Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Wave Attenuation By Constructed Oyster Reef Breakwaters, Jason M. Chauvin

LSU Master's Theses

Biloxi Marsh, located along the shoreline of Eloi Bay in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana has experienced significant shoreline erosion in recent years. The Living Shoreline Demonstration Project, completed in November 2016, constructed three miles of living shoreline structures to attenuate waves and thus combat marsh edge erosion along the shoreline of Eloi Bay. Several types of constructed oyster reef breakwaters were installed for this demonstration project. Due to the experimental nature of these products, available performance characteristics are limited.

This research measures wave attenuation across the constructed oyster reef breakwaters using bottom-mounted pressure gauges. Seven pressure gauges were deployed to …

Hydraulic Performance And Vulnerability On Sanitary Sewer Overflow In Southern Pinellas County, Fl, Uchechi O. Akabogu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rain-induced sanitary sewer overflow due to high infiltration is a significant challenge for many utilities, including Pinellas County utilities. The main aim of this study is to develop a hydraulic model to analyze the performance of the existing sanitary sewer system, especially during intense rainfall events.

To calculate the flow inputs for the model, a times series analysis was performed to separate the inflow and infiltration from the actual sewer flow. Using the Stevens-Schutzbach method, daily Base Infiltration (BI) was calculated and was subtracted from the total observed flow to give the Dry Weather Flow (DWF). Adjusting the DWF by …

Microstructural Characterization Of Shear Transformation Zones And Modeling Indentation Size Effect In Amorphous Polymers, Leila Malekmotiei

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The first aim of this work is developing a procedure for experimental and analytical characterization of nano-scale microstructures which mediate large scale deformation in amorphous polymers. Glassy polymers are extensively used as high impact resistant, low density, and clear materials in industries. Nevertheless, their response under severe loading conditions is yet to be appropriately unraveled. Due to the lack of long-range order in the microstructures of glassy solids, their plastic deformation is different from that in crystalline solids. Shear Transformation Zones (STZs) are believed to be the main plasticity carriers in amorphous solids and defined as the localized atomic or …

Effects Of Titanate Coupling Agent On Engineering Properties Of Asphalt Binders And Mixtures Incorporating Lldpe-Caco3 Pellet, Mohd Rosli Mohd Hasan, Zhanping You, Mohd Khairul Idham Mohd Satar, Muhammad Naqiuddin Mohd Warid, Nurul Hidayah Mohd Kamaruddin, Dongdong Ge, Ran Zhang

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

This study was initiated to evaluate the performance of asphalt binders and mixtures incorporating linear low-density polyethylene- calcium carbonate (LLDPE-CaCO₃) pellet, either with or without titanate coupling agent. The detailed manufacturing process of modifier pellets was displayed. The coupling agent was used to enhance the cross-linking between materials by means of winding up covalent bonds or molecule chains, thus improving the performance of composites. In the preparation of modified bitumen, the preheated asphalt binder was mixed with the modifiers using a high shear mixer at 5000 rpm rotational speed for 45 min. Experimental works were conducted to evaluate …

Implementing Lean Practices In An Academic Department: A Case Study, Ekaterina Koromyslova, Carrie Steinlicht, Teresa J.K. Hall, Albena Yordanova, Byron Garry

Construction and Operations Management Faculty Publications

Lean approaches to continuous improvement, originally practiced and perfected by Toyota Motor Company, have been widely used in the industry sector for many decades. There is a growing trend at universities to adopt lean practices to improve higher education processes. Reduced financial support and growing competition amongst universities and academic programs motivate the implementation of lean practices both at university and department levels.1 Colleges and universities that have adopted lean practices are driven by the need to strategically leverage resources to meet stakeholder expectations, reduce waste or costs, and improve satisfaction with under-performing processes.2 This paper presents an overview of …

Efficient Adjacency Queries And Dynamic Refinement For Meshfree Methods With Applications To Explicit Fracture Modeling, James Olliff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Meshfree methods provide a more practical approach to solving problems involving large deformation and modeling fracture compared to the Finite Element Method (FEM). However meshfree methods are more computationally intensive compared to FEM, which can limit their practicality in engineering. Meshfree methods also lack a clear boundary definition, restricting available visualization techniques. Determining particle locations and attributes such that a consistent approximation is ensured can be challenging in meshfree methods, especially when employing h-refinement. The primary objective of this work is to address the limitations associated with computational efficiency, meshfree domain discretization, and h-refinement, including both placement of particles as …

