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2022

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Articles 661 - 690 of 1556

Full-Text Articles in Civil and Environmental Engineering

Characterizing The Chemical And Microbial Fingerprint Of Unsheltered Homelessness In An Urban Watershed, Daniel Gerrity, Katerina Papp, Eric Dickenson, Meena Ejjada, Erica Marti, Oscar Quinones, Mayra Sarria, Kyle Thompson, Rebecca A. Trenholm Jun 2022

Characterizing The Chemical And Microbial Fingerprint Of Unsheltered Homelessness In An Urban Watershed, Daniel Gerrity, Katerina Papp, Eric Dickenson, Meena Ejjada, Erica Marti, Oscar Quinones, Mayra Sarria, Kyle Thompson, Rebecca A. Trenholm

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Unsheltered homelessness is rapidly becoming a critical issue in many cities worldwide. The worsening situation not only highlights the socioeconomic plight, but it also raises awareness of ancillary issues such as the potential implications for urban water quality. The objective of this study was to simultaneously leverage diverse source tracking tools to develop a chemical and microbial fingerprint describing the relative contribution of direct human inputs into Las Vegas' tributary washes. By evaluating a wide range of urban water matrices using general water quality parameters, fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), human-associated microbial markers [e.g., HF183, crAssphage, and pepper mild mottle virus …

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Mpc-Stanet: Alzheimer’S Disease Recognition Method Based On Multiple Phantom Convolution And Spatial Transformation Attention Mechanism, Yujian Liu, Kun Tang, Weiwei Cai, Aibin Chen, Guoxiong Zhou, Liujun Li, Runmin Liu Jun 2022

Mpc-Stanet: Alzheimer’S Disease Recognition Method Based On Multiple Phantom Convolution And Spatial Transformation Attention Mechanism, Yujian Liu, Kun Tang, Weiwei Cai, Aibin Chen, Guoxiong Zhou, Liujun Li, Runmin Liu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease with insidious and irreversible onset. The recognition of the disease stage of AD and the administration of effective interventional treatment are important to slow down and control the progression of the disease. However, due to the unbalanced distribution of the acquired data volume, the problem that the features change inconspicuously in different disease stages of AD, and the scattered and narrow areas of the feature areas (hippocampal region, medial temporal lobe, etc.), the effective recognition of AD remains a critical unmet need. Therefore, we first employ class-balancing operation using data expansion and …

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Assessing The Impact Of Three Intersection Treatments In A Bicycling Simulator, Logan Scott-Deeter, David Hurwitz, Brendan Russo, Edward Smaglik, Sirisha Kothuri Jun 2022

Assessing The Impact Of Three Intersection Treatments In A Bicycling Simulator, Logan Scott-Deeter, David Hurwitz, Brendan Russo, Edward Smaglik, Sirisha Kothuri

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bicyclist safety at urban intersections is a critical element for encouraging an increase in bicycle commuting. With cyclist injury and fatality rates rising due to collisions with vehicles at signalized intersections, increasing the safety of riders continues to be an important consideration when promoting this mode of transportation. Previous research has addressed crash causality and helped to develop several roadway treatments to improve bicyclist safety, but little has been done to compare and contrast the benefits of the various treatment types. This bicycling simulator study examined the impacts of three different intersection treatments (i.e., bike box, mixing zone, and bicycle …

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Climate Projections Over The Great Lakes Region: Using Two-Way Coupling Of A Regional Climate Model With A 3-D Lake Model, Pengfei Xue, Xinyu Ye, Jeremy S. Pal, Philip Y. Chu, Miraj Kayastha, Chenfu Huang Jun 2022

Climate Projections Over The Great Lakes Region: Using Two-Way Coupling Of A Regional Climate Model With A 3-D Lake Model, Pengfei Xue, Xinyu Ye, Jeremy S. Pal, Philip Y. Chu, Miraj Kayastha, Chenfu Huang

