Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

The Potential For Autonomous Vehicle Technologies To Address Barriers To Driving For Individuals With Autism, Caroline Rodier

Mineta Transportation Institute

Individuals with autism represent a sizeable share of the U.S. population (almost 2%), and nearly half of those with autism have average to high levels of intelligence. However, available research shows that adults with autism have a much more difficult time becoming employed and living independently compared to both typically developing adults and adults with disabilities. This study reviews the available literature on the magnitude of challenges to driving and accessing essential opportunities for adults with autism, and the potential of autonomous vehicles to address those challenges. This study is unique in that it identifies the specific driving challenges and …

A New Materials And Design Approach For Roads, Bridges, Pavement, And Concrete, Alan Fuchs, Tathagata Acharya, Luis Cabrales, Jesse Bergkamp, Nyakundi Michieka

Mineta Transportation Institute

Increased understanding of demand for transport energy and how to improve road pavement materials would enable decision makers to make environmental, financial, and other positive changes in future planning and design of roads, bridges, and other important transportation structures. This research comprises three studies focused on pavement materials and a fourth study that examines energy demand within the road transportation sector. These studies are as follows:

1. A techno-economic study of ground tire rubber as an asphalt modifier;

2. A computational fluid dynamics analysis comparing the urban heat island effect of two different pavement materials – asphalt and Portland Cement …

A Smart Growth & Equity Framework And Tool For Measuring, Understanding, And Realizing Transportation Land Use Coordination For Sustainability, Livability, And Equity, Bruce Appleyard, Chris Allen, Jonathan Stanton

Mineta Transportation Institute

The coordination and integration of transportation and land use (also known as “smart growth”) has been a long-standing goal for planning and engineering professionals, but to this day remains an elusive concept to realize. As this approach is a widely recognized as key to achieving sustainable, livable, and equitable (SLE) outcomes for individuals and society, a key aim of this report is to instill the coordination of transportation and land use into practice by the collection of key actors and agents (MPOs, DOTs, and local land use authorities, etc.) through new measurement and policy guidance frameworks and tools. A fundamental …

Evaluation Of Seismic Force Provisions For Ancillary Systems In Piers And Wharves Considering Effects Of Nonlinearity, Rakesh K. Goel

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Much of the prior research on understanding seismic response of secondary systems and development of code provisions was conducted either for nuclear power plant facilities or buildings. Most marine structures differ from nuclear power plant facilities or buildings in that the marine structures can be idealized as one-story building type systems. Furthermore, most previous studies have been limited to linear elastic behavior of both primary and secondary systems.

The objectives of this study are to (1) understand effects of nonlinearity, both in primary and secondary systems, on seismic forces in secondary systems, and (2) evaluate seismic force provisions proposed in …

Early Detection Of Near-Surface Void Defects In Concrete Pavement Using Drone Based Thermography And Gpr Methods, Zhigang Shen, Ece Erdogmus, George Morcous, Chngsheng Cheng, Zhexiong Shang, Theresa Mccabe, Antony Mohsen Kamal Masoud Kodsy

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

The goal of this research is to evaluate the feasibility and the performance of using UAV-mounted infrared thermography (IRT) and ground penetration radar (GPR) to detect sub-surface voids caused by consolidation issues in concrete pavement. The motivation of the study is to identify the consolidation defects as early as the initial set of concrete to avoid having this problem in large pavement sections, which is costly and time consuming to repair. Using the two technologies in combination to detect subsurface voids in the concrete initial set stage is new and aims to take advantage of the strengths and minimize the …

Exploring The Evolution Of Drought Characteristics In Balochistan, Pakistan, Shoaib Jamro, Falak Naz Channa, Ghulam Hussain Dars, Kamran Ansari, Nir Krakauer

Publications and Research

In the wake of a rapidly changing climate, droughts have intensified, in both duration and severity, across the globe. The Germanwatch long-term Climate Risk Index ranks Pakistan among the top 10 countries most affected by the adverse effects of climate change. Within Pakistan, the province of Balochistan is among the most vulnerable regions due to recurring prolonged droughts, erratic precipitation patterns, and dependence on agriculture and livestock for survival. This study aims to explore how the characteristics of droughts have evolved in the region from 1902–2015 using 3-month and 12-month timescales of a popular drought index, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration …

