Civil Engineering Commons^™

Schedule And Cost Performance Analysis And Prediction In Louisiana Dotd, Mahmoud Hamide

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Many construction projects in the United States are facing the risk of cost overrun and schedule delays. This is also happening here in the State of Louisiana. When these things happen, it causes cost overrun which can then be passed on to the tax payers and may also cause the state to take on less projects than they normal. Many researchers have studied the reasons behind both the cost overrun and the delays resulting in private firms, developing project management tools and best practices to prevent this risk. In this research, I aim to study the historical trend in 2912 …

Fluid Isolator, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

The reliability of concrete infrastructure is vital to ensuring daily life, as well as commerce, can progress without interruption. From the pavement of interstate highways to the driveways and sidewalks in a local neighborhood, concrete is expensive to install and often even more expensive, and intrusive, when it needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, to maintain functionality in winter climates concrete is heavily exposed to deicing salts. This not only affects the roads, driveways, and sidewalks where salt is applied directly, but many other areas such as parking and residential garages where vehicles (and people) will track salt along with water …

Netpoint®, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

The vast majority of construction scheduling software uses a combination of spreadsheets and Gantt charts for developing and depicting Critical Path Method (CPM) schedules. While this paradigm works for the expert scheduler, it is not conducive to collaboration, and it is prohibitively difficult for non-scheduling experts to understand.

NetPoint® provides a dynamic, visual interface conducive to touch and gestural input. Activities are drawn directly on a time-scale and may be placed on the same row or arranged automatically using codes or the WBS. Such control of the presentation makes it easier to communicate the plan to any type of audience. …

Exploring Compaction Effects On Cold In-Place Recycling Mixtures Using Emulsified Asphalt, Erica Ann Yeung

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cold in-place recycling (CIR) is a process that takes three to four inches of existing pavement surface and reuses 100% of it by milling and crushing it, adding asphalt emulsions and/or additives to it, before placing and re-compacting it. There is currently very little research regarding the interaction between the crushed aggregate and asphalt emulsion during the CIR process. In this study, the interactions between the combinations of crushed aggregates and asphalt emulsions were investigated along with select compaction metrics and a raveling performance test. The three types of aggregates included coated limestone, recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), and coated syenite. …

A Quantitative Model For Truck Parking Utilization With Hours Of Service Regulations, Alexis Christine Gaddy

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Continual growth in traffic volume on U.S. Highways and insufficient parking for commercial trucking vehicles has led to significant safety concerns for truck drivers. Hours of Service (HOS) regulations dictate driving and rest periods of truck drivers. When a truck driver must stop as designated by the HOS regulations and the nearest parking location is at capacity, the trucker must either continue driving past the HOS limit or park in an undesignated and possibly illegal or unsafe spot such as an off-ramp. The combination of these two variables play an important role in the safety of truck drivers on a …

The Effects Of Aggregate Size On Shear Dynamic Modulus From Torsion Bar, Farida Mahmud

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

PavementME Design is based on mechanistic-empirical principles, which take the properties of layer materials into account in predicting pavement responses and performance. Of these principles, dynamic modulus is one of the most important. Dynamic modulus measures strain in response to the applied stress, which mimics loads from traffic and the corresponding deformation of the asphalt pavement. The traditional test for dynamic modulus in the uniaxial configuration cannot be performed on field cores due to lift thickness. Owing to that, the Indirect Tension and torsion bar configuration were developed. This research will focus on the torsion bar, which requires specimens that …

A Tool To Evaluate Sustainability Of Pavement Maintenance Projects., Yibo Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pavement maintenance activities are widely regarded to be critical elements during pavement life cycle, different maintenance techniques have been used to restore or extend the service lives of pavements. However, the existing maintenance practices on pavement system have problems that impair the economic benefits, disturb the natural environment, and somewhat ignore the needs from stakeholders. To minimize these negative impacts, sustainability is an ideal way because it addresses the problems under Triple Bottom Line (TBL, refers to economy, environment, and society). Sustainability analysis within transportation or pavement industry has been studied in different countries, but the concept of sustainable pavement …

Smartvid.Io, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

The collection, organization, and retrieval of industrial media is a pervasive challenge that is especially glaring for companies in the AEC industry. Construction projects often generate large volumes of pictures & videos from the field for tracking progress and communicating between engineers, contractors, and subcontractors. It is not uncommon for field personnel to capture hundreds of photos per week on any given jobsite.

