Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Taylor's Slope Stability Chart For Combined Effects Of Horizontal And Vertical Seismic Coefficients, Pragyan Sahoo, Sanjay Kumar Shukla

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Design standards and codes of practice on earth slope stability often recommend the pseudo-static method of analysis for determining the factor of safety of a slope subjected to seismic forces. In most pseudo-static methods of analysis, the horizontal seismic force is considered without due weightage to vertical seismic force. In the past, Taylor's stability chart for a homogeneous cohesive-frictional soil slope has been extended to consider the effect of horizontal seismic force only. In this paper, an attempt is made to develop an analytical formulation considering both horizontal and vertical seismic forces in order to estimate the factor of safety …

Co 2 -Wettability Of Sandstones Exposed To Traces Of Organic Acids: Implications For Co 2 Geo-Storage, Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Arif, Muhammad Faraz Sahito, Sarmad Al-Anssari, Alireza Keshavarz, Ahmed Barifcani, Linda Stalker, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh, Stefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Wettability of CO 2 -brine-mineral systems plays a vital role during geological CO 2 -storage. Residual trapping is lower in deep saline aquifers where the CO 2 is migrating through quartz rich reservoirs but CO 2 accumulation within a three-way structural closure would have a high storage volume due to higher CO 2 saturation in hydrophobic quartz rich reservoir rock. However, such wettability is only poorly understood at realistic subsurface conditions, which are anoxic or reducing. As a consequence of the reducing environment, the geological formations (i.e. deep saline aquifers) contain appreciable concentrations of various organic acids. We thus demonstrate …

Improved Methods For The Quantification Of Viable Ascaris Suum And Application To Biosolids, Tanner Keyzers

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The current method for detection of Ascaris ova in biosolids and wastewater has several drawbacks including being labor and time intensive as well as being difficult to quantify viable ova that have larvated during treatment. The goal of this thesis was to improve several methods for the detection and quantification of Ascaris ova during long term-storage of biosolids including improvement of quantifying viable ova using a heat and bleach treatment to promote movement of larvae inside of ova, and comparison of the traditional microscopic method with qPCR and PMA-qPCR to prevent the false-positive results. Improved methods to promote movement of …

Spread Of Emerging Contaminants In Water Distribution Systems, Danielle Pilarski

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Emerging contaminants are a growing concern to humans and the environment. Studies have shown these contaminants are present in the environment through continuous release into surface waters from wastewater treatment effluent, manufacturing processes, and agricultural use. The effects of these contaminants have been observed in ecological studies, but they have not yet been well studied for long term exposure in humans. These emerging contaminants have also not been well studied to determine the rates at which they decay or how they move through distribution systems. This study aims to determine the importance of decay rate on concentration throughout a distribution …

Investigation Of Long Term Pillar Stability In An Abandoned Gypsum Mine Based On Dissolution Models, Mohammadhossein Sadeghiamirshahidi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The abandoned Domtar Mine in Grand Rapids, MI underlies Interstate I-196. The mine operated for over 140 years, mining a 30-meter-deep, four-meter thick gypsum seam. In 2000, the mine was abandoned with the removal of the mine’s dewatering pumps allowing groundwater to flood the mine. The initial flooding resulted in saturating the mine pillars along with some amount of pillar dissolution. Overtime, gypsum dissolution would cease as the water becomes saturated with the gypsum dissolution products. The mine, however, is located adjacent to the Grand River and has groundwater moving through the mine resulting in the potential for continuing dissolution. …

Hydrologic Impacts And Trade-Offs Associated With Forest-Based Bioenergy Development Across The Americas, Azad Heidari

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

A simulation-based framework for studying hydrologic impacts and associated tradeoffs for existing and proposed biofuel projects in the US (poplar), Argentina (eucalyptus) and Mexico (oil palm) is developed. For each case study, a representative watershed is selected and a SWAT model is set up and calibrated for an improved simulation of hydrologic processes and plant growth cycles. Potential bioenergy scenarios are developed that represent various planting densities, harvest cycles, fertilization and irrigation rates, land cover types being converted, slope, and locations across the watershed.

