Civil Engineering Commons^™

Construction Of Mse Wall Using Tire Shred-Sand Mixture As Backfill (Spr-3470), Monica Prezzi, Varenya Kumar Duvvuru Mohan

JTRP Other Publications and Reports

A large number of waste tires are generated each year throughout the world. Instead of disposing these tires in landfills, they can be used beneficially in road construction, MSE walls or structural fills that require large quantities of material. Such use of tires not only saves the costs of landfilling, but also provides certain desirable mechanical properties. The focus of this research was on determining important geotechnical properties of tire shred-sand mixtures required for their use as a lightweight backfill for MSE walls. Accordingly, the shear strength and pullout characteristics of tire shred-sand mixtures at various mixing ratios were determined …

Development Of Self-Stressing System For Bridge Application With Emphasis On Precast Panel Deck System, Marcelo Ferreira Da Silva

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

Steel girder bridges often utilize continuity over the pier to reduce interior forces on the spans. In continuous structures with composite concrete decks, the location of maximum negative bending moment is over the interior supports. This moment produces tensile stresses in the concrete deck and compressive stress in the bottom flanges of the girders. The tensile stress in the deck leads to cracking which allow intrusion of moisture and road salt, causing corrosion of the reinforcement and supporting girders. Continued maintenance is required to forestall the deterioration; however, replacement of the deck is eventually required.

To overcome this problem, a …

Utilizing Technology To Increase The Recycled Content Of Asphalt Mix Designs, Nicholas Ricketts

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

This directed project examined the idea that increasing the amount of recycled asphalt product in road construction will result in a comparable performance to the current levels of recycled asphalt product in today’s pavement. A critical review of literature is structured in four areas: describing the need (financial and environmental) for the increased use of recycled materials, describing how others have addressed the issue and technology needed for increasing the use of recycled content, describing how some contractors have created the technology needed, and finally describing the direction needed in order to encourage customers and government agencies to embrace the …

Virtual Microstructure Generation Of Asphaltic Mixtures, Mohammad Haft-Javaherian

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

This thesis describes the development and application of a virtual microstructure generator incorporated with post-processing image analysis methods that can be used to fabricate a virtual, two-dimensional microstructure of asphaltic mixtures. In the generator, geometrical characteristics such as aggregate gradation, aggregate area fraction, angularity, orientation, and elongation were used to transform data from a three-dimensional (3D) mixture into its two-dimensional (2D) microstructure. The 2D virtual microstructures were generated from real 3D mixture information of asphaltic composites. Resulting virtual microstructures were then compared to real cross-sectional microstructure images obtained from actual samples for validation. Comparison presented a good agreement between the …

The Role Of Eddies Inside Pores In The Transition From Darcy To Forchheimer Flows, Kuldeep Chaudhary, M. Bayani Cardenas, Wen Deng, Philip C. Bennett

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We studied the role of intra-pore eddies, from viscous to inertial flows, in modifying continuum-scale flow inside pores. Flow regimes spanning Reynolds Number Re ∼ 0 to 1350 are divided into three zones - one zone follows Darcy flow, and the other two zones describe non-Darcy or Forchheimer flow. During viscous flows, i.e., Re < 1, stationary eddies occupy about 1/5 of the pore volume. Eddies grow when Re > 1, and their growth leads to the deviation from Darcy's law and the emergence of Forchheimer flow manifested as a characteristic reduction in the apparent hydraulic conductivity K_a. The reduction in K_a is due to the narrowing of the flow channel which is …

Regeneration Of Carbon Aerogel Exhausted In Water Purification, Sanjay Tewari

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Carbon has been used electrochemically in various forms for water treatment and the carbon aerogel is one of them. Carbon Aerogels (CA) are used as electrodes due to their high surface capacity and high electrical conductivity. They are also known as Carbon Nanofoams (CNF). CA electrodes attract oppositely charged ions that are nearby. This concept is known as Capacitive De-Ionization (CDI). The use of CA in CDI for water purification is well documented, but not much work has been done on regeneration of CA electrodes. Once saturated, these electrodes lose their ability to adsorb additional ions and it must be …