Mitigation Localized Flooding - Development Of A Green Infrastructure Master Plan In The Lower Rio Grande Valley, Andrew Ernest, Javier Guerrero, Ahmed Mahmoud, Roxana Tello, Jose Figueroa, Jorge Hernandez

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The City of Mercedes in partnership with the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) proposed to develop a demonstration green infrastructure (GI) master plan to mitigate localized flooding in a high priority region within the city limits of the City. Local governments in the LRGV control localized flooding and stormwater runoff by adopting strict drainage design policies. During the course of this project, participating in local governments and the project team reviewed the city drainage policy. The project team identified those that already incorporate GI language, provided GI related information to the …

Behavior Of Circular Ice-Filled Self-Luminous Frp Tubular Stub Columns Under Axial Compression, Yanlei Wang, Guipeng Chen, Baolin Wan, Gaochuang Cai, Yiwen Zhang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper proposes an innovative ice-filled self-luminous fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) tubular (IFSFT) column for temporary structures in cold regions. The proposed column possesses a good combination of the advantages of FRP tube and natural ice, as well as provides itself with aesthetic features or other service functions due to the self-luminous feature of the outer FRP tube in darkness. This paper presents an experimental study on tensile and luminance properties of FRP laminates modified with self-luminous powders, and axial compressive behavior of circular IFSFT stub columns and ice-filled FRP tubular (IFFT) stub columns. Experimental results indicate that the addition of …

Recovering From Industrial Overshoot: Thermal Removal Of Atmospheric Co2, Ted Von Hippel, Sandra Boetcher, Matthew Traum, Farshid Azadian Ph.D., William Mackunis

Sustainability Conference

Humanity will soon overshoot a safe level of atmospheric CO2, if it hasn't done so already. Countries, industries, and the global economy need to dramatically and quickly alter their behavior and technology to avoid this dangerous overshoot, yet this appears unlikely. Direct Air Capture of CO2 represents an insurance policy for society - a way of removing excess atmospheric CO2. I will present an approach to this problem based on thermal physics that cools cubic kilometers of air to extract CO2 as it sublimates. I propose a combination of an efficient heat exchanger, radiative cooling, and refrigeration, all at industrial …

Residential Thermal Storage And Cooling, Joao Marcelo Rocha Belmonte, Jacob Anderson, Andrew Clarke, Daphne Forester, Bianca Hardtke, Josh Hartman, Marc D. Compere

Sustainability Conference

No abstract provided.

Solar Powered Parking Lot Lights, Jordyn Taylor

Sustainability Conference

Solar energy is a renewable resource growing exponentially around the country over the past few decades. Solar energy works through the use of photo-voltaic cells, which work to convert energy from sunlight into electricity. This is done within solar panels, which are then connected to batteries for energy storage to use as needed. As production has increased over past decades, the cost for solar panel hardware and installment has thus fallen to meet consumer need. While most common implementations include solar panels attached to one’s home or solar panel ‘fields’ for charging entire towns, there has been a steady rise …

Fate Of Eroding Crude Asphalt And Emulsion In Shallow Marsh Embayments, William Coronel

LSU Master's Theses

Marshes impacted by the Macondo spill continue to erode, releasing crude oil in the form of a soft asphalt or emulsion to adjacent shallow embayments. This process moves highly weathered crude oil from the marsh profile to comparatively high-energy, shallow, open-water systems where geochemical and microbiological conditions may influence additional weathering. Specifically, we hypothesize that the erosion process can accelerate biodegradation by moving crude oil asphalts and emulsions from a low-energy, anoxic environment in the marsh to a higher-energy, oxic environment in these shallow embayments. Sediment samples were taken in summer 2017 and 2018 across transects which bisect the boundary …

