Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Cloth-Air Partitioning Of Oxybenzone, Jonathan T. Hill

Masters Theses

"Clothing has been proven to be a significant accumulator of chemicals from the air. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have a high affinity towards textiles, and measuring the equilibrium partition coefficient between cloth and air (K_cloth-air) for SVOCs is crucial in predicting human exposure to these compounds. This study aims to quantify K_cloth-air for oxybenzone to contribute to a larger human exposure experiment carried out at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). K_cloth-air for oxybenzone was calculated using data collected from the exposure chamber at DTU and from performing extractions of oxybenzone in fabric samples from the …

Imaging In Karst Terrain Using The Electrical Resistivity And Multichannel Analyses Of Surface Wave Methods, Ragab W. Jaafar

Masters Theses

"Electrical resistivity tomography and multi-channel analyses of surface waves data were acquired at a study area in Phelps County in the south-central part of Missouri. The objectives of the investigation were fourfold: 1) to image the subsurface in the study area to a depth of 70 feet; 2) to compare the ERT images generated using both the dipole-dipole and Wenner-Schlumberger arrays; and 3) to assess how variations in the MASW array configuration affected MASW data quality; and 4) to compare the ERT-estimated depth to top-of-rock and the MASW-generated depth to top-of-rock.

The subsurface in the study area was imaged to …

Fate And Impacts Of Triclosan, Sulfamethoxazole, And 17Β-Estradiol During Nutrient Recovery Via Ion Exchange And Struvite Precipitation, Yiran Tong, Patrick J. Mcnamara, Brooke K. Mayer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Increasing emphasis on resource recovery from wastewater highlights the importance of capturing valuable products, e.g., nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, while removing contaminants, e.g., organic micropollutants. The objective of this research was to evaluate the fate of the micropollutants triclosan (present as a mixture of neutral and anionic species at neutral pH), 17β-estradiol (neutral at neutral pH), and sulfamethoxazole (anionic at neutral pH) during nutrient recovery using ion exchange-precipitation. Adsorption of the three micropollutants to the phosphate-selective ion exchange resins LayneRT and DOW-HFO-Cu ranged from 54% to 88% in Milli-Q water tests and 50% to 71% in …

Virtual Reality Of Earthquake Ground Motions For Emergency Response, Ting Lin

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Ground motions interface earthquake science and engineering to advance understanding of seismic hazards and risk. Virtual reality provides an attractive tool to extend knowledge of the research community to a larger audience. This work visualizes emergency response under extreme motions, in the CAVE of the MARquette Visualization Laboratory. The visualization (a) displays ground motions (from the science community), (b) inputs these motions to structural models (from the engineering community) and illustrates the resulting responses, (c) translates structural responses to damage states of building elements, (d) creates a virtual room subjected to the perception associated with such earthquake shaking, and (e) …

Editorial" Fibre Reinforced Polymer Composites For Structural Applications In Construction, Jun Deng, Marcus M.K. Lee, Baolin Wan, Giuseppina Amato

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Baseline Rolling Resistance For Tires’ On-Road Fuel Efficiency Using Finite Element Modeling, Jaime Hernandez, Imad L. Al-Qadi, Hasan Ozer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Calculation of truck tires rolling resistance, using the finite element method and considering variables such as incompressible visco-hyperelastic rubber materials, accurate tire geometry and steady temperature distribution, is presented. The model was validated using experimentally measured contact area and contact stresses. Rolling resistance was calculated for three values of axle load, tire inflation pressure, temperature and speed. In addition, regression analysis was used to propose a mathematical expression for predicting rolling resistance as a function of the considered variables. Finally, the contribution of tire’s rubber components to the internal energy was quantified, and it was found that sidewall and subtread …

Life Cycle Assessment (Lca) Of Ore Transportation Route Alternatives For Eagle Mine, Soumith Kumar Oduru

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Transportation sector at large is a major consumer of fossil fuels and constitutes more than a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions. When making infrastructure route and mode choice decisions for new freight-oriented projects, it is important that environmental and emissions considerations are included as an integral part of the selection process. Emissions from freight transportation projects related to mining and natural resource industry are especially critical, as they involve high volumes and tonnages often in pristine environments. The most logical time for emissions analysis is during modal and route analysis that are often conducted in the planning stage …

Planning For Intermittent Water Supply In Small Gravity-Fed Distribution Systems: Case Study In Rural Panama, Frank B. Dubasik

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Intermittent water supply (IWS) is defined as a piped water distribution system that operates in an intermittent fashion, i.e. less than 24 hours per day. Piped water distribution systems are designed to operate with continuous water supply (CWS), meaning the system is operated continuously and maintains positive pressures in the distribution network. Operating a system in an intermittent fashion can cause inequality of access in a water distribution system. It may also result in lower water quality and wear and tear on the system.