Beyond Metrics? The Role Of Hydrologic Baseline Archetypes In Environmental Water Management, Belize A. Lane, Samuel Sandoval-Solis, Eric D. Stein, Sarah M. Yarnell, Gregory B. Pasternack, Helen E. Dahlke

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Balancing ecological and human water needs often requires characterizing key aspects of the natural flow regime and then predicting ecological response to flow alterations. Flow metrics are generally relied upon to characterize long-term average statistical properties of the natural flow regime (hydrologic baseline conditions). However, some key aspects of hydrologic baseline conditions may be better understood through more complete consideration of continuous patterns of daily, seasonal, and inter-annual variability than through summary metrics. Here we propose the additional use of high-resolution dimensionless archetypes of regional stream classes to improve understanding of baseline hydrologic conditions and inform regional environmental flows assessments. …

Climbing Robots For Steel Bridge Inspection And Evaluation, Hung La

INSPIRE Archived Webinars

Steel structures and steel bridges, constituting a major part in civil infrastructure, require adequate maintenance and health monitoring. In the U.S., more than 50,000 steel bridges are either deficient or functionally obsolete, which likely presents a growing threat to people's safety. The collapse of numerous bridges recorded over the past 16 years has shown significant impact on the safety of all travelers.

In this presentation, the design and implementation of two different climbing robots for steel structure inspection are reported. Based on the magnetic wheel design, the robot can climb on different steel surface structures (i.e., flat, cylinder, cube). The …

Precipitation Impacts On Groundwater Levels In The Ephemeral Holgate Lake: A Modflow Inquiry, Amory Cervarich

Civil and Environmental Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Holgate Lake, an ephemeral lake located in southeast Portland, has a history of flooding and inundating residential areas. The appearance of the lake is hypothesized to be a function of precipitation-driven changes in groundwater levels. A model was developed using MODFLOW-NWT, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) modular hydrologic program, to analyze parameters contributing to the appearance of the lake. The model was most sensitive to changes in aquifer properties including hydraulic conductivity and storativity. The model displayed low sensitivity to changes in precipitation, evapotranspiration, and conductance of surface waters. Results from the analysis contribute to a better understanding of the …

A Coupled Thermo-Mechanical Theory Of Strain Gradient Plasticity For Small And Finite Deformations, Yooseob Song

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this work, a thermodynamically consistent coupled thermo-mechanical gradient enhanced continuum plasticity theory is developed for small and finite deformations. The proposed model is conceptually based on the dislocations interaction mechanisms and thermal activation energy. The thermodynamic conjugate microstresses are decomposed into energetic and dissipative components. This work incorporates the thermal and mechanical responses of microsystems. It addresses phenomena such as size and boundary effects and in particular microscale heat transfer in fast-transient processes. Not only the partial heat dissipation caused by the fast transient time, but also the distribution of temperature caused by the transition from the plastic work …

Underground Stormwater Treatment Performance In Urban Coastal Catchments: Case Study Of Baffle Boxes In The City Of Tampa, Awet Eyob Tsegay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In coastal urban regions, underground stormwater treatment units are suitable infrastructure options because they take less space where premium land is expensive. Even then, they should be accessible and ideally small enough to fit into existing stormwater networks. Since 2003, the City of Tampa and Florida’s Department of Transportation (FDOT) have installed 47 baffle boxes into the city’s stormwater pipe networks. Baffle boxes are underground stormwater treatment structures designed to capture sediments and floating debris. Since their deployment, many challenges regarding their practical sediment capturing performance was raised by the city.

