Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Introducing Gaseous Transport Fuel To Ireland: A Strategic Infrastructure Framework, Niamh Power, Daniel Goulding, Dan Fitzpatrick, Rodger O'Connor, James D. Browne

Publications

European Union legislation in the form of the Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC and the Deployment of Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive 2014/94/EC have placed mandatory requirements on Member States to deliver sustainable forms of alternative transport infrastructure in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. However, there is currently little or no refuelling infrastructure to support the development of an alternative transport fuel market for compressed natural gas and its renewable form biomethane in a number of EU Member States. Primarily focussing on a combination of biomethane and compressed natural gas (bio-CNG), this paper analyses the key considerations …

Structural Behaviour Of Post-Installed Reinforcement Bars In Moment Connections Of Wall-Slabs, Yuen Fai, Augustus Lee, Ray K. L. Su, Ricky W. K. Chan

Staff Publications

Post-installed reinforcement (PIR) bars helps to facilitate retrofitting works, mitigate misplaced reinforcement problems, as well as support newly casted additions. However, the use of PIR has not been addressed in the major reinforced concrete (RC) design codes worldwide. Recently, the European standards have introduced a beneficial coefficient of moments in EN 1992-4 2018 for concrete fastenings which allows compliant PIR systems to be designed by using the bonded anchor (BA) design method. However, when applying this method to wall-slab connection design, the moment resisting capacity is often limited by the lack of bar spacing and small concrete covers. This means …

Nebraska Water Center Annual Report 2017-2018, The Nebraska Water Center

Nebraska Water Center: Administrative Materials

Contents

Introduction: Foreword • Director’s Letter by Chittaranjan Ray • Nebraska Water Center Overview and Timeline • Nebraska’s Top 10 Water Challenges

Research: Water Sciences Laboratory Overview • Nebraska Vadose Zone Program • Novel Nitrate Leaching Reduction • Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project (OWCAP) • Nebraska Water Productivity Report • USDA-NIFA Water End-User Grant • U.S. Geological Survey 104b Projects

Extension & Outreach: Bazile Groundwater Management Area • Platte River Basin Ecosystem Symposium • Testing Ag Performance Solutions (TAPS) • 2018 National Institutes for Water Resources Regional Symposium • Water Quality + Citizen Science • Nebraska Water and Natural Resources …

Impact Of Potential Engine Malfunctions On Fuel Consumption And Gaseous Emissions Of A Euro Vi Diesel Truck., Yuhan Huang, Elvin C.Y. Ng, Yat-Shing Yam, Casey K.C. Lee, Surawski C. Nic, Wai-Chuen Mok, Organ Bruce, John L. Zhou, Edward F.C. Chan

Faculty of Science & Technology (THEi)

Although new vehicles are designed to comply with specific emission regulations, their in-service performance would not necessarily achieve them due to wear-and-tear and improper maintenance, as well as tampering or failure of engine control and exhaust after-treatment systems. In addition, there is a lack of knowledge on how significantly these potential malfunctions affect vehicle performance. This study was therefore conducted to simulate the effect of various engine malfunctions on the fuel consumption and gaseous emissions of a 16-tonne Euro VI diesel truck using transient chassis dynamometer testing. The simulated malfunctions included those that would commonly occur in the intake, fuel …

Ce 431-106: Construction Materials Laboratory, Steve George

Civil and Environmental Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Ce 443-141: Foundation Design, Ivan Guzman

Civil and Environmental Engineering Syllabi

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Limited Tension Stiffening In Rc Elements Under Cyclic Loads., Xueying Wang, Jun Shang Kuang

Faculty of Science & Technology (THEi)

The tension capacity in cracked concrete is not well defined in existing shear models for reinforced concrete (RC) membrane elements under cyclic reversed loading, and the shear strength of RC elements is consequently overestimated due to the deviated decreasing branch of envelope of cyclic tensile stress-strain relationship. In this paper, the cyclic effect of limited tension stiffening of cracked RC elements is evaluated by proposing an analytical model named as the cyclic tension-stiffening fixed-angle truss model (CTFTM). The proposed model, based on fixed-angle theory, integrates unloading and reloading rules and accumulated damage into the limited tension-stiffening effect under cyclic loading …