Simulations indicate that growth and biomass production are significantly dependent on nitrogen availability, making fertilization a …

Assessing Benthic Recovery In The Torch Lake Aoc, Anya Clare Leach

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Torch Lake, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, was a site of copper ore processing from the 1860s through the 1960s. During this time, various mining by-products were deposited into the lake and along its shoreline, including mine tailings and associated heavy metals contaminants (e.g., copper). It was anticipated that natural sediment deposition would cover and attenuate toxic sediments over time, but a comprehensive assessment of the benthos has not been performed since a baseline survey conducted in 1999 and 2000. This study was conducted in 2018 to evaluate the current benthic community status as well as sediment composition and metal …

A Bayesian Nonparametric Multiple Testing Procedure For Comparing Several Treatments Against A Control, Luis Gutiérrez, Andrés Barrientos, Jorge González, Daniel Taylor-Rodríguez

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We propose a Bayesian nonparametric strategy to test for differences between a control group and several treatment regimes. Most of the existing tests for this type of comparison are based on the differences between location parameters. In contrast, our approach identifies differences across the entire distribution, avoids strong modeling assumptions over the distributions for each treatment, and accounts for multiple testing through the prior distribution on the space of hypotheses. The proposal is compared to other commonly used hypothesis testing procedures under simulated scenarios. Two real applications are also analyzed with the proposed methodology.

Field Performance And Rating Evaluation Of A Modular Press-Brake-Formed Steel Tub Girder With A Steel Sandwich Plate Deck, Nicole Marie Hegele Underwood

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Short Span Steel Bridge Alliance (SSSBA) is a group of bridge and culvert industry leaders (including steel manufacturers, fabricators, service centers, coaters, researchers, and representatives of related associations and government organizations) who have joined together to provide educational information on the design and construction of short span steel bridges in installations up to 140 feet in length. The SSSBA technical working group has developed a shallow press-brake-formed tub girder, a trapezoidal cold bent girder, to address the demand in the short span steel bridge market for rapid infrastructure replacement solutions.

Following extensive experimental testing and design work at West …

Characterizing Accumulated Oxidation Pond Biosolids At The Arcata Wastewater Treatment Facility, Joshua M. Martinez

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Oxidation ponds (OPs) are a natural wastewater treatment system that have been used internationally for their low maintenance, cost, and technology characteristics. The City of Arcata has relied on the performance of their two-oxidation ponds for the past 50 years to meet National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) discharge permit requirements. However, during specific times of the year and after decades of operation and minimal maintenance, these oxidation ponds serve as a source of solids and nitrogen that create stress for downstream components of the system. As bio solids have accumulated, the hydraulics of the OPs have deteriorated and the …

Modelling Of The Radiant Heat Flux And Rate Of Spread Of Wildfire Within The Urban Environment, Greg Penney, Steven Richardson

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

One approach to increase community resilience to wildfire impacts is the enhancement of residential construction standards in an effort to provide protective shelters for families within their own homes. Current wildfire models reviewed in this study assume fire growth is unrestricted by vegetation fuel bed geometry; the head fire has attained a quasi-steady rate of spread; and the shielding effects of urban development are ignored. As a result, radiant heat flux may be significantly overestimated for small vegetation fires in road reserves, urban parklands, and similar scenarios. This paper proposes two new models to address this issue, and utilises two …

Shear Stress Estimates In The Approach And Bridge Section By Using Various Formula, Jun Seon Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Shear stress is the resistance force on top of the contact surface caused by moving flow and is one of the important variable in fluid mechanics. Thus, a lot of researches have been conducted to predict accurate value of shear stress. However, calculating shear stress with existing equations has several limitations because only gradually varied flow and/or uniform flow was considered in their studies. Therefore, direct applying those methods into complex flow type, such as around a bridge, to predict shear stress is questionable.

