashion, and contribute to ecosystem preservation. All of these reasons have brought treatment wetlands to the forefront for consideration by communities working to reduce CSOs and improve water quality, especially in small cities with limited resources.

Embedding Systems Thinking Into Ewb Project Planning And Development: Assessing The Utility Of A Group Model Building Approach, Kimberly Pugel, Jeffrey P. Walters

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Amongst growing sociotechnical efforts, engineering students and professionals both in the international development sector and industry are challenged to approach projects more holistically to achieve project goals. Engineering service learning organisations must similarly adapt their technological projects to consider varying cultural and economic structures, ensuring more resilient social progress within development efforts. In practice, systems thinking approaches can be utilised to model the social, economic, political, and technological implications that influence the sustainability of an engineering project. This research assesses the utility of integrating systems thinking into Engineers Without Borders (EWB) project planning and development, thereby improving project impact and …

Working With Complexity: A Participatory Systems-Based Process For Planning And Evaluating Rural Water, Sanitation And Hygiene Services, Jeffrey P. Walters, Kate Neely, Karla Pozo

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

Individuals working within the water, sanitation and hygiene for development (WASH) sector grapple daily with complex technical, social, economic, and environmental issues that often produce unexpected outcomes that are difficult to plan for and resolve. Here we propose a method we are calling the ‘Participatory Systems-based Planning and Evaluation Process’ (PS-PEP) that combines structural factor analysis and collaborative modeling to guide teams of practitioners, researchers, and other stakeholders through a process of modeling and interpreting how factors systemically and dynamically influence sustained access to WASH services. The use and utility of the PS-PEP is demonstrated with a regional team of …

After 40 Years Of Regional And Coordinated Ship Safety Inspections: Destination Reached Or New Point Of Departure?, Armando Graziano, Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs, Aykut I. Olçer

Journal Publications

Port State Control (PSC) is the major global strategy for fighting substandard shipping since the signature of The Hague Memorandum in 1978. In the last years, the increased volume of trade, the enlarged number of main international conventions and the highlighted differences among the various Regimes have posed new challenges to the modern system of PSC, which may need to find its new course.

This paper examines the point of view of key maritime stakeholders with regard to the EU PSC regime. Elite interviews (n = 14) were conducted with subject matter experts ranging from policy makers, to industry and …

Exercise - Calculate Reservoir Performance Metrics - University Of Colorado Boulder, Joseph Kasprzyk

All ECSTATIC Materials

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Wastewater Strength And Photocatalyst Loading On Decolourization Of Acid Orange 7 By Co-Doped Tio2, Erick Butler, Oliver Mulamba, Yung Tse Hung, Ching Cheng Chen, Yen Pei Fu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

© 2017, Chemical Publishing Co. All rights reserved. Heterogeneous photocatalysis has proved to be a successful method for the degradation of water pollutants. In this work, the photocatalytic decolourization of acid orange 7 was performed by cobalt-doped titanium dioxide (Co-doped TiO2). The Co-doped TiO2 was synthesized and characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy diffraction spectroscopy, UV-visible reflective dispersion spectroscopy and adsorption of nitrogen gas. The acid orange 7 was prepared as a synthetic textile wastewater at three initial concentrations (24, 34 and 44 mg/L) with three photocatalyst loadings (0.025 g, 0.050, 0.1 g/100 mL acid orange 7). Results …

Detection Of Trends In The 7-Day Sustained Low-Flow Time Series Of Irish Rivers, Ahmed Nasr, Michael Bruen

Articles

A combination of statistical hypothesis testing methods (Mann-Whitney, Mann-Kendall and Spearman’s rho) and visual exploratory analysis were used to investigate trends in Irish 7-day sustained low-flow (7SLF) series possibly driven by changes in summer rainfall patterns. River flow data from 33 gauging stations covering most major Irish rivers were analysed, after excluding catchments where low flows are influenced by significant human interventions. A statistically significant increasing trend in the 7SLF series was identified by all three tests at eight gauging stations; in contrast, a statistically significant decreasing trend was identified by all three tests at four stations. The stations with …

2017 Nebraska Water Monitoring Programs Report, Marty Link, Ryan Chapman

Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality: Reports

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) is charged with monitoring, assessing, and to the extent possible, managing the state’s water resources. The purpose of this work is to protect and maintain high quality water and encourage or execute activities to improve poor water quality. Monitoring is done on nearly 17,000 miles of flowing rivers and streams, more than 134,000 acres of surface water in lakes and reservoirs, as well as the vast storage of groundwater in Nebraska’s aquifers.

Gams Handout 1, Ethan Yang

All ECSTATIC Materials

No abstract provided.

Gams Handout 4, Ethan Yang

All ECSTATIC Materials

No abstract provided.