Smartvid.io is a cloud-based software solution designed for the specific needs of industrial media. The application’s internal deep-learning engines, collectively nicknamed VINNIE (for ‘Very Intelligent Neural Network for Insight and Evaluation’), use speech and image recognition to …

Hillman Composite Beam (Hcb®), Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

The Hillman-Composite Beam (HCB®), is an innovative structural member for use in highway and railroad bridges as well as marine facilities. The HCB is essentially a lightweight reinforced concrete beam strengthened and protected by a corrosion-resistant and resilient Fiberglass Reinforced Polymer (FRP) shell.

The beam is comprised of three main components, a concrete arch (compression reinforcement), an FRP bottom flange encapsulating steel strands tying the ends of the arch together (tension reinforcement) and the FRP shell. Galvanized Rebar “shear connectors” are used to make the beam composite with the concrete deck in the same manner as pre-stressed concrete beams.

The …

Industrial-Grade Monitoring Solution: Hoistcam, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Safety and productivity are top priorities for contractors and industrial operations. Improving either makes a company more profitable and competitive. Technology advancements that can do both are important for every company to consider. HoistCam^TM industrial-grade video monitoring solutions can improve employees’ productivity and workplace safety in the construction industries. HoistCam also improves efficiency of operations and reduces job site accidents resulting in substantial cost savings to a contractor.

HoistCam™ is an integrated, wireless video system. The use of HoistCam eliminates blind lifts, blind spots and can share the live video with anyone, anywhere with solid security and easy control. …

Transportation Engineering: Traffic Control Simulator, Sarah V. Hernandez, Karla Diaz-Corro, Taslima Akter, Magdalena Asborno, Fu Durandal

Civil Engineering Teaching and Learning

The purpose of these lesson plans is to introduce students to traffic signalization basics. Students will be lead through a series of mini-lectures on traffic control and signalization including a discussion on the limitations and benefits of traffic signalization. The lesson plans compliment a computer simulation “game” in which students act as manual operators for a single up to four by four gridded intersection. Students attempt to control the progression of signals to understand the relationship between signal timing and user delay. Through experimentation with the simulation, students generate a presentation discussing the benefits and drawbacks of signal timing and …

Dynamic Evaluation Of Transportation Structures With Ipod-Based Data Acquisition, Charles Riley

TREC Final Reports

This grant supported coursework and laboratory development and expanded research capacity, promoting (a) innovative learning activities that expose students to cutting-edge methods of bridge structural health and behavior monitoring and (b) research by our growing group of graduate students using developing technologies (specifically, shake tables and iPods with on-board accelerometers). As transportation infrastructure reaches and exceeds its design life, engineering efforts are turning to evaluation, rehabilitation and repair. Accurately assessing structures to determine their future performance and remaining life is becoming a primary job function for many civil engineers.

As part of this project, graduate students worked with the PI …

Design For An Aging Population, Trygve Faste, Kiersten Muenchinger

TREC Final Reports

Older Americans are increasing in numbers and addressing their needs through better public transportation design will improve their quality of life. This study sought to increase understanding of the obstacles faced by people with impairments in vision, hearing and/or mobility, which are common issues for older people, and generate physical product solutions. The research was conducted to conceptualize products, structures and services to reduce or eliminate these obstacles.

With a focus on the Eugene, OR, public bus system, elderly riders were surveyed and interviewed. Designers rode on buses noting what worked well and where problems arose. Five ride-along observations of …

A Household Daily Non-Mandatory Activity Participation And Duration Modeling Accounting For Person Level Budget Constraints, Ivana Vukovic

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A key methodological and behavioral innovative component in recent Activity-Based Models (ABMs) used for transportation planning is the household-level non-mandatory activity participation component. While traditional ABMs use a series of simple models to predict non-mandatory activity participation decisions in a sequential manner (which is often not correct), the Multiple Discrete Continuous Extreme Value (MDCEV) model can model both individual and joint non-mandatory activity participation and time allocation decisions in different out-of-home activities of all household members simultaneously. A key advantage of the MDCEV framework is that it accounts for complex intra-household interactions among different household members by allocating the total …

Optimizing Steel Railway Truss Bridge Health Monitoring, Ahmed Rageh, Daniel Linzell