In the community of Espavé, Panamá a new water system was installed and brought online in …

Social, Economic, And Technical Feasibility Of Ablution Gray Water Reuse In Tong, Ghana, Adrienne Masterton

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Water insecurity is a constant stressor for millions of people around the globe. The potential of gray water as an alternative water source has gained increasing attention in the literature. In water-scarce Muslim communities, the practice of ablution – the rinsing of the face, hands, and feet before prayer – offers a unique opportunity for gray water reuse.

This report investigates the feasibility of treating and reusing ablution gray water (AGW) with respect to religious acceptability, economic measures, and physical parameters in Tong, a rural community of Muslim subsistence farmers in northern Ghana. Investigatory tools included: household water use surveys, …

Design, Laboratory Testing, And Yield Line Analysis Of A Ferrocement Pit Latrine Slab, Larry Alan Schirmer Jr

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Access to sanitation for rural and indigenous Panamanians is the vision of global efforts to improve their quality of life. As part of on-site work from the Peace Corps to change public perceptions about open defecation, the author designed and tested a new type of ferrocement latrine slab to reduce the amount of materials involved in building latrines and by extension the manual labor involved. In the course of this investigation, a sanitation based case study establishes the precedent for working with ferrocement in these areas, and the author explores the history and structural properties of ferrocement. In laboratory experiments, …

Polyvinyl Alcohol (Pva) Fiber-Reinforced Rubber Concrete And Rubberized Self-Compacting Concrete, Jiaqing Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study experimentally investigates the mechanical performance and durability of Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) fiber-reinforced rubber concrete and the rubberized self-compacting concrete. The waste rubber particles were introduced as a partial replacement of fine aggregate in the plain concrete. In addition, the waste tire rubbers were pre-treated with alkali surface treatment method to enhance the performance. The PVA fibers were added to the concrete mixes to enhance the post-failure resistance and thus fracture energy. Rubberized fiber concrete samples were prepared with different fine aggregate replacement ratios and the optimum fiber content. At the same time, the rubber particles had been used …

Trend Analysis In Rainfall, Reference Evapotranspiration And Aridity Index In Southern Senegal: Adaptation To The Vulnerability Of Rainfed Rice Cultivation To Climate Change, Komlan Koudahe, Koffi Djaman, Ansoumana Bodian, Suat Irkmak, Mamadou Sall, Lamine Diop, Alpha B. Balde, Daran Rudnick

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Rainfall and evapotranspiration are two vital elements for food production under rainfed agriculture. This study aims at investigating the combined changes in these variables in the form of aridly index in the southern Senegal. The temporal trends in annual and monthly (from May to October) aridity index, rainfall and evapotranspiration are examined and adaptation strategies to the vulnerability of rainfed rice cultivation to the changes are developed. The results show a significant decreasing trend in annual rainfall at all study locations for the period 1922-2015. When analyzing the trends in sub-periods, there are two clear patterns in the annual rainfall …

Travel Time Estimation And Prediction For Urban Arterial Roads, Porntep Puangprakhon

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Travel time information has been accepted as the core of advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) and advanced traffic management systems (ATMS). Providing the accurate travel time information to traffic operators and travelers allows them to make informed decisions, leading to more advantage for individual road users and the entire transportation system. Most of the traffic information providers normally deliver the current traffic conditions or current travel times to public assuming the state of traffic remains constant in the near future. Aimed at the more effective applications, short-term future traffic conditions have been proposed as a valuable piece of information in …

Prototype Development Of Small Scale Transportable Fuel Production System For Agricultural Byproducts, Jurarat Nisamaneenate

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

The objective is to study the potential of peanut shell waste and cassava rhizome conversion using a modular fixed bed gasifier coupled with thermal integration unit. The thermal integration unit improved gasification reaction in which lower tar content and high gas production efficiency can be achieved. The air flow rate had integrated effects on product yield and composition; higher air flow rate resulted in higher gas yield with less tar and char. The result from peanut shell gasification indicated the optimal conditions without catalyst addition at air flow rate of 3.06 m3/hr where carbon and hydrogen conversions were 87.10% and …

Uav-Based Bridge Inspection And Computational Simulations, Luis Duque

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, has significantly increased in the field of civil engineering due to the poor condition of the United States’ infrastructure. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) recently reported that more than 9.1% of the United States’ bridges were structurally deficient and required attention and maintenance to ensure appropriate structural performance. Meanwhile, current practices are expensive and unsafe for bridge inspectors, requiring innovative and safer methods for the study of bridges. The goal of this paper was to identify better techniques to not only inspect, quantify, and determine the effect …

Rubber Additives To Concrete Specimens, Kendall J. Sweitzer, Mary Mccannon

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Rubber, as an additive to concrete, would hypothetically cause a concrete specimen to take on some mechanical characteristics of the rubber to a certain degree. In particular, the concrete’s durability should increase when exposed to fluctuating temperature conditions due to the rubber additive. This experiment sets out to test crumb rubber as a concrete additive, cured under various atmospheric conditions. The effects shall be measured via a simple concrete compression test.