The objective of this research was to evaluate the …

Pore-Scale And Conventional Wettability Measurement Considerations For Improving Certainty Of Geological Co2 Sequestration, Mohammad Jafari

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Parallel to the approach of developing zero-carbon-emission energies, other solutions have been recently proposed to decrease the amount of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Geological CO2 sequestration (GCS) has provided economic benefits and slight adverse environmental effects. GCS involves capturing CO2 from large producers, then injecting it into deep layers of the earth’s subsurface to be stored for hundreds to thousands of years. A safe and economic GCS requires a profound knowledge of immiscible CO2-water/brine fluid flow in CO2 storage sites including capillary pressure which has a barrier effect against leakage. The main uncertainty in measuring capillary pressure is due …

Laboratory Evaluation On Performance Of Compound-Modified Asphalt For Rock Asphalt/Styrene–Butadiene Rubber (Sbr) And Rock Asphalt/Nano-Caco3, Songtao Lv, Shuangshuang Wang, Tong Guo, Chengdong Xia, Jianglong Li, Gui Hou

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

As a natural modifier of asphalt, rock asphalt has been widely used to improve its thermal stability and aging resistance. However, the thermal cracking resistance of asphalt modified by rock asphalt is unsatisfactory. In order to improve the thermal cracking resistance in low temperature, two kinds of modifiers—styrene–butadiene rubber (SBR) and nano-CaCO₃—were selected as the compound modifiers, and then implemented to improve the low-temperature performance of the binder. Then, compound asphalt modified by Buton rock asphalt (BRA) was chosen as the study subject. The thermal stability and aging resistance of asphalt modified by BRA, compound-modified asphalt by BRA/SBR, …

Experimental, Analytical, And Numerical Evaluation Of The Mechanical Properties Of The Brain Tissue, Aref Samadidooki

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A true understanding of the mechanisms behind most of the brain diseases is still out of reach. For several years, the interest of scientists has been focused on the genetic and biological causes, however, recent studies unraveled the importance of the biomechanics of the brain growth, folding, impact resistance, and deformation on its pathological conditions. While, a wide range of different methods have been used for characterization of the mechanical properties of the brain at the tissue level, the obtained results from different studies are extremely scattered and sometimes in contrast to one another. Since the brain tissue is extremely …

The Cost Of Jaywalking On Traffic Congestion In An Intersection In Greater Cairo: A Case Study, Hussein Gawdat

Theses and Dissertations

There have been many studies focusing on different types of traffic delays, pedestrians’ interaction at signalized intersections and economic losses as a result of these delays. However, there is a huge gap in the current literature, regionally and globally, in studying the traffic delays associated with jaywalking. In Egypt, jaywalking is considered a common phenomenon, however, population increased drastically over the past decades in Greater Cairo leading to more congested streets. This research provides a case study that investigates the economic effect of jaywalking on traffic flow in Mashaal, a sample location in Greater Cairo, due to traffic congestion. The …

Multihazard Scenarios For Analysis Of Compound Extreme Events, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Compound extremes correspond to events with multiple concurrent or consecutive drivers (e.g., ocean and fluvial flooding, drought, and heat waves) leading to substantial impacts such as infrastructure failure. In many risk assessment and design applications, however, multihazard scenarios of extremes and compound events are ignored. In this paper, we review the existing multivariate design and hazard scenario concepts and introduce a novel copula-based weighted average threshold scenario for an expected event with multiple drivers. The model can be used for obtaining multihazard design and risk assessment scenarios and their corresponding likelihoods. The proposed model offers uncertainty ranges of most likely …

Characterization Of Mg-Based Bimetal Treatment Of Insensitive Munition 2,4-Dinitroanisole, Emese Hadnagy, Andrew Mai, Benjamin Smolinski, Washington Braida, Agamemnon Koutsospyros

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The manufacturing of insensitive munition 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN) generates waste streams that require treatment. DNAN has been treated previously with zero-valent iron (ZVI) and Fe-based bimetals. Use of Mg-based bimetals offers certain advantages including potential higher reactivity and relative insensitivity to pH conditions. This work reports preliminary findings of DNAN degradation by three Mg-based bimetals: Mg/Cu, Mg/Ni, and Mg/Zn. Treatment of DNAN by all three bimetals is highly effective in aqueous solutions (> 89% removal) and wastewater (> 91% removal) in comparison with treatment solely with zero-valent magnesium (ZVMg; 35% removal). Investigation of reaction byproducts supports a partial degradation pathway involving …

Caregiver Perception And The Role Of Seasonality In Under-Five Childhood Diarrhea Incidence In Svay Rieng Province, Cambodia, Brian S. Wells