Effects Of Eccentricity On Seismic Behavior Of Non-Seismically Designed Reinforced Concrete Beam-Column Joint, Ho-Fai Wong, Ying Liu, Sung-Hei Luk, Pok-Man Lee, Wing-Hei Kwong

Faculty of Science & Technology (THEi)

The staggering numbers of eccentric reinforced concrete beam-column joints without seismic design details were used in existing RC frame building due to geometrical constraints, which implied high susceptibility of the building structures to anticipated seismic risk. Three exterior RC beam-column joints were fabricated and tested, which were applied reversed cyclic loads to simulate seismic action. In this study, the effects of stirrup ratio in joints and the eccentricity which is defined as the distance between the axis of the beam and column on seismic performance are investigated. The test results provide a further understanding of the failure mode and shear …

Fragility Curves For Buildings In Hong Kong, Sung-Hei Luk, Ho-Fai Wong

Faculty of Science & Technology (THEi)

Fragility curves are the tools for evaluating the damage of structural or nonstructural components under different levels of ground excitation. It is also the necessary information for calculating the life-cycle cost of buildings during their design period. In this paper, development of fragility curves for buildings designed based on HK standard is presented. Two prototype models, which include three-storey and tenstorey reinforced concrete rigid frames, were considered. Incremental dynamic analysis was conducted under nine sets of past earthquake records with scaled peak ground accelerations. Maximum inter-storey drift ratio was selected as the damage indices and three performance levels were considered. …

Assessing Impact And Blast Resilience Of Polymer Coated Cementitious Materials, Murtaza Nalwala, Gabriel Nsengiyumva, Yong-Rak Kim

UCARE: Research Products

RESEARCH MOTIVATION The bridge piers are highly vulnerable to the impact and blast loads. The position in which they are constructed makes it difficult to install protective devices around them. By the current AASHTO standard, it is possible to under-design bridge piers for commercial vehicle impacts and other events such as blast.

OBJECTIVE To improve impact and blast resilience of bridge piers using polymeric coatings.

CONCLUSION Polymer coating of Portland cement concrete can be achieved with a good bonding. ü The polymeric coating seem to improve impact resilience of Portland cement concrete by increasing absorbed impact energy (i.e., area underneath …

Analysis Of Factors Influencing Return On Investment (Roi) For Building Information Modeling (Bim) Implementation, Tugce Kulaksiz

Wayne State University Dissertations

A research study was conducted to investigate and understand factors influencing Return on Investment of Building Information Modeling (BIM).

Research data was collected from 182 industry professionals (design firms, contractors and owners) using a survey instrument. The research data were evaluated by examining frequency distributions and running statistical analyses including an analysis of variance with post hoc tests and a multiple linear regression analysis. Furthermore, a simulation study was conducted to infer conclusions about the larger population from which the repeated samples were taken. The research findings revealed that the factors contributing to Return on Investment of BIM implementation were: …

Timescales Of Global Tidal Flooding, Maria Bower

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Millions of people in low-lying areas are already affected by flooding, and the number will increase substantially in the future. Tidal flooding, the form of flooding caused by a combination of high tides and sea level rise to overcome protection levels, can cause damage and inconveniences such as road closures, overwhelmed drainage systems, and infrastructure deterioration from water damage. Tidal flooding already occurs annually in cities along the U.S. east coast, most notably Miami. However, the time it will take for other regions globally to begin to experience tidal flooding has not yet been assessed. Therefore, there is a limited …

Analysis Of Truck-Related Crashes Of Freeways In China, Ting Xu, Rui-Sen Jiang, Lei Zhao, Long Qi, Yu Zhang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Truck-related crashes result in tremendous lives and property loss and become a serious safety issue in China. The goal of this article is to identify the influential factors for severity of truck-related crashes using data from Jingjintang freeways in China and to design an ordered probit model to explore their relationship. Records including crashes, traffic flow attributes, and geometric design features ranging from 2009 to 2012 were collected from Jingjintang freeway. Crashes are divided into three severity levels: slight injury, injury, and fatal injury. The injury crashes is ranking the first place occupying 64.37%. Truck-related crashes are likely to occur …