Unfortunately, several errors took place during experimental process that led to inconclusive results. However, it can be reasonably considered from testing Matrix One that the addition of crumb rubber …

Compressive Strength Relative To Sustainable Materials In Concrete, Brad Harvey

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this study is to determine how integrating abundant waste materials into concrete affects its compressive strength. This research will be used to benefit the construction industry by replacing a portion of a conventional concrete mix (cement, stone, sand, and water) with more sustainable materials. In order to create a more sustainable concrete mixture, the following mix design and methodology was followed.

The initial step was to create an updatable MS Excel spreadsheet to aid in the mix development (the spreadsheet is shown in Appendix A). These sheets allowed for easy transitions from one mix to another by …

Chemical Modification Of Crumb Rubber To Increase Its Bonding With Concrete, Mary T. Mccannon, Kendall J. Sweitzer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The hydrophilicity of crumb rubber was increased with wet chemical modification and added to concrete to increase its adhesion with concrete, consequently the compressive strength relative to that of concrete with untreated rubber. Other modification methods were tested on crumb rubber and rubber sheets to yield an increase in hydrophilicity. Certain tests were less reliable for powder testing or tedious and time consuming and concrete materials and rubber may not be homogeneous.

For wet chemical modification, several approaches were attempted. First, crumb rubber was soaked in 5% sodium hydroxide, 5% potassium permanganate and saturated sodium bisulfite, tested for hydrophilicity using …

Engineering Professors’ Perspectives On Gender And Assessment Of Teamwork, Kacey Beddoes, Grace Panther

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Teamwork is an important component of engineering education programs; however, when not facilitated well, it can be a site of gender biases. The aim of this article is to thematically explore what and how engineering professors think about gender in the assessment of teamwork. In 2014 and 2015, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 39 engineering professors in the United States. Interviews covered a wide range of topics, with one section of the interviews devoted to teamwork specifically. For this article, the parts of the interviews about assessment of teamwork are analyzed. It was found that most participants were unaware of …

Development Of A Statistically-Based Methodology For Analyzing Automatic Safety Treatments At Isolated High-Speed Signalized Intersections, Remigiusz M. Wojtal, Laurence R. Rilett

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Crashes at isolated rural intersections, particularly those involving vehicles traveling perpendicularly to each other, are especially dangerous due to the high speeds involved. Consequently, transportation agencies are interested in reducing the occurrence of this crash type. Many engineering treatments exist to improve safety at isolated, high-speed, signalized intersections. Intuitively, it is critical to know which safety treatments are the most effective for a given set of selection criteria at a particular intersection. Without a well-defined decision making methodology, it is difficult to decide which safety countermeasure, or set of countermeasures, is the best option. Additionally, because of the large number …

Quantifying Effectiveness Of Streambank Stabilization Practices On Cedar River, Nebraska, Naisargi N. Dave, Aaron R. Mittelstet

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Excessive sediment is a major pollutant to surface waters worldwide. In some watersheds, streambanks are a significant source of this sediment, leading to the expenditure of billions of dollars in stabilization projects. Although costly streambank stabilization projects have been implemented worldwide, long-term monitoring to quantify their success is lacking. There is a critical need to document the long-term success of streambank restoration projects. The objectives of this research were to (1) quantify streambank retreat before and after the stabilization of 18 streambanks on the Cedar River in North Central Nebraska, USA; (2) assess the impact of a large flood event; …

Estimating Freeway Traffic Volume Using Shockwaves And Probe Vehicle Trajectory Data, Khairul Anuar, Mecit Cetin

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Probe vehicle data are increasingly becoming the primary source of traffic data. In current practice, traffic volumes and speeds are collected from inductive loop or similar devices. As probe vehicle data become more widespread, it is imperative that methods are developed so that traffic state estimators like speed, density and flow can be derived from probe vehicle data as well. In this paper, a methodology to estimate traffic flow on a freeway based on probe vehicle trajectory data combined with traffic shockwave theory is proposed. In essence, probe vehicle trajectory can indicate the free-flowing and congested regimes. By using LWR …

Development Of A Novel Kalman Filter Bank Predictor To Optimally Schedule The Renewable Energy Contribution Within A Micro-Grid, Conor Lynch