The Marked Tree Site: Evaluation Of Geosynthetic Reinforcements In Flexible Pavements, Taylor Mitchell Goldman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This document presents findings from a three-year, full-scale, field research project aimed at determining the benefits of using geosynthetic reinforcements to improve the performance of flexible pavements constructed over poor subgrade soils. The test site, known as the Marked Tree site, is an 850-ft (258-m) long segment of low-volume frontage road along Highway 63 in the town of Marked Tree, Arkansas. The site, constructed in 2005, consists of seventeen 50-ft (15.2-m) long flexible pavement test sections with various types of geosynthetic reinforcements (woven and nonwoven geotextiles, and geogrids), which were all positioned at the base-subgrade interface, and two different nominal …

Influence Of Recycled Asphalt Shingles On Asphalt Binder Content, Mixture Stiffness, And Laboratory Rutting Performance, Joshua David King

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) is a technology in which pavement costs can be reduced significantly and pavement properties may be enhanced. Also, incorporating shingles into pavements reduces the impacts of waste shingles in landfills, preserving our environment. However, for this new technology to be practical for implementation, a better understanding of how the ground shingles affect the properties of the asphalt is necessary. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of recycled asphalt shingles on asphalt binder content, mixture stiffness, and laboratory rutting performance. For this project, shingles were added to hot mix asphalt mixtures at 2.5, …

Development Of A Structured Concrete Thermocline Thermal Energy Storage System, Bradley M. Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The past couple of decades have shown a concern when considering the way the world obtains its power. The focus has been switching from fossil fuels that have been used for hundreds of years to renewable energy sources, such as the sun. Solar energy is readily and infinitely available for harnessing. One problem with solar energy, though, is its inability to be used during the night time and during cloud covered weather. A solution to this problem is the use of energy storage mechanisms. For solar plants that use solar thermal energy (concentrating solar power plants), thermal energy storage (TES) …

Using Gis-Based, Hitchcock Algorithm To Optimize Parking Allocations For Special Events, Wayne A. Sarasua, Prashant Malisetty, Mashrur Chowdhury

Publications

Clemson, a small college town in South Carolina, deals with a massive over-saturation of its transportation system during special events, especially during home football games, resulting in total system failure. This research has developed a methodology to optimize parking, using a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based transshipment algorithm, and it has produced great time savings compared with the individual, “manual” efforts of thousands of drivers attempting to find spaces where available. As such, this research constitutes an effective implementation of the Hitchcock Transportation Algorithm for solving a transshipment problem applied to parking lot distribution. Because the Hitchcock Algorithm considers the network …

Development And Application Of A Three-Dimensional Probabilistic Wind-Borne Debris Trajectory Model, James Grayson

All Theses

This research presents a probabilistic debris trajectory model adapted from current 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DoF) deterministic models, in which the aleatoric (inherent) uncertainty is explicitly considered in the proposed probabilistic model. While the inherent randomness in the debris flight trajectory is irreducible due to the wind turbulence, variation in wind direction, gustiness of the wind event and so forth, the proposed probabilistic model seeks to address these uncertainties through Monte Carlo simulations with the appropriate statistical distributions applied to the governing equations of motion of the debris. Verification of the probabilistic debris trajectory model is performed through an analytical and visual comparison …

The Integration Of Building Information Modeling (Bim) Into Civil Engineering Curricula, Jason Cooksey

All Theses

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is an emerging technology used in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) industry. The proliferation of BIM usage across the industry has been swift and prolific. Academia has lagged behind the adoption rate of the industry by not producing enough students with BIM exposure. Thus, the question is whether civil engineering curricula should provide an understanding of BIM technology to students entering the design and construction profession. The immediate objective of this research is to determine if it is important to provide exposure of BIM to undergraduate or graduate students in the civil engineering curricula and if so to …

Determining Transverse Design Forces For A Next-D Bridge Using 3d Finite Element Modeling, Robert Funcik

All Theses

This thesis looks into the use of 3D Finite Element Modeling to determine the transverse design forces for short-span bridges built using the Northeast Extreme Tee with integral deck (NEXT-D) beam. Models were built using either solid elements or shell elements to represent the bridge deck, and the results were compared. The stiffness of the shear keys