Data-Driven Spatial Modeling For Quantifying Networkwide Resilience In The Aftermath Of Hurricanes Irene And Sandy, Yuan Zhu, Kun Xie, Kaan Ozbay, Fan Zuo, Hong Yang

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

In recent years, the New York City metropolitan area was hit by two major hurricanes, Irene and Sandy. These extreme weather events disrupted and devastated the transportation infrastructure, including road and subway networks. As an extension of the authors' recent research on this topic, this study explored the spatial patterns of infrastructure resilience in New York City with the use of taxi and subway ridership data. Neighborhood tabulation areas were used as the units of analysis. The recovery curve of each neighborhood tabulation area was modeled with the logistic function to quantify the resilience of road and subway systems. Moran's …

Impact Of Connected Vehicles On Mitigating Secondary Crash Risk, Hong Yang, Zhenyu Wang, Kun Xie

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

Reducing the risk of secondary crashes is a key goal for effective traffic incident management. However, only few countermeasures have been established in practices to achieve the goal. This is mainly due to the stochastic nature of both primary and secondary crashes. Given the emerging connected vehicle (CV) technologies, it is highly likely that CVs will soon be able to communicate with each other through the ad-hoc wireless vehicular network. Information sharing among vehicles is deemed to change traffic operations and allow motorists for more proactive actions. Motorists who receive safety messages can be motivated to approach queues and incident …

Thermal Inactivation Analysis Of Water-Related Pathogens In Domestic Hot Water Systems, Liam Mccarton, Sean O'Hogain

Articles

This study aims to investigate whether hot water systems supplied with harvested rainwater present an increased risk to health over hot water systems supplied with potable mains water. It reviews previous studies investigating the health effects of utilising rainwater within domestic systems. The main risk to public health of mains-supplied hot water systems is the operation, maintenance, age, location and temperature of the system. Rainwater-harvesting systems contain an inherent water treatment train consisting of flocculation, settlement, sorption and bioreaction, and stored rainwater quality improves as metal and chemical contaminants settle to form sludge. Laboratory experiments were conducted using a variety …

Bayesian Nonparametric Model For Estimating Multistate Travel Time Distribution, Emmanuel Kidando, Ren Moses, Eren E. Ozguven, Thobias Sando

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

© 2017 Emmanuel Kidando et al. Multistate models, that is, models with more than two distributions, are preferred over single-state probability models in modeling the distribution of travel time. Literature review indicated that the finite multistate modeling of travel time using lognormal distribution is superior to other probability functions. In this study, we extend the finite multistate lognormal model of estimating the travel time distribution to unbounded lognormal distribution. In particular, a nonparametric Dirichlet Process Mixture Model (DPMM) with stick-breaking process representation was used. The strength of the DPMM is that it can choose the number of components dynamically as …

Development Of Vegetation-Pervious Concrete In Grid Beam System For Soil Slope Protection, Xiaohua Bao, Wenyu Liao, Zhijun Dong, Shanyong Wang, Waiching Tang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

One of the most efficient and environmentally friendly methods for preventing a landslide on a slope is to vegetate it. Vegetation-pervious concretes have a promising potential for soil protection. In this study, the vegetation-pervious concrete with low alkalinity was developed and studied. Combined with a grid beam structure system, the stability and strength between the vegetation-pervious concrete and base soil are believed to be enhanced effectively. For improving plant adaptability, the alkalinity of concrete can be decreased innovatively by adding a self-designed admixture into the cement paste. The effects of the admixture content on alkalinity and compressive strength of the …

Development Of Structural-Functional Integrated Energy Storage Concrete With Innovative Macro-Encapsulated Pcm By Hollow Steel Ball, Hongzhi Cui, Waiching Tang, Qinghua Qin, Feng Xing, Wenyu Liao, Haibo Wen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Phase change materials (PCMs) have great potential for applications in energy efficient buildings. In this study, an innovative method of macro-encapsulation of PCM using hollow steel balls (HSB) was developed and the thermal and mechanical performance of PCM-HSB concrete was examined. The macro-encapsulation system (PCM-HSB) was attached with a metal clamp (c) for better mechanical interlocking with the mortar matrix. The latent heat of PCM-HSB-c that can be acquired is approximately 153.1 J/g, which can be considered to rank highly among PCM composites. According to the self-designed thermal performance evaluation, the PCM–HSB-c concrete panel is capable of reducing and deferring …

Assessment Of Individual Photovoltaic Module Performance After 26 Years Of Field Exposure At The Telonicher Marine Lab In Trinidad, California, Jake Rada

Projects

In 1990, 192 ARCO M75 photovoltaic (PV) modules were installed as a part of the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project at the Humboldt State University (HSU) Telonicher Marine Lab in Trinidad, California, within 150 m of the Pacific Ocean. This 9.2 kW-rated PV array was used to power the marine laboratory air compressor and an electrolyzer. Individual current-voltage (IV) curve tests were performed on each of the PV modules prior to the array’s construction in 1990 and again in 2001, 2010, and, most recently, in 2016, following decommissioning of the array. After 25.5 years of use, 188 of the original 192 …

Automatic Power Management For Instructional Computers At Humboldt State University: A Calculation Of Potential Energy Savings And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions, Nicholas F. Flenghi

Projects

Computers consume an estimated 5,610 GWh per year in California alone. Much of that energy is consumed by computers that are not being used. In this project, detailed user login data are used to estimate the energy consumption of instructional computers at Humboldt State University (HSU) over the course of one semester. The data are also used to estimate the potential energy savings from automating the shutdown process. Potential cost savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions resulting from implementing an automatic-shutdown power management plan are also calculated.

There are approximately 1,000 computers used for teaching and learning purposes at …

Inspire Newsletter Summer 2017, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Inspire Newsletter Winter 2017, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

INSPIRE Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Seismic Evaluation Of 196kv Transformer Bushings, Joanne R. Shields

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Transformer bushings have shown to have an unsatisfactory performance during earthquakes and have therefore been chosen for further testing. How the bushings fail, and how this failure can be prevented has been analyzed. Two used 196 kV bushings made by General Electric were chosen for seismic testing at the iSTAR laboratory located at Portland State University in Portland, OR. The multiple objectives that brought about these tests were: to determine how the bushings failed due to gasket extrusion at the porcelain-flange connection and to verify that the failure was due to pure tipping and not sliding, to determine the damping …