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diarrheal disease has long been known to be a burden to children worldwide. Although child mortality rates as a result of diarrhea have decreased over the past two decades, overall diarrhea incidence has remained relatively stable. In Cambodia, diarrhea was the third most prevalent outpatient diagnosis for children under five in 2012, with a reported incidence rate of 12 per 100 children, up from 7 per 100 children in 2008 (Ministry of Planning Cambodia, 2012). Cambodia is an agricultural country with 80% of the population living in rural areas (National Institute of Statistics Ministry of Planning, 2013). Many are also …

Regulatory Methodology And Unmitigated Wetland Loss In Southwest Florida, Kathleen B. Castor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research used Geographical Information System (GIS) data to estimate the acreage of wetland loss due to small-scale activities (taking into account exempt, permitted, and unauthorized activities) in the Southwest District of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) between 2006 and 2011 and compared that net loss with the unmitigated wetland net loss that DEP documented during that time for authorized activities and violations that were discovered. The comparison allowed an estimation of the extent of undocumented small-scale unmitigated wetland loss that occurred during those six years. DEP records show that 88% of non-compliance cases remain unresolved, and the net …

Assessment Of Soil Erosion Vulnerability In The Heavily Populated And Ecologically Fragile Communities In Motozintla De Mendoza, Chiapas, Mexico, Selene González-Morales, Alex Mayer, Neptalí Ramírez-Marcial

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Variability in physical rates and local knowledge of soil erosion was assessed across six rural communities in the Sierra Madre del Sur, Chiapas, Mexico. The average erosion rate estimated using the RUSLE model is 274 t ha-1 yr-1, with the estimated erosion rates ranging from 28 to 717 t ha-1 yr-1. These very high erosion rates are associated with high rainfall erosivity (17 000 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1) and steep slopes (mean slope Combining double low line 67 %). Many of the highest soil erosion rates are found in communities that are dominated by forestland, but where most of …

Investigation Into The Behavior Of An Open Web Steel Joist Bridge, Zahra Andalib, Piero Caputo, Sattar Dorafshan, Marc Maguire, William Collins

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Open web steel joists (OWSJ) have been extensively used in the building industry due to numerous advantages when compared with other structural systems. They are lighter than comparable rolled steel shapes, allowing for faster and less costly construction, in addition to their reduced material costs. However, OWSJ are rarely used for bridge structures. This paper examines the behavior of an OWSJ system in a bridge located at the Nucor plant in Brigham City, Utah.

River Channel Geometry And Rating Curve Estimation Using Height Above The Nearest Drainage, Xing Zheng, David G. Tarboton, David R. Maidment, Yan Y. Liu, Paola Passalacqua

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

River channel geometry is an important input to hydraulic and hydrologic models. Traditional approaches to quantify river geometry have involved surveyed river cross-sections, which cannot be extended to ungauged basins. In this paper, we describe a method for developing a synthetic rating curve to relate flow to water level in a stream reach based on reach-averaged channel geometry properties developed using the Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND) method. HAND uses a digital elevation model of the terrain and computes the elevation difference between each land surface cell and the stream bed cell to which it drains. Taking increments in water …

A Cybergis Integration And Computation Framework For High‐Resolution Continental‐Scale Flood Inundation Mapping, Yan Y. Liu, David R. Maidment, David G. Tarboton, Xing Zheng, Shaowen Wang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a Digital Elevation Model (DEM)-based hydrologic analysis methodology for continental flood inundation mapping (CFIM), implemented as a cyberGIS scientific workflow in which a 1/3rd arc-second (10m) Height Above Nearest Drainage (HAND) raster data for the conterminous U.S. (CONUS) was computed and employed for subsequent inundation mapping. A cyberGIS framework was developed to enable spatiotemporal integration and scalable computing of the entire inundation mapping process on a hybrid supercomputing architecture. The first 1/3rd arc-second CONUS HAND raster dataset was computed in 1.5 days on the CyberGIS ROGER supercomputer. The inundation mapping process developed in our exploratory study couples HAND …

Webinar: Firsthand Data Collection: Students Get Behind The Wheel Of Vehicle Dynamics, Roger Lindgren, Jordan Preston

TREC Webinar Series

Vehicle operating dynamics data have a fundamental impact on the design of roadways, but collecting this type of data is not part of your typical college curriculum. Instead, engineering students are handed a textbook, leaving them without a firsthand experience of how accelerations and decelerations “feel” to the driver, the ultimate consumer of their designs. Seeking to change this norm, Roger Lindgren and C.J. Riley, civil engineering professors at the Oregon Institute of Technology, undertook a NITC education project to incorporate more real-world data collection and analysis into transportation courses. This webinar will offer a detailed look at the recently …