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Warming trends in the Laurentian Great Lakes and surrounding areas have been observed in recent decades, and concerns continue to rise about the pace and pattern of future climate change over the world's largest freshwater system. To date, most regional climate models used for Great Lakes projections either neglected the lake-atmosphere interactions or are only coupled with a 1-D column lake model to represent the lake hydrodynamics. This study presents a Great Lakes climate change projection that has employed the two-way coupling of a regional climate model with a 3-D lake model (GLARM) to resolve 3-D hydrodynamics essential for large …

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Climate Projections Over The Great Lakes Region: Using Two-Way Coupling Of A Regional Climate Model With A 3-D Lake Model, Pengfei Xue, Xinyu Ye, Jeremy S. Pal, Philip Y. Chu, Miraj Kayastha, Chenfu Huang Jun 2022

Climate Projections Over The Great Lakes Region: Using Two-Way Coupling Of A Regional Climate Model With A 3-D Lake Model, Pengfei Xue, Xinyu Ye, Jeremy S. Pal, Philip Y. Chu, Miraj Kayastha, Chenfu Huang

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Warming trends in the Laurentian Great Lakes and surrounding areas have been observed in recent decades, and concerns continue to rise about the pace and pattern of future climate change over the world's largest freshwater system. To date, most regional climate models used for Great Lakes projections either neglected the lake-atmosphere interactions or are only coupled with a 1-D column lake model to represent the lake hydrodynamics. This study presents a Great Lakes climate change projection that has employed the two-way coupling of a regional climate model with a 3-D lake model (GLARM) to resolve 3-D hydrodynamics essential for large …

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Fault Tolerance Analysis Of An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System For Mandatory Lane Changing Decisions In Automated Driving, Matthew Vechione, Ruey Long Cheu Jun 2022

Fault Tolerance Analysis Of An Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System For Mandatory Lane Changing Decisions In Automated Driving, Matthew Vechione, Ruey Long Cheu

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Past research has developed a binary decision model for mandatory lane changes based on the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). This ANFIS Decision Model (simply called ADEM), developed and tested with the Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) data, mimics the sensory inputs and decisions of human drivers. This research assumed that ADEM will be implemented as part of the automated lane changing system in Automated Vehicles (AVs). The system in AVs will depend on active radar sensors to make measurements. The sensor outputs will be converted into the input parameter values of ADEM. This research tested ADEM's performance when the sensors …

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Axial Hypersensitivity Is Associated With Aberrant Nerve Sprouting In A Novel Model Of Disc Degeneration In Female Sprague Dawley Rats, David J. Lillyman, Fei San Lee, Evie C. Barnett, Tyler J. Miller, Moreno Lozano Alvaro, Henry C. Drvol, Rebecca A. Wachs Jun 2022

Axial Hypersensitivity Is Associated With Aberrant Nerve Sprouting In A Novel Model Of Disc Degeneration In Female Sprague Dawley Rats, David J. Lillyman, Fei San Lee, Evie C. Barnett, Tyler J. Miller, Moreno Lozano Alvaro, Henry C. Drvol, Rebecca A. Wachs

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Chronic low back pain is a global socioeconomic crisis and treatments are lacking in part due to inadequate models. Etiological research suggests that the predominant pathology associated with chronic low back pain is intervertebral disc degeneration. Various research teams have created rat models of disc degeneration, but the clinical translatability of these models has been limited by an absence of robust chronic painlike behavior. To address this deficit, disc degeneration was induced via an artificial annular tear in female Sprague Dawley rats. The subsequent degeneration, which was allowed to progress for 18-weeks, caused a drastic reduction in disc volume. Furthermore, …

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Characterization And Performance Enhancement Of Cement-Based Thermoelectric Materials, Ruchita Jani, Niall Holmes Dr., Roger West, Kevin Gaughan, Xiaoli Liu, Ming Qu, Esther Orisakwee, Lorenzo Stella, Jorge Kohanoff, Hongxi Yin, Bartlomiej Wojciechowski Jun 2022