Influence Of Model Grid Size On The Estimation Of Surface Fluxes Using The Two Source Energy Balance Model And Suas Imagery In Vineyards, Ayman Nassar, Alfonso F. Torres-Rua, William Kustas, Hector Nieto, Mac Mckee, Lawrence E. Hipps, David King Stevens, Joseph Alfieri, John Prueger, Maria Mar Alsina, Lynn Mckee, Calvin Coopmans, Luis Sanchez, Nick Dokoozlian

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Evapotranspiration (ET) is a key variable for hydrology and irrigation water management,with significant importance in drought-stricken regions of the western US. This is particularly true for California, which grows much of the high-value perennial crops in the US. The advent of small Unmanned Aerial System (sUAS) with sensor technology similar to satellite platforms allows for the estimation of high-resolution ET at plant spacing scale for individual fields. However, while multiple efforts have been made to estimate ET from sUAS products, the sensitivity of ET models to different model grid size/resolution in complex canopies, such as vineyards, is still unknown.The variability …

Goodd, A Global Dataset Of More Than 38,000 Georeferenced Dams., Mark Mulligan, Arnout Van Soesbergen, Leonardo Sáenz

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

By presenting the most comprehensive GlObal geOreferenced Database of Dams to date containing more than 38,000 dams as well as their associated catchments, we enable new and improved global analyses of the impact of dams on society and environment and the impact of environmental change (for example land use and climate change) on the catchments of dams. This paper presents the development of the global database through systematic digitisation of satellite imagery globally by a small team and highlights the various approaches to bias estimation and to validation of the data. The following datasets are provided (a) raw digitised coordinates …

Undrained Cyclic Shear Resistance Of Low Plastic Silts, Rawan Almoumen

Dissertations and Theses

A magnitude 9 Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake is expected to trigger widespread liquefaction in loose material in Oregon. The geotechnical engineering studies have determined that the Willamette Silts may be susceptible to liquefaction or cyclic softening, as their plasticity indices ranges between non-plastic to low plasticity. While the majority of past studies have focused on liquefaction of sand and cyclic behavior of clays, there is not enough data on the cyclic response behavior of silty soils and the liquefaction susceptibility of these soils. A research focus in the geotechnical engineering program at Portland State University revolves around is performing cyclic …

Automatic Shoreline Digitization And Mesh Element Sizing For Hydrodynamic Modeling, Henok Kefelegn

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The first and most critical step in any coastal hydrodynamics and transport process modeling is identifying land-water boundaries. In a coastal wetland, this has always been a challenge due to the complexity of the wetland and lack of efficient methods, calling for efficient and effective methods to extract and digitize the shorelines. While coastline feature extraction has been increasingly researched, its application in hydrodynamic and environmental modeling, without morphological adjustment, remains limited and suboptimal. Further, there has been a paucity of cost-effective, contextually adaptive and high-quality methods to generate meshes, especially for coastal hydrodynamic modeling. This study has developed and …

Concentrations, Sources And Health Risks Of Particulate Matter In Southeast Us: Current Status And Future Changes, Fenglin Han

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Evaluation of long-term air quality trends and prediction of future air quality may help to design and demonstrate effectiveness of control strategies and guide future air quality management. As one of the six criteria air pollutants (CAPs) regulated by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), particulate matter with aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 µm or less (PM_2.5) is of great interests since it has adverse effects on human health, visibility and climate. This study aims to understand the current status and future changes in concentrations, sources, and health risks of PM_2.5 in Southeast US. Firstly, observations were analyzed …

Nitrate Removal From Groundwater Using Immobilized Heterotrophic Algae, Sara Mollamohammada, Ashraf Aly Hassan, Mohamed Dahab

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The treatment efficiency of Chlorella sorokiniana and Scenedesmus species, immobilized in sodium alginate, was evaluated for removing nitrate from groundwater. The experiments were performed initially in batch mode and the best-performing conditions were replicated in sequencing batch reactor mode. S. sp. showed a higher nitrate uptake in short term than C. sorokiniana. Immobilized S. sp. and C. sorokiniana cells showed 90% nitrate removal in 9 and 12 days, respectively. The optimal ratio of algal beads/water was found to be 12.5% (v:v). Comparatively, suspended S. sp. cells were able to remove only up to 35% of nitrate in 8 …