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

Problems - Steel Railway Trusses • Aging • Large system – bridge AND railway • Labor intensive condition eval • Reported conditions: Stringer-to-floor beam connections [Haghani 2012] Stringer flange clip angle cracks [Haghani 2012] Unequal eyebars stress distribution [DelGrego 2008] Displaced eyebar pins [DelGrego 2008

Problems – Condition Evaluation • Visual inspection: Prescribed frequency Costly Subjected to human interpretation • Sensors: Focused on a single bridge Extensive array Costly

Influence Of Skew And Nonlinear Deck On Elastic Versus Inelastic Distribution Behavior And Ultimate Capacity Of Steel Girder Bridges, Fayaz Sofi, Joshua Steelman

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

Research Objectives

• Assessment of alternative load distribution methodologies for potential discrepancies that arise when evaluating distribution behavior of skewed steel girder bridges.

• Investigate the influence of skew and material nonlinearities (concrete cracking and steel yielding) on

• Load distribution behavior (elastic versus inelastic).

• System capacities (yielding and ultimate).

Summary and Conclusions • Influence of skew was examined on load distribution behavior, and nonlinear system-based capacities (yielding and ultimate) of composite steel girder bridges in presence of full material nonlinearities. In addition, assessment of two general definitions (beam-line and response fraction approaches) for quantifying load distribution behavior was …

Purdue Ect Report - Fourth Quarter 2016, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Fourth Quarter 2016

This is a quarterly report from the Purdue ECT.

Practical Considerations In Determining Timber Pile Depth Using The Sonic Echo Method, Ali F. Jwary

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Federal Highway Administration indicates that about 85,000 bridges in the United States have no original contract documents with information about the type, depth, geometry and material of their foundations (FHWA, 2010). Furthermore, the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) provides information about 86,133 bridges nationwide that are rated as scour critical because of unknown foundation condition. In New Mexico, there are more than 281 bridges with unknown foundations, which are owned by the New Mexico Department of Transportation; 71 of these are timber bridges. These data indicate a serious problem that needs decisive action to assess the unknown bridge foundation characteristics …

Bicp Global Bim Study - Lessons For Ireland’S Bim Programme, Barry Mcauley, Alan Hore, Roger West

Reports

The Construction IT Alliance (CitA) has been promoting the benefits of digitisation in the construction and engineering industry in Ireland since its formation back in 2002. Whilst the Alliance has always strived to ensure that its members are exposed to a wide spectrum of contemporary digital tools and processes, the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has dominated the focus of its activities over the past five years.

BIM can be described as a digital tool that facilitates everybody to better understand a building or structure through the use of a digital model which draws on a range of data …

Road Zipper™, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Construction work zones are growing in number around the world. The natural aging of existing roadway infrastructure ensures that more and more maintenance and rehabilitation will be required. Work zones, by their very definition, create two major problems that must be addressed in some way: safety and mobility. In the United States, highway work zones are responsible for almost 25% of all non-recurring congestion and 10% of overall congestion. Vehicle accidents are more common in work zones, and traffic congestion through work zones on urban arterials and freeways is often considered to be “unavoidable." To address these issues, ROAD ZIPPER™ …

Design And Implementation Of The Manitoba Constrained-Width Tall Wall Barrier, Harald P. Larsen, Scott K. Rosenbaugh, Andrew Pankratz, Diana Emerson, Jennifer Schmidt, Ronald K. Faller, Elizabeth M. Regier

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

Manitoba Infrastructure (MI) desired a new, tall concrete median barrier capable of satisfying the Test Level 5 (TL-5) safety requirements of the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH). It needed to fit within the footprint of an existing F-shape median barrier located in a narrow median. It also was required to address headlight glare from opposing traffic. The barrier was designed with a height of 1,250 mm, a maximum width of 600 mm and to resist a load of 845 kN applied at the top of the barrier. The Manitoba Constrained-Width, Tall Wall was optimised to withstand the design load …

Feasibility Determination Guide For The Road Diet Plus: A Five/Four-Lane To Two-Lane Road Diet, Michael Williams

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Road diets are a popular tool for corridor improvement. Road diets are normally defined as the conversion of a four-lane undivided road to a three-lane undivided road made up of two through lanes separated by a center two-way-left-turn-lane (known as a TWLTL). This new configuration has similar vehicular capacity, greater safety and frees up right-of-way for other uses.

This work examines the possibility of going one step, or one lane, further. What is the possibility of reducing five- or four-lane roads to two-lanes? If this is possible, what are the corridor characteristics within which this process would be feasible?