Characterization And Performance Enhancement Of Cement-Based Thermoelectric Materials, Ruchita Jani, Niall Holmes Dr., Roger West, Kevin Gaughan, Xiaoli Liu, Ming Qu, Esther Orisakwee, Lorenzo Stella, Jorge Kohanoff, Hongxi Yin, Bartlomiej Wojciechowski

Articles

Thermoelectric materials enable the direct conversion of thermal to electrical energy. One application of this is ambient heat energy harvesting where relatively stable temperature gradients existing between the inside and outside of a building could be utilized to produce electricity. Buildings can thus change from energy consumers to energy generators. This could ultimately help reduce the surface temperatures and energy consumption of buildings, especially in urban areas. In this paper, research work carried out on developing and characterizing a cement-based thermoelectric material is presented. Cement-based samples are doped with different metal oxides (Bi2O3 and Fe2O3) to enhance their thermoelectric properties, …

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Tracing Geochemical Sources And Health Risk Assessment Of Uranium In Groundwater Of Arid Zone Of India, P. Pandit, Atul Saini, Sabarathinam Chidambaram, Vinod Kumar, Banjarani Panda, A. L. Ramanathan, Netrananda Sahu, A. K. Singh, Rohit Mehra Jun 2022

Tracing Geochemical Sources And Health Risk Assessment Of Uranium In Groundwater Of Arid Zone Of India, P. Pandit, Atul Saini, Sabarathinam Chidambaram, Vinod Kumar, Banjarani Panda, A. L. Ramanathan, Netrananda Sahu, A. K. Singh, Rohit Mehra

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Water quality degradation and metal contamination in groundwater are serious concerns in an arid region with scanty water resources. This study aimed at evaluating the source of uranium (U) and potential health risk assessment in groundwater of the arid region of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The probable source of vanadium (V) and fluorine (F) was also identified. U and trace metal concentration, along with physicochemical characteristics were determined for 265 groundwater samples collected from groundwater of duricrusts and palaeochannels of western Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. The U concentration ranged between 0.6 and 260 μg L−1 with a mean …

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Discrepancies In Changes In Precipitation Characteristics Over The Contiguous United States Based On Six Daily Gridded Precipitation Datasets, Mojtaba Sadegh Jun 2022

Discrepancies In Changes In Precipitation Characteristics Over The Contiguous United States Based On Six Daily Gridded Precipitation Datasets, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Variability and spatiotemporal changes in precipitation characteristics can have profound socioenvironmental impacts. Several studies have shown that the frequency and/or magnitude of precipitation events have changed over the contiguous United States (CONUS) in the past decades. Most previous studies used only one precipitation dataset and only investigated mean or extreme precipitation. Here, using 6 gridded daily precipitation datasets, we show that there are substantial discrepancies in the changes in characteristics of both extreme and non-extreme precipitation events from 1983 to 2017. Our results highlight that using a single record to study precipitation changes can potentially lead to biased results. Using …

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Designs Of Abrasion Resistant And Durable Concrete Pavements Made With Scms For Cold Climates, Diane Murph, Jun Liu, Jenny Liu Jun 2022

Designs Of Abrasion Resistant And Durable Concrete Pavements Made With Scms For Cold Climates, Diane Murph, Jun Liu, Jenny Liu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rutting from studded tire wear is a typical pavement distress in cold climates such as that of Alaska and other northern states. Current state-of-the-art advancements in material technology and concrete pavement design have allowed for implementation of improved materials and concrete pavement sections that are more resistant to rutting. The addition of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) has been identified as one effective way to produce concrete pavements with better abrasion resistance. The objective of this study was to identify and develop concrete pavement mix designs containing SCMs that can provide excellent abrasion resistance and durability to address rutting from studded …

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Coevolution Of Machine Learning And Process-Based Modelling To Revolutionize Earth And Environmental Sciences: A Perspective, Mojtaba Sadegh Jun 2022