Future Climate And Land Use Change Impacts On River Flows In The Tapajós Basin In The Brazilian Amazon, Fabio Farinosi, Mauricio E. Arias, Eunjee Lee, Marcos Longo, Fabio F. Pereira, Angela Livino, Paul R. Moorcroft, John Briscoe

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Land conversion and changing climate are expected to significantly alter tropical forest hydrology. We used a land surface model integrated with a river routing scheme to analyze the hydrological alterations expected in the Tapajós River basin, a large portion of the Brazilian Amazon, caused by two environmental drivers: climate and land use. The model was forced with two future climate scenarios (years 2026–2045) from the Earth System Model HadGem2-ES with moderate (+4.5 W/m² radiative forcing value in the year 2100 with respect to preindustrial levels) and severe (+8.5 W/m²) representative atmospheric carbon dioxide pathways (Representative Concentration Pathways). …

A Route Navigation Algorithm For Pedestrian Simulation Based On Grid Potential Field, Minghua Li, Yun Wei, Yan Xu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Pedestrian simulation modeling has become an important means to study the dynamic characters of dense populations. In the continuous pedestrian simulation model for complex simulation scenario with obstacles, the pedestrian path planning algorithm is an indispensable component, which is used for the calculation of pedestrian macro path and microscopic movement desired direction. However, there is less efficiency and poor robustness in the existing pedestrian path planning algorithm. To address this issue, we propose a new pedestrian path planning algorithm to solve these problems in this article. In our algorithm, we have two steps to determine pedestrian movement path, that is, …

The Resilient City: A Platform For Informed Decision-Making Process, Paul Niculescu-Mizil Gheorghe, Jarutpong Vasuthanasub, Adrian Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

As over half of the world’s inhabitants lives in metropolises, the rapid growth in urbanization has made cities becoming more and more exposed and vulnerable to a broad spectrum of threats and hazards. In order to respond to such difficulties, a concept of resilience is considered a significant component for the long-term planning and sustainable development of the cities. “Resilient City” is a new paradigm that challenges the idealistic principle of stability and resistance to change implicitly in sustainable development and success. However, building a resilient city requires a holistic approach, as well as the appropriate adoption of knowledge and …

Evaluation Of Nebraska’S Aggregate Reactivity By The Miniature Concrete Prism Test Method – Aashto T380, Lieska Halsey, Wally Heyen

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The evaluation of nine different aggregates shows the viability of the T380 test method as an alternative to the standard C1293 test method. The T380 assesses the Alkali-Silica Reaction potential of aggregates with the same reliability as C1293 and correlates well with the C1293 test method. Results are obtained within 56 days by T380 compared to 365 days required by C1293. The T380 method at 56 days appears to characterize the aggregate reactivity similarly to C1293 for all the aggregates evaluated in this study. Therefore, T380 will be part of the Department test method for approval of interground/blended cements along …

Water Pollution In Old Towns Affecting The Environment And Ecological Restoration, Zou Hang, Muhammad Aqeel Ashraf, Yung Tse Hung

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

© 2019 Technoscience Publications. All rights reserved. In order to solve the problem that the traditional activated sludge method is not effective in recovering the ecological process of water pollution in urban areas, the membrane bioreactor-based sewage treatment process was studied experimentally. Two flat-plate ultrafiltration membranes were used to form the ultrafilter tank in the experimental device sampled, and the processes of nitrate cycle and sludge cycle were adopted. Ozonation and granular activated carbon filtration were adopted to treat the micropollutants. After repeated experiments in 17 experimental cycles, the obtained experimental data were analysed, and it was found that under …

Public Private Partnership (Ppp): Sustainability In The Context Of Ppp Educational Building Projects, Renuka Rajput