Thus, laboratory experiments were carried out in a laboratory flume to attack the objective of this …

Evaluating Design Criteria For High Hazard Dams In A Changing Climate, Aaron Read Sutton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With changes in climate, there is the potential for future flooding events to vary in frequency and magnitude. These changes may stress the 432 high hazard dames in West Virginia. The 100-year flowrate is an important design criterion for emergency spillways of high hazard dams. Emergency spillways are designed to be reached only by 100-year flow and above. This work quantified how changes in the 100-year flowrate may affect emergency spillway activation. Peakflow data from the Central Appalachian Ecoregion in WV, taken from 24 USGS gages, were used to analyze changes in the 100-year flowrate.

Flow frequency analysis revealed that …

Intrinsic Variations In Geometric Properties Of Nonlinear Equivalent Strut Models For Infill-Rc Frames, Bruna Kirch Nienkotter Rocha

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Reinforced concrete frames infilled with unreinforced masonry are commonly used in structures worldwide. The interaction between the frame and the infill panel is usually ignored in engineering practice, and the masonry infill is not considered as a structural element. However, observations made after the occurrence of strong earthquakes have shown that the bare frame and infill-frame behave differently when subjected to in-plane lateral loads. Extensive research has been conducted on the behaviour of infill-frames when laterally loaded. This research focuses on the analysis of infill-frames using the equivalent strut modelling method, whereby an infill-frame is simplified, and the infill panel …

Minimizing Trihalomethane Formation Through Source Water Monitoring And Optimizing Treatment Practices, Nashid Mirza

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Trihalomethanes, a family of halogenated disinfection byproducts, are prevalent in finished drinking water. According to USEPA’s Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs), the regulatory standard of the total trihalomethanes (TTHMs) is 80 μg/L, and water treatment plant operators are required to closely monitor TTHMs in the finished water on a quarterly basis. Although total organic carbon (TOC) has been identified as a precursor for the TTHMs, knowledge gaps still exist in how specific water and treatment related factors (e.g., intake water quality, seasonal variation, contact time, and treatment train) affect TTHMs formation. Focusing on water treatment plants in southwestern Pennsylvania, …

Review Of Water Allocation Models For West Virginia, Madison Lee Alexis Thompson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Modeling river basins started gaining in popularity and usage in the western part of the United States in large part due to its extreme droughts. Planning is necessary to sustain the population, industries, and recreational water use year-round. Water allocation modeling is a tool used to aid in the issues that come from managing water resources. This work considers the continuous models that synthesized the hydrologic processes that occur and provides a simulation of past, current, or future conditions.

West Virginia, located on the eastern side of the United States, does not have an extreme drought problem as seen in …

Direct Determination Of The Dynamic Elastic Modulus And Poisson's Ratio Of Timoshenko Prisms And Rods, Guadalupe Leon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this study, the exact solution of the Timoshenko beam vibration frequency equation under free-free boundary conditions was determined with an accurate shear shape factor. The exact solution was compared with a 3-D finite element calculation using ABAQUS program, and the difference between the exact solution and the 3-D FEM was within 0.15% for both the transverse and torsional modes. Furthermore, relationships between the resonance frequencies and Poisson’s ratio were proposed that can directly determine the elastic constants, unlike the equations provided by ASTM C215. The frequency ratio between the 1^st bending mode and the 1^st torsional mode, …

Structural Behavior Of Steel Plate Embedded Hybrid Gfrp Shapes, Piyush R. Soti

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The civil infrastructure industry has been dominated by traditional materials such as steel, timber, and concrete. Although these materials offer great advantages, they have major durability issues in terms of corrosion, decaying, and cracking. Traditional material-based structures deteriorate frequently and require regular-interval repairs with huge expenditures. To resolve these maintenance and durability issues associated with traditional materials, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have gained some popularity in the past few decades because of their superior mechanical properties and durability. Carbon-FRPs (CFRPs) and glass-FRP (GFRPs) are the most commonly used FRPs in the market. However, in civil engineering applications, CFRPs are …