Coevolution Of Machine Learning And Process-Based Modelling To Revolutionize Earth And Environmental Sciences: A Perspective, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Machine learning (ML) applications in Earth and environmental sciences (EES) have gained incredible momentum in recent years. However, these ML applications have largely evolved in ‘isolation’ from the mechanistic, process-based modelling (PBM) paradigms, which have historically been the cornerstone of scientific discovery and policy support. In this perspective, we assert that the cultural barriers between the ML and PBM communities limit the potential of ML, and even its ‘hybridization’ with PBM, for EES applications. Fundamental, but often ignored, differences between ML and PBM are discussed as well as their strengths and weaknesses in light of three overarching modelling objectives in …

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Comparing Oranges Versus Grapes As A Metaphor Of The Nurse+Engineer, Daniel B. Oerther, Sarah Oerther Jun 2022

Comparing Oranges Versus Grapes As A Metaphor Of The Nurse+Engineer, Daniel B. Oerther, Sarah Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

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Mechanisms Affecting Viscosity Of Cement Paste Made With Microfines Of Manufactured Sand, Jiang Zhu, Jiaping Liu, Kamal Khayat, Xin Shu, Qianping Ran, Zhen Li Jun 2022

Mechanisms Affecting Viscosity Of Cement Paste Made With Microfines Of Manufactured Sand, Jiang Zhu, Jiaping Liu, Kamal Khayat, Xin Shu, Qianping Ran, Zhen Li

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Viscosity of cement-based materials incorporating manufactured sand is affected by the content and physical properties of the microfines in the sand. However, some of the mechanisms affecting the viscosity remain unclear. This paper investigates the effect of microfine type and content on the apparent viscosity (ηapp) and residual viscosity in/near pseudo-Newtonian regime (ηrespse−New) of cement pastes. Limestone (LS), slate (ST), and tuff (TF) microfines with different specific surface areas were investigated. Test results showed that, by deducting the greater contribution of yield stress to ηapp when using finer microfines, the increase of ηrespse−New at a given PCE dosage was mainly …

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Specialized Safety Training And Tracking For Kytc Construction And Maintenance Personnel, Gabriel Dadi, Ashtarout Ammar, Seth Atkins, Martha Horseman Jun 2022

Specialized Safety Training And Tracking For Kytc Construction And Maintenance Personnel, Gabriel Dadi, Ashtarout Ammar, Seth Atkins, Martha Horseman

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

High-quality safety training is critical for educating employees in the highway construction and maintenance industry about workplace hazards and giving them tools to remove and/or minimize associated risks. But researchers and state transportation agencies have not committed enough resources to develop safety trainings that address the unique needs of this sector. This report fills in this gap for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) by cataloguing safety training resources available through other state and federal transportation agencies, documenting trainings available to Cabinet staff, identifying and prioritizing training gaps, and critically evaluating the content, quality, and duration of training resources. A web-based …

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Bridge Project Prioritization, Bryan Gibson, Christopher Van Dyke, Sudhir Palle, Ryan Griffith, Doug Kreis Jun 2022

Bridge Project Prioritization, Bryan Gibson, Christopher Van Dyke, Sudhir Palle, Ryan Griffith, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Kentucky’s 14,000+ bridges are key nodes within the state’s surface transportation network. They facilitate the movement of freight, commercial vehicles, and personal vehicles alike. Historically, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has prioritized bridge maintenance projects using sufficiency ratings. These ratings are based on three factors — structural adequacy and safety, design obsolescence, and an asset’s importance within the roadway network. Although useful, sufficiency ratings do not account for factors that should be considered during the prioritization process (e.g., condition factors, risk). To address the shortcomings associated with using sufficiency ratings, KYTC — with the assistance of the Kentucky Transportation Center …

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Risk-Based Project Development, Steve Waddle, Ying Li, Christopher Van Dyke Jun 2022