Liability Of The Structural Engineer: Establishing, Quantifying, And Managing Risks, Justin Thomas Ittmann

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Liability is an important topic to all practicing professionals—including practicing engineers. However, the topic of liability does not receive the necessary attention required relative to other professions. Further, engineers that desire to learn more about liability in relation to their practice do not have many university options within an engineering curriculum or from outside materials available to a non-legally trained engineer. The goal of the study is to provide a comprehensive overview of liability directed towards an intelligent practicing engineer, while avoiding unnecessary over-simplification of the material. This study initially provides an in depth survey of the legal standard of …

Robust Maximum Flow Network Interdiction Problem, Darshan Rajesh Chauhan

Dissertations and Theses

In this thesis, a maximum flow-based network interdiction problem considering uncertainties in arc capacities and interdiction resource consumption is solved. The problem consists of two entities with opposing objectives: the goal of the adversary is to maximize the flow of illicit drugs through the network, while the goal of the interdictor is to minimize the maximum flow by completely interdicting arcs given a specified amount of resources. Lack of complete information about the usage patterns of the transportation network by the adversary results in an uncertain estimate of arc capacity and resources required for interdiction by the interdictor. To account …

Arjen Y. Hoekstra 1967–2019, Davy Vanham, Mesfin Mekonnen, Ashok K. Chapagain

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Arjen Hoekstra introduced the water footprint in 20021, building on the concept of virtual water Tony Allan to discuss the role of trade in alleviating water scarcity in the Middle East. He thereby opened a new dimension in the debate around fair and sustainable allocation of freshwater resources. He laid the foundations to show the role of indirect water (that is, water used elsewhere to produce goods we consume) in our daily life beyond our direct use for drinking, cooking or washing. The water footprint is an indicator of direct and indirect water use by a producer or consumer, showing …

2020 Civil And Environmental Engineering Department News, Department Of Civil And Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering Newsletters

Table of Contents

• Research
• CEEPAC
• Surveying
• Department Awards
• Student Orgs
• CEE Academy
• Alumni Features
• Lifetime Giving

Swine Slurry Characteristics As Affected By Selected Additives And Disinfectants, Jon Duerschner, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, Kent Eskridge, John E. Gilley, Xu Li, Amy M. Schmidt, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Current swine industry practice is to house animals in confinement facilities which capture and store feces and urine as slurry in pits below the production area. Additives and disinfectants may be introduced into the manure pits. This study was conducted to measure the effects of additives and disinfectants on temporal changes in swine slurry characteristics. Slurry from a commercial swine production facility in southeast Nebraska, USA was collected and transferred to 57 L reactors located within a greenhouse. Selected additives and disinfectants were added to the reactors and physical properties, chemical characteristics, and antibiotic concentrations were monitored for 40 days. …

Optfill: A Tool For Infeasible Cycle-Free Gapfilling Of Stoichiometric Metabolic Models, Wheaton L. Schroeder, Rajib Saha

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Stoichiometric metabolic modeling, particularly genome-scale models (GSMs), is now an indispens- able tool for systems biology. The model reconstruction process typically involves collecting informa- tion from public databases; however, incomplete systems knowledge leaves gaps in any reconstruc- tion. Current tools for addressing gaps use databases of biochemical functionalities to address gaps on a per-metabolite basis and can provide multiple solutions but cannot avoid thermodynami- cally infeasible cycles (TICs), invariably requiring lengthy manual curation. To address these limita- tions, this work introduces an optimization-based multi-step method named OptFill, which performs TIC-avoiding whole-model gapfilling. We applied OptFill to three fictional prokaryotic models …

Virgil Orr Energy Conservation Collection, University Archives And Special Collections, Prescott Memorial Library, Louisiana Tech University

Manuscript Finding Aids

Materials related to Dr. Orr's interest in energy conservation.