Theses

This PhD thesis presents a novel Kalman Filter Bank (KFB) methodology. The novel KFB is applied to predict and optimally schedule the operation of micro-grid energy resources with a public fixed-grid connection and an auxiliary battery storage backup facility. This methodology relies on a sliding single time step forecast projection to accurately acquire the anticipated schedule for a range of time dependent parameters, stochastic by nature, that have inherent embedded cyclical patterns. The innovative feature here consists of a novel bank of hourly adjacent Kalman Filter estimators, which operate in synchronism, for accurate parameter prediction over a selected time horizon. …

Effects Of Sea Level Rise On Hydrology: Case Study In A Typical Mid-Atlantic Coastal Watershed, Xixi Wang, Rui Li, Homa Jalaeian Taghadomi, Shohreh Pedram, Xiao Zhao

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Sea level rise (SLR) can negatively affect the hydrology of coastal watersheds. However, the relevant information is incomplete and insufficient in existing literature. The objective of this study is to present a modeling approach to predict long-term effects of SLR on changes of flood peak, flood stage, and groundwater table with an assumption that the historical climate would reoccur in the future. The study was conducted for a typical coastal watershed in southeast USA. The results indicate that sea level had been rising at a rate of 4.21 mm yr⁻¹ from 1948 to 1982 but at a faster rate …

Public Perceptions And Practices Of Solid Waste Recycling In The City Of Laramie In Wyoming, U.S.A., Upendra B. Bom, Shashidhar Belbase, Reni Bibriven Lila

All Works

© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Managing household solid waste is a growing challenge for many cities. To tackle this problem, cities are turning to recycling, which is an effective tool for solid waste management. This research seeks to understand the public perceptions and practices of recycling in the City of Laramie, Wyoming. Recycling in Laramie began in 1983 with the establishment of the Ark Recycling Center. Laramie officially started its curbside recycling services in September 2011, and in April 2012 the city declared its long-term goal to achieve a 40% diversion rate by 2030. The study …

A Holistic Risk-Oriented Framework For Port Infrastructure Adaption To Climate Change, Kana Nkasanga Patrick Mutumbo

World Maritime University Ph.D. Dissertations

This research is the first attempt in developing a broad-based qualitative tool for assessing climate risk in ports and building resilience. In order to demonstrate the applicability of the conceptual tool, the new Durban Dig-Out Port (DDOP) under development in the City of Durban (South Africa) is used for case study. Central to this research is the building of widespread industry recognition of the need to factor climate change into decision making at early stages of port development.

The recent significant shift toward supply chain management and customer orientation practices calls for the need to assess the effectiveness of port …

Removal Of Pharmaceuticals From Aqueous Solutions Using A1-Mg/Rgo Composite, Spencer Jones

Summer Community of Scholars Posters (RCEU and HCR Combined Programs)

No abstract provided.

A Proposed Method Of Correcting The Construction Entries In The 2006 Philippine Input-Output Table, Albert E. Lamberte, Krista Danielle Yu, Caesar Cororation

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The construction of national input-output (IO) tables follows internationally acceptable standards such as the United Nations Systems of National Accounts (UN SNA) and European System of Accounts (ESA). These standards are used to ensure tractability and coherence between country tables. The 2006 Philippine IO table published by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) assumes that the construction sector does not provide any input to the production of output for any economic sector. With the booming infrastructure development in the Philippines, this assumption that intermediate demand for construction output has a value of zero is unreasonable. This study proposes a corrective approach …

Projecting Regional Climate And Cropland Changes Using A Linked Biogeophysical-Socioeconomic Modeling Framework: 1 Model Description And An Equilibrium Application Over West Africa, Guiling Wang, Kazi Farzan Ahmed, Liangzhi You, Miao Yu, Jeremy S. Pal, Zhenming Ji

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Works

Agricultural land use alters regional climate through modifying the surface mass, energy, and momentum fluxes; climate influences agricultural land use through their impact on crop yields. These interactions are not well understood and have not been adequately considered in climate projections. This study tackles the critical linkages within the coupled natural-human system of West Africa in a changing climate based on an equilibrium application of a modeling framework that asynchronously couples models of regional climate, crop yield, multimarket agricultural economics, and cropland expansion. Using this regional modeling framework driven with two global climate models, we assess the contributions of land …

The Experimental Determination Of The Moment Of Inertia Of A Model Airplane, Michael Koken

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this project is to suggest that the moment of inertia for irregular shaped objects can easily be determined experimentally. The objects considered in this experiment were a solid wooden block and a model airplane. To ensure that the method and configuration is sufficient a wooden block with known moments of inertia was first tested, and the results from the experiment were compared to the known and accepted values. For this particular experiment, the periods were determined by timing how long 10 oscillations lasted for 10 different trials, and then taking the average of those 10 trials to …