Risk-Based Project Development, Steve Waddle, Ying Li, Christopher Van Dyke

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Risk management is integral to highway project development. Managing risk entails identifying uncertainties which could influence project activities, understanding how they can be mitigated or eliminated, and monitoring risk during project development. Many state transportation agencies have introduced methods for identifying risks, determining whether risks are high impact or low impact, and generating response strategies. These methods are often qualitative or semi-quantitative in nature due to the challenge of quantifying the likelihood of a risk and its effects. These approaches are nonetheless valuable for helping designers and project development teams remain mindful of negative risks which could pose significant hurdles. …

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Experimental Investigation On Short Concrete Columns Laterally Strengthened With Ferrocement And Cfrp, Wisam Amer Aules, Yasir Saeed, Hosam Abdullah Al-Azzawi, Franz Rad Jun 2022

Experimental Investigation On Short Concrete Columns Laterally Strengthened With Ferrocement And Cfrp, Wisam Amer Aules, Yasir Saeed, Hosam Abdullah Al-Azzawi, Franz Rad

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of ferrocement in strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) structures has increased recently. Ferrocement has mostly been used to provide extra confinement for RC columns. However, its performance, especially in combination with CFRP confinement has not yet been fully understood. In this study, a total of fifteen columns were experimentally tested to investigate the effects of using ferrocement confinement in strengthening square RC columns. The combination between CFRP and ferrocement in strengthening RC columns has also been investigated. In addition to providing extra confinement, ferrocement is used to modify the shape of square columns to curvilinear shape, which is more …

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Measuring Accessibility For Pedestrians, Bicyclists, And Transit Riders To Grocery Stores In The Excelsior/Outer Mission Neighborhoods Of San Francisco, Alexandra Lee-Gardner Jun 2022

Measuring Accessibility For Pedestrians, Bicyclists, And Transit Riders To Grocery Stores In The Excelsior/Outer Mission Neighborhoods Of San Francisco, Alexandra Lee-Gardner

Master's Theses

Grocery stores are an important amenity in neighborhoods and access to grocery stores is important for health and well-being. While grocery store accessibility is a popular topic of research, studies measuring access for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders are extremely rare. When a new store opened in the Excelsior/Outer Mission districts of San Francisco on a street lacking basic infrastructure for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit riders, the importance of this study became apparent. The Excelsior/Outer Mission neighborhood has a shocking number of collisions (over 1,100 between 2015 and 2019), elevated levels of walking, biking, and transit ridership, and minimal safe …

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Feasibility Study On Novel Fire-Resistant Coating Materials, Anyou Zhu, Hanli Wu, Jenny Liu Jun 2022

Feasibility Study On Novel Fire-Resistant Coating Materials, Anyou Zhu, Hanli Wu, Jenny Liu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Over the last few decades, wildfires in the United States have caused severe damage and property losses. As more houses are being built in areas prone to wildfire, enhancing the fire resistance of structures and buildings is critical and in great need. This paper presents a preliminary study to explore and develop some innovative surface-bonded fire-resistant coating materials for this purpose. The feasibility of these materials [i.e., high performance cement mortar (HPCM), geopolymer mortar (GPM), and magnesium phosphate cement mortar (MPCM)] was assessed considering the workability, adhesion to structure surface, and fire property. The Taguchi-based mix designs of HPCM, GPM, …

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Feasibility Report On Water Recycling And The Housing Crisis, Tally A. Perry Jun 2022

Feasibility Report On Water Recycling And The Housing Crisis, Tally A. Perry

City and Regional Planning

The western United States is experiencing increasing population, a housing shortage, and a drought. These challenges demand creative and unprecedented changes to development. Water recycling is slowly emerging as a viable solution for developers, home owners, and cities as a way to continue much-needed housing development while mitigating unnecessary water depletion. With all change, policy, feasibility, and awareness can be the largest influencers. Drought-ridden western-American states require additional and revised regulatory requirements to promote recycled water in new development. Currently, water reuse is largely used for agricultural and industrial purposes. To motivate and encourage housing development, water recycling needs to …