Formal And Informal Undergraduate Ethics Education In Engineering, Grace Ports

Undergraduate Voices

This literature review attempts to answer the question of whether formal education or informal education of ethics within civil engineering is more beneficial. If there is a lack of structured education of ethics in civil engineering, then another area of interest is to discover where engineers are being informally educated. Another area of inquiry is whether it is more beneficial to teach engineers ethics prior to the time when they are required to study the code of ethics for their certification exam, or should engineers wait until moments before the exam to study the code. This article examines the potential …

Impact Of Upstream Chlorination On Filter Performance And Microbial Community Structure Of Gac And Anthracite Biofilters, Glen Andrew De Vera, Daniel Gerrity, Mitchell Stoker, Wilbur Frehner, Eric C. Wert

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Drinking water filters may be operated to promote or deter biological activity through upstream oxidant addition. While there are several water quality benefits from biofiltration, microbial growth in biofilters warrants further investigation. In this study, routine monitoring detected target DNA sequences for Naegleria fowleri in source water and Acanthamoeba spp. in source water and biofilter effluent, triggering further microbial community characterization. Full-scale anthracite and granular activated carbon (GAC) filters receiving chlorinated waters were compared in terms of effluent water quality (i.e., turbidity and particle counts), biological activity (i.e., adenosine triphosphate (ATP)), and the composition of the microbial community (i.e., 16S/18S …

Dynamic Modeling Of An Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, Komal Rathore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advanced wastewater treatment plants have complex biological kinetics, time variant influent rates and long processing times. The modeling and operation control of wastewater treatment plant gets complicated due to these characteristics. However, a robust operational system for a wastewater treatment plant is necessary to increase the efficiency of the plant, reduce energy cost and achieve environmental discharge limits. These discharge limits are set by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants to limit the amount of nutrients being discharged into the aquatic systems.

This document summarizes the research to develop a supervisory operational …

Recent Trends In The Frequency And Duration Of Global Floods, Nasser Najibi, Naresh Devineni

Publications and Research

Frequency and duration of floods are analyzed using the global flood database of the Dartmouth Flood Observatory (DFO) to explore evidence of trends during 1985–2015 at global and latitudinal scales. Three classes of flood duration (i.e., short: 1–7, moderate: 8–20, and long: 21 days and above) are also considered for this analysis. The nonparametric Mann–Kendall trend analysis is used to evaluate three hypotheses addressing potential monotonic trends in the frequency of flood, moments of duration, and frequency of specific flood duration types. We also evaluated if trends could be related to large-scale atmospheric teleconnections using a generalized linear model framework. …

Performance Of Carbon Aerogel/Fiber Paper As Capacitive Deionization Electrodes Under Variable Operating Conditions, Md Ashique Ahmed, Sanjay Tewari

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The capacitive deionization has garnered renewed interested with recent modifications resulting in efficient (energy and cost) alternatives to desalinate brackish water (salt concentration less than 10 g/L). Recent research efforts, to improve the technology, have been focused mainly on electrode material development and modifications of operational parameters for optimized performance. This research is focused on performance evaluation of carbon aerogel/fiber paper as capacitive deionization electrodes under variable operating conditions. The main operational parameters that were varied are applied voltage, influent temperature and initial concentration. The highest adsorption capacity achieved in this on-going study is 4.61 mg/g at 33.5 oC with …

Minimum Required Length For Geotechnical Lateral Stability Of Rocksocketed Pile Shafts, Arash Khosravifar, Zia Zafir

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The original strong-rock (SR) p-y curves for rock-socketed shafts exhibit a brittle response where the post-peak resistance drops to approximately zero. This brittle response could result in a progressive failure of the rock p-y curves which, in turn, results in excessive pile lengths. This paper proposes a modification to the strong-rock (SR) p-y curves where the post-peak residual strength is equal to 20% of the ultimate resistance (0.2*pult). This residual resistance is proposed based on the assumption that the lateral resistance of cracked rock (after the peak point) should not be smaller than the lateral resistance of heavily weathered rock …