Effects Of Surface Heterogeneity Due To Drip Irrigation On Scintillometer Estimates Of Sensible, Latent Heat Fluxes And Evapotranspiration Over Vineyards, Hatim M. E. Geli, José González-Piqueras, Christopher M. U. Neale, Claudio Balbontín, Isidro Campos, Alfonso Calera

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Accurate estimates of sensible (H) and latent (LE) heat fluxes and actual evapotranspiration (ET) are required for monitoring vegetation growth and improved agricultural water management. A large aperture scintillometer (LAS) was used to provide these estimates with the objective of quantifying the effects of surface heterogeneity due to soil moisture and vegetation growth variability. The study was conducted over drip-irrigated vineyards located in a semi-arid region in Albacete, Spain during summer 2007. Surface heterogeneity was characterized by integrating eddy covariance (EC) observations of H, LE and ET; land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data from Landsat …

Assessment Of An Automated Calibration Of The Sebal Algorithm To Estimate Dry-Season Surface-Energy Partitioning In A Forest–Savanna Transition In Brazil, Leonardo Laipelt, Anderson Luis Ruhoff, Ayan Santos Fleischmann, Rafael Henrique Bloedow Kayser, Elisa De Mello Kich, Humberto Ribeiro Da Rocha, Christopher Michael Usher Neale

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Evapotranspiration (ET) provides a strong connection between surface energy and hydrological cycles. Advancements in remote sensing techniques have increased our understanding of energy and terrestrial water balances as well as the interaction between surface and atmosphere over large areas. In this study, we computed surface energy fluxes using the Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) algorithm and a simplified adaptation of the CIMEC (Calibration using Inverse Modeling at Extreme Conditions) process for automated endmember selection. Our main purpose was to assess and compare the accuracy of the automated calibration of the SEBAL algorithm using two different sources of meteorological …

Treenuts And Groundnuts In The Eat-Lancet Reference Diet: Concerns Regarding Sustainable Water Use, Davy Vanhama, Mesfin Mekonnen, Arjen Y. Hoekstra

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The EAT-Lancet universal healthy reference diet recommends an increase in the consumption of healthy foods, among which treenuts and groundnuts. Both are, however, water-intensive products, with a large water footprint (WF) per unit of mass and protein and already today contribute to blue water stress in different parts of the world. The envisaged massive required increase in nut production to feed a global population with this reference diet, needs to occur in a water-sustainable way. In this paper, we identify and quantify where current nut production contributes to local blue water stress and discuss options for water-sustainable nut production. We …

Water Productivity Benchmarks: The Case Of Maize And Soybean In Nebraska, Mesfin Mekonnen, Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Christopher Michael Usher Neale, Chittaranjan Ray, Haishun Yang

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Water productivity benchmarks for irrigated and rainfed agriculture will provide relevant information to manage scarce water resources and control groundwater level decline. We analyze the temporal and spatial variation of the water productivity (WP) of maize and soybean in Nebraska, with WP defined as harvested crop weight per total evapotranspiration. The results show that WP of both maize and soybean increase from west to east within Nebraska and have increased over the last 25 years, mainly due to the increase in crop yields (land productivity). We derive WP benchmarks for each crop per climate zone. Increasing actual WPs in the …

Potential Of Using Spectral Vegetation Indices For Corn Green Biomass Estimation Based On Their Relationship With The Photosynthetic Vegetation Sub-Pixel Fraction, Luan Peroni Venancio, Everardo Chartuni Mantovani, Cibele Hummel Do Amaral, Christopher M.U. Neale, Ivo Zution Gonçalves, Roberto Filgueiras, Fernando Coelho Eugenio

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Crop biomass (Bio) is one of the most important parameters of a crop, and knowledge of it before harvest is essential to help farmers in their decision making. Both green and dry Bio can be estimated from vegetation spectral indices (VIs) because they have a close relationship with accumulated absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR), which is proportional to total Bio. The aims of this study were to analyze the potential capacity of spectral vegetation indices in estimating corn green biomass based on their relationship with the photosynthetic vegetation sub-pixel fraction derived from spectral mixture analysis and to analyze the best …