Retaining Wall System With Soldier Pile And Composite Resin Infused Lagging Elements, Shane Phillip Moore

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Retaining walls are used as an alternative to installing drainage and soil reinforcement, depending on site conditions. This report discusses the design of a retaining wall with steel soldier piles and lagging elements for rocky slopes. The design consists of six different options, three options with a span of eight feet and three options with a span of ten feet between soldier piles. The three options for both spans are the same concept but designed for different load conditions. These options include: timber with glass fiber reinforced polymers (GFRP) wraps, reinforced concrete with GFRP wraps, and an FRP Prodeck system …

Designing Bifunctional Materials For In-Situ Capture And Conversion Of Volatile Organic Compounds, Anirudh Krishnamurthy

Doctoral Dissertations

”Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are a class of organic liquid compounds with low vapor pressures, which enables them to vaporize at ambient conditions. VOCs are largely toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic, and have profound adverse effects on human health and the ecological environment. Many VOCs cause ruinous health effects even at very low concentrations (ppm) and therefore control of these organic compounds is essential for ensuring good air quality. A large portion of VOCs cause catastrophic health effects such as cancer or liver damage even at very low concentrations (ppm), and the control of these compounds is vital in ensuring good …

Use Of Wicking Geotextile To Dehydrate Road Embankments, Chuang Lin

Doctoral Dissertations

“Excess water within a pavement structure is the major cause of pavement deteriorations. A roadway is often constructed with soils compacted at the optimum water contents to achieve the best performance. After construction, the soil water content variation is controlled by the ambient environment. The base course aggregate is very sensitive to water content variations. Unfortunately, conventional drainage system can only drain gravity water, but not capillary water, and it cannot work under unsaturated conditions. Consequently, no matter how well the road is constructed, the water content is expected to increase with time and the excess water will inevitably accelerate …

Dynamic Impact Induced By Tornadoes Through Simulations Based On Two-Way Wind-Structure Interactions, Tiantian Li

Doctoral Dissertations

"Tornadoes have become a significant cause of property damage, injuries and life losses. Investigations of tornadoes indicate that most fatalities were caused by building failure. For example, in the Joplin, MO tornado of 22 May 2011, 161 people were killed, and 84% fatalities were related to building failure. Therefore, it is imperative to develop science-based tornado-resistant building codes, in order to provide a better level of occupant protection from tornadoes and to minimize the tornado-induced damage. This requires in-depth understanding of the wind characteristics of tornadoes and their wind effects on civil structures, based on which design tornadic wind loading …

Long Period Fiber Grating, Thin Coating Of Graphene And Silver Nanowires, And Corrosion Sensing For Life-Cycle Assessment Of Steel Structures, Chuanrui Guo

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study aims to develop and validate a compact, integrated lab-on-sensor system for simultaneous measurement of strain, temperature and corrosion-induced mass loss in steel structures and concrete reinforcement elements in order to assess their life-cycle performance. The sensing system operates based on the principle of long period fiber gratings (LPFG) that are responsive to both thermal and mechanical deformation, and the change in refractive index of any medium surrounding the optical fiber. To fabricate a LPFG sensor for strain and temperature measurement, a CO₂ laser aided fiber grating system was assembled. To enable mass loss measurement, a low pressure …

Chemically-Bonded Enamel-Coated Steel Pipelines For Corrosion Protection And Flow Efficiency, Liang Fan

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study is to explore and develop chemically-bonded enamel coating (200-300 um) on steel pipes, when subjected to soil and thermal environments, in order to improve the corrosion protection and safety of hazardous liquid and natural gas pipelines while reducing pressure loss. Out of five types of enamels and their various mixtures, Tomatec slurry and GP2118 powder were selected for steel pipeline applications. They were applied at approximately 810 °C to the inside surface of steel pipes in wet and electrostatic processes, respectively. The thickness and surface roughness of the enamel coating were measured using a gauge and an optical …

Detection And Elimination Of Rock Face Vegetation From Terrestrial Lidar Data Using The Virtual Articulating Conical Probe Algorithm, Kenneth John Boyko