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On Internal Resonance Analysis Of A Double-Cable-Stayed Shallow-Arch Model With Elastic Supports At Both Ends, Xiaoyang Su, Houjun Kang, Tieding Guo, Guirong Grace Yan Jun 2022

On Internal Resonance Analysis Of A Double-Cable-Stayed Shallow-Arch Model With Elastic Supports At Both Ends, Xiaoyang Su, Houjun Kang, Tieding Guo, Guirong Grace Yan

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In previous research on the nonlinear dynamics of cable-stayed bridges, boundary conditions were not properly modeled in the modeling. In order to obtain the nonlinear dynamics of cable-stayed bridges more accurately, a double-cable-stayed shallow-arch model with elastic supports at both ends and the initial configuration of bridge deck included in the modeling is developed in this study. The in-plane eigenvalue problems of the model are solved by dividing the shallow arch (SA) into three partitions according to the number of cables and the piecewise functions are taken as trial functions of the SA. Then, the in-plane one-to-one-to-one internal resonance among …

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Steel Bridge Coating Inventory For 2022, Christopher Goff, Sudhir Palle Jun 2022

Steel Bridge Coating Inventory For 2022, Christopher Goff, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has replaced the lead-based coatings on many of its steel bridges over the past 30 years. In the 1980s and 1990s, inorganic zinc primers with vinyl topcoats were the go-to option for coating replacement projects. Since 2000, the typical choice for these projects has been organic zinc primers that are part of a two- or three-coat system. Some of these coatings have localized failures in high-stress areas. KYTC’s current inventory of steel bridges numbers over 1,100 structures. Accounting for expected service lives, to properly maintain protective coatings on these bridges will require the Cabinet to …

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Updating The Bridge Construction Cost Database, Rachel Catchings, Ying Li, Ryan Griffith, Sudhir Palle Jun 2022

Updating The Bridge Construction Cost Database, Rachel Catchings, Ying Li, Ryan Griffith, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Adopting a comprehensive suite of methods to track, analyze, and maintain data on bridge construction costs can help state transportation agencies identify and implement strategies to mitigate the influence of factors which escalate project costs. This report discusses how the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) should approach updating, maintaining, and analyzing its bridge construction cost data. Based on a review of practices introduced at other agencies and interviews with public and private industry stakeholders, the report catalogues practical strategies for improving estimating procedures and tracking cost data as well as the most important cost drivers of bridge construction. Analysis of KYTC …

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Evaluation Of An Equivalent Mean Grain Size Diameter To Rationally Predict The Erodibility Of Fine Riverbed Soils In Nebraska, Basil Abualshar Jun 2022

Evaluation Of An Equivalent Mean Grain Size Diameter To Rationally Predict The Erodibility Of Fine Riverbed Soils In Nebraska, Basil Abualshar

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The erosion of riverbed soils under the bridges is one of the major reasons that cause bridge closure or failure leading to a significant effect on the local economy. One of the commonly used methods to predict the erosion rate of soils is the excess shear stress method, which is based on two parameters describing the erodibility behavior; the erodibility coefficient and the critical shear stress. On the other hand, studies showed that the mean grain size diameter D50 could be correlated to the erosion resistance of soils, usually for cohesionless soils but not for cohesive soils. It is …

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Investigating Pedestrian Distraction By Phone At Intersection Crossings, Safety Implications And Potential Treatments, Lusanni Mercedes Acosta Rodriguez Jun 2022

Investigating Pedestrian Distraction By Phone At Intersection Crossings, Safety Implications And Potential Treatments, Lusanni Mercedes Acosta Rodriguez