Doctoral

This PhD research focuses on and examines the relationship between PPP procurement and sustainability and further aims to establish whether PPP projects can be sustainable with regards to social, enviornmnetal and economic sustainability. The scope of the research is primarily confined to the implementation of construction related sustainability practices within PPPs. It introduces various PPP concepts and critiques the underlying principles for the utilisation of PPP in education sector. This discussion leads to the identification of the core factors common to Sustainability and PPPs and the challenges facing the public and private partners in implementing sustainability in its entirety. In …

Biomass Density Based Adjustment Of Lidar-Derived Digital Elevation Models: A Machine Learning Approach, Khalid Abdelwahab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Salt marshes are valued for providing protective and non-protective ecosystem services. Accurate digital elevation models (DEMs) in salt marshes are crucial for modeling storm surges and determining the initial DEM elevations for modelling marsh evolution. Due to high biomass density, lidar DEMs in coastal wetlands are seldom reliable. In an aim to reduce lidar-derived DEM error, several multilinear regression and random forest models were developed and tested to estimate biomass density in the salt marshes near Saint Marks Lighthouse in Crawfordville, Florida. Between summer of 2017 and spring of 2018, two field trips were conducted to acquire true elevation and …

Arterial-Level Real-Time Safety Evaluation In The Context Of Proactive Traffic Management, Jinghui Yuan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the context of pro-active traffic management, real-time safety evaluation is one of the most important components. Previous studies on real-time safety analysis mainly focused on freeways, seldom on arterials. With the advancement of sensing technologies and smart city initiative, more and more real-time traffic data sources are available on arterials, which enables us to evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials. However, there exist substantial differences between arterials and freeways in terms of traffic flow characteristics, data availability, and even crash mechanism. Therefore, this study aims to deeply evaluate the real-time crash risk on arterials from multiple aspects by …

Assessing Pedestrian Safety Conditions On Campus, Morgan Morris

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pedestrian-related crashes are a significant safety issue in the United States and cause considerable amounts of deaths and economic cost. Pedestrian safety is an issue that must be uniquely evaluated in a college campus, where pedestrian volumes are dense. The objective of this research is to identify issues at specific locations around UCF and suggest solutions for improvement. To address this problem, a survey that identifies pedestrian safety issues and locations is distributed to UCF students and staff, and an evaluation of drivers reactions to pedestrian to vehicle (P2V) warning systems is studied through the use of a NADS MiniSim …

An Assessment Of Biosorption Activated Media For The Removal Of Pollutants In Up-Flow Stormwater Treatment Systems, Andrew Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nitrogen and phosphorus are often the limiting nutrients for marine and freshwater systems respectively. Additionally, stormwater often contains elevated levels of pathogens which can pollute the receiving water body and impact reuse applications [1-4]. The reduction of limiting nutrients and pathogens is a common primary target for stormwater best management practices (BMPs) [5]. Traditional BMPs, such as retention/detention treatment ponds require large footprints and may not be practical in ultra-urban environments where above ground space is limited. Upflow filters utilizing biosorption activated media (BAM) that can be placed underground offer a small footprint alternative. Additionally, BAM upflow filters can be …

Probabilistic Spatio-Magnitude Sinkhole Hazard Analysis For East Central Flrodia, Yong Je Kim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Karst areas, sinkholes are a major geohazard that creates damage and economic loss to building and civil infrastructure. The main goal of the proposed study is to develop a probabilistic spatio-magnitude sinkhole susceptibility model that predicts the potential of sinkhole occurrence on a regional scale. The dissertation presents statistical techniques such as frequency ratio (FR) and logistic regression (LR), and a machine learning technique such as artificial neural network (ANN) to develop the sinkhole hazard models. The study area was limited to the East Central Floria (ECF) region. Seven hydrogeological factors were identified as key contributing factors to sinkhole …