Doctoral Dissertations

"A common use of terrestrial lidar is to conduct studies involving change detection of natural or engineered surfaces. Change detection involves many technical steps beyond the initial data acquisition: data structuring, registration, and elimination of data artifacts such as parallax errors, near-field obstructions, and vegetation. Of these, vegetation detection and elimination with terrestrial lidar scanning (TLS) presents a completely different set of issues when compared to vegetation elimination from aerial lidar scanning (ALS). With ALS, the ground footprint of the lidar laser beam is very large, and the data acquisition hardware supports multi-return waveforms. Also, the underlying surface topography is …

Development Of Lidar Assisted Terrestrial Radar Interferometry For Rock Deformation Monitoring, Ricardo Javier Romero Ramirez

Doctoral Dissertations

"Rock and soil slope movements cost millions of dollars annually. During the past few decades, engineers have relied on traditional methods to detect slope movements. These tools are valuable for small spatial areas but, may not be adequate or cost effective for large spatial areas. Remote sensing methods such as terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) and terrestrial radar interferometry (TRI) provide excellent spatial coverage, and with adequate post-data-processing software, sub-millimetric scale deformation sensitivity can be achieved.

This work will present a comparative experimental study between TLS and TRI. The comparative experimental study will allow us to achieve the two main objectives …

Changes In Fresh Properties Of Flowable Concrete Induced By Pumping And Composition Of The Lubrication Layer, Alexis Salinas

Masters Theses

"Pumping is an easy method to move concrete while keeping stability. It is worldwide accepted as one of the principal methods for concrete placement, as it accelerates construction. Typically, concrete acceptance in terms of fresh quantitative empirical properties (i.e. slump/slump flow and air content) are performed prior to the pumping process. However, empirical measurements have the drawback that they only measure 1 point. Rheology is better tool to evaluate the behavior of concrete. Pumping is a process that induces considerable shearing in the concrete that can impact its rheological properties. Therefore, the magnitude of these changes in fresh properties depends …

Influence Of Pumping Parameters On The Freeze-Thaw And Scaling Resistance Of Highly Workable Concrete, Alexandra Nicole Wehar

Masters Theses

“Over the past 60 years, pumping concrete has gained popularity due to the economic and technical benefits that typically accompanies it. However, boom configuration and flow rate can adversely affect freeze-thaw and scaling resistance of concrete due to the effects of pressure on the air-void system. Therefore, the objective of this research is to assess the influence of different pumping parameters on the durability of hardened self-consolidating concrete. Self-consolidating, flowable, and conventional concrete mixtures were tested during large scale pumping experiments positioning the pump boom in an “A” and a flat shape as well as using different pumping speeds. In …

Accuracy Of 3d Point-Cloud And Photo-Based Models Of City Street Intersections, Mariah D. Peart

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

From Georgia Southern University’s Built Environment and Modeling lab, this study compares point positions and distance measurements completed with state-of-the-art instruments and equipment. A modern, 12-second, laser scanner, a modern unmanned aerial vehicle and a highly accurate, 1-second robotic total station were employed for this study. The latter serving as the benchmark instrument. The main objective of this quantitative comparison is to explore the accuracy and usability of a relatively large point-cloud model, as a virtual surveying tool for redesign/reconstruction purposes. This project involves the generation of large, 3D, point-cloud models of two busy and complex city street intersections. One …

Finite Element Modeling Of Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls Built With Welded Wire Wall Panels, Dejuan G. Solan

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, a finite element modeling of Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) walls using welded wire wall panels was performed. The implementation of finite element modeling and analysis proved to be quite efficient in simulating the three-dimensional behavior of wall panels that are a part of MSE walls. The comprehensive finite element model included defined concrete and steel material properties in order to present both the realistic behaviors of each component in the model as well as better facilitating and increasing the accuracy of the simulation of numerous finite element analysis (FEA) cases. FEA was employed to simulate welded wire …