Dissertations

Road user distraction is a major safety concern. The issue is not only for drivers, but also for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. Every year people are involved in potential and real crashes due to being distracted while walking/crossing streets. Although there are several ways by which pedestrians are distracted, phone use while crossing streets is among the riskier and growing behaviors. Crossing an intersection, especially those with heavy traffic, requires full attention from the individual. Inattentiveness to traffic while on a phone call, texting, web-surfing, listening to music before crossing a street can lead to a fatal crash. …

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Performance Evaluation Of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Cement-Free Geopolymer Concrete, Mohammad Zuaiter Jun 2022

Performance Evaluation Of Glass-Fiber Reinforced Cement-Free Geopolymer Concrete, Mohammad Zuaiter

Theses

The alkali-activation of aluminosilicate materials produces a geopolymer binder that promises to be a sustainable replacement to cement in concrete. Yet, such concrete has experienced brittle behavior and poor resistance to cracking. As a means of improving its performance, this research assesses the feasibility of utilizing glass fibers in slag-fly ash blended geopolymer concrete for structural applications. A blend of slag and fly ash served as the binding material. Two types of glass fibers were used individually or as a hybrid combination. Type A and B glass fibers had similar properties but different lengths of 24 and 43 mm, respectively. …

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Numerical Modelling Of Externally-Bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymer Shear-Strengthened Reinforced Concrete Beams Subjected To Fatigue Loading, Nagwa Ibrahim Fares Jun 2022

Numerical Modelling Of Externally-Bonded Fiber Reinforced Polymer Shear-Strengthened Reinforced Concrete Beams Subjected To Fatigue Loading, Nagwa Ibrahim Fares

Theses

An extensive number of existing structures persistently exposed to fatigue loading such as bridges, offshore structures, pavements, and highways, are in urgent need of repairing and strengthening. This may be attributed to the continuous increase in the load requirements, change of the structure’s function, and meeting current load standards. Among the potential methods of rehabilitation and strengthening of existing reinforced concrete structures, the externally bonding fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) composites are gaining massive popularity and becoming a viable and cost-effective method. Shear failure of reinforced concrete (RC) beams is known to be brittle, which occurs without prior sufficient warnings; therefore, …

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Utilization Of Lidar Technology — When To Use It And Why, Levy Mcintosh, Brad Rister Jun 2022

Utilization Of Lidar Technology — When To Use It And Why, Levy Mcintosh, Brad Rister

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Lidar technologies can assist transportation agencies during the design, construction, and maintenance phases of transportation projects. While Lidar has numerous applications, successfully deploying Lidar technologies is only possible if agencies have a solid understanding of their use cases and potential limitations. This report offers guidance the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) can use when making decisions on how to employ Lidar technologies in highway contexts. In addition to reviewing Lidar platforms and comparing Lidar-driven surveying to traditional surveying methods, the report examines challenges related to processing and storing Lidar data and the safety benefits Lidar technologies confer in the field. Brief …

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Machine Learning Enabled Closed-Form Models To Predict Strength Of Alkali-Activated Systems, Taihao Han, Eslam Gomaa, Ahmed Gheni, Jie Huang, Mohamed Elgawady, Aditya Kumar Jun 2022

Machine Learning Enabled Closed-Form Models To Predict Strength Of Alkali-Activated Systems, Taihao Han, Eslam Gomaa, Ahmed Gheni, Jie Huang, Mohamed Elgawady, Aditya Kumar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Alkali-activated mortar (AAM) is an emerging eco-friendly construction material, which can complement ordinary Portland cement (OPC) mortars. Prediction of properties of AAMs—albeit much needed to complement experiments—is difficult, owing to substantive batch-to-batch variations in physicochemical properties of their precursors (i.e., aluminosilicate and activator solution). In this study, a machine learning (ML) model is employed; and it is shown that the model—once trained and optimized—can reliably predict compressive strength of AAMs solely from their initial physicochemical attributes. Prediction performance of the model improves when multiple compositional descriptors of the aluminosilicate are combined into a singular, composite chemostructural descriptor (i.e., network ratio …

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