The …

A Practitioner's Guide To Urban Trip Generation, Kristina Marie Currans

TREC Project Briefs

In 1976, the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) compiled their first Handbook of guidelines for evaluating development-level transportation impacts. Decades later, these methods are still ubiquitously used across the US and Canada. Only recently, with the third edition of the ITE Trip Generation Handbook, have new data and approaches been adopted. In this study NITC researcher Kristina Currans takes aim at understanding issues inherent in the collection and application of ITE’s data and methods in various urban contexts. This technology transfer guide touches on the main findings from this work.

Field Evaluation Of Insync Adaptive Traffic Signal Control System In Multiple Environments Using Multiple Approaches, Md Shafikul Islam Shafik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the beginning of signalization of intersections, the management of traffic congestion is one of most critical challenges specifically for the city and urbanized area. Almost all the municipal agencies struggle to manage the perplexities associated with traffic congestion or signal control. The Adaptive Traffic Control System (ATCS), an advanced and major technological component of the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is considered the most dynamic and real-time traffic management technology and has potential to effectively manage rapidly varying traffic flow relative to the current state-of-the-art traffic management practices. InSync ATCS is deployed in multiple states throughout the US and expanding …

Transportation Network Companies: Influencers Of Transit Ridership Trends, Richard A. Mucci

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The major transit systems operating in San Francisco are San Francisco Municipal (MUNI), Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), and Caltrain. The system of interest for this paper is MUNI, in particular the bus and light rail systems. During the past decade transit ridership in the area has experienced diverging growth, with bus ridership declining while rail ridership is growing significantly (Erhardt et al. 2017). Our data show that between 2009 and 2016, MUNI rail ridership increases from 146,000 to 171,400, while MUNI bus ridership decreases from 520,000 to 450,000. Direct ridership models (DRMs) are used to determine what factors are …

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 …

Integrating The Macroscopic And Microscopic Traffic Safety Analysis Using Hierarchical Models, Qing Cai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Crash frequency analysis is a crucial tool to investigate traffic safety problems. With the objective of revealing hazardous factors which would affect crash occurrence, crash frequency analysis has been undertaken at the macroscopic and microscopic levels. At the macroscopic level, crashes from a spatial aggregation (such as traffic analysis zone or county) are considered to quantify the impacts of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, transportation demand and network attributes so as to provide countermeasures from a planning perspective. On the other hand, the microscopic crashes on a segment or intersection are analyzed to identify the influence of geometric design, lighting and …

Pavement Condition Index And Cost Of Ownership Analysis On Preventative Maintenance Projects In Kentucky, Dominic J. Michels

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has seen increasing use over time of preventative maintenance treatments on its asphalt pavements. Performance of two of the most prevalent treatments employed by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) – Thin Asphalt Overlay (Thinlay) and Microsurfacing – had yet to be examined in-depth through condition surveys. This thesis describes the data collection process to find the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) of each preventative maintenance site in Kentucky from the last 10 years. With PCI from each site, deterioration curves were generated for each treatment – providing the estimated life extension benefit of each. The analysis then …

Improving Safety Under Reduced Visibility Based On Multiple Countermeasures And Approaches Including Connected Vehicles, Yina Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The effect of low visibility on both crash occurrence and severity is a major concern in the traffic safety field. Different approaches were utilized in this research to analyze the effects of fog on traffic safety and evaluate the effectiveness of different fog countermeasures. First, a "Crash Risk Increase Indicator (CRII)" was proposed to explore the differences of crash risk between fog and clear conditions. A binary logistic regression model was applied to link the increase of crash risk with traffic flow characteristics. Second, a new algorithm was proposed to evaluate the rear-end crash risk under fog conditions. Logistic and …

Developing Warrants For Designing Continuous Flow Intersection And Diverging Diamond Interchange, Meshal Almoshaogeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main goal of this dissertation is to have better understanding of design and operation of the Continuous Flow Intersection (CFI) and Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI) - as well as numerous factors that affect signalized intersection and interchange performance due to increased left-turn demand. The dissertation attempts to assess the need and justification to redesign intersections and interchanges to improve their efficiency. And to that end, an extensive literature review of existing studies was done with the prime aim of perceiving the principles of these innovative designs and determining the methodology to-be-followed, in order to reach the study's core. Accordingly, …