Assessing The Safety And Operational Benefits Of Connected And Automated Vehicles: Application On Different Roadways, Weather, And Traffic Conditions, Md Sharikur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technologies have recently drawn an increasing attention from governments, vehicle manufacturers, and researchers. Connected vehicle (CV) technologies provide real-time information about the surrounding traffic condition (i.e., position, speed, acceleration) and the traffic management center's decisions. The CV technologies improve the safety by increasing driver situational awareness and reducing crashes through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I). Vehicle platooning with CV technologies is another key element of the future transportation systems which helps to simultaneously enhance traffic operations and safety. CV technologies can also further increase the efficiency and reliability of automated vehicles (AV) by collecting real-time …

Mechanical Study On Edge-Oxidized Graphene Oxide (Eogo) Reinforced Concrete, Mohammad Khawaji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is known that graphene oxide (GO) has superior mechanical properties and can enhance mechanical properties of cement composites. However, Hummer produced conventional GOs have been limited to small-scale specimens (e.g., cement paste and mortar) and applications to concrete have not been implemented due to their high cost and large volume of concrete. Edge-oxidized graphene oxide (EOGO) is a low-cost, carbon-based nanomaterial produced by a mechanochemical process with ball milling and a non-toxic oxidizing agent. The low cost (less than $50/kg) of EOGO enables its use in bulk-scale concrete materials/structures, which is a prerequisite for the field implementation. In this …

Enhanced Concrete Bridge Assessment Using Artificial Intelligence And Mixed Reality, Enes Karaaslan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Conventional methods for visual assessment of civil infrastructures have certain limitations, such as subjectivity of the collected data, long inspection time, and high cost of labor. Although some new technologies (i.e. robotic techniques) that are currently in practice can collect objective, quantified data, the inspector's own expertise is still critical in many instances since these technologies are not designed to work interactively with human inspector. This study aims to create a smart, human-centered method that offers significant contributions to infrastructure inspection, maintenance, management practice, and safety for the bridge owners. By developing a smart Mixed Reality (MR) framework, which can …

Investigation Of Coastal Vegetation Dynamics And Persistence In Response To Hydrologic And Climatic Events Using Remote Sensing, Subrina Tahsin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coastal Wetlands (CW) provide numerous imperative functions and provide an economic base for human societies. Therefore, it is imperative to track and quantify both short and long-term changes in these systems. In this dissertation, CW dynamics related to hydro-meteorological signals were investigated using a series of LANDSAT-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data and hydro-meteorological time-series data in Apalachicola Bay, Florida, from 1984 to 2015. NDVI in forested wetlands exhibited more persistence compared to that for scrub and emergent wetlands. NDVI fluctuations generally lagged temperature by approximately three months, and water level by approximately two months. This analysis provided insight …

Development Of Poly-Vinyl Alcohol Stabilized Silver Nanofluids For Solar Thermal Applications, James Walshe, George Amarandei, Hind Ahmed, Sarah Mccormack, John Doran

Articles

Nanofluids offer the potential to address the low thermal conductivities found in conventional heat transfer fluids, through their unique electrical, optical and thermal properties, but their implementation remains restricted due to absorption and stability limitations. Here, we characterize and exploit the distinctive plasmonic properties exhibited by polyvinyl-alcohol stabilized silver nanostructures by tuning their absorption and thermal properties through controlling the nanoparticle size, morphology and particle-size distribution configuration at the synthesis stage. The photo-thermal efficiency of different water-based silver nanofluids under a standard AM1.5G weighted solar spectrum were explored, the influence of each of these components on the resulting fluids performance …

Influence Of Limit Equilibrium Methods In The Design Of Contiguous Cantilever Sheet Pile Walls Through Reliability-Based Analysis, Alvaro J. Mattos, Juan Camilo Viviescas, Juan Pablo Osorio

Conference papers

In geotechnical engineering the design of bored- pile walls is commonly performed in terms of the embedment length (D) defined according to the limit equilibrium methods (also known as balance methods) formulated by Krey, Blum, Rowe, Hansen and the empirical method of Look in sandy soils. The limit equilibrium methods are calculations associated with the shape of the earth pressures distributions in the shaft, earth pressures theories, geotechnical properties and safety factors, while the empirical criteria establish that the relationship between embedment and the free height (H) is of the order of D/H = 1.5. These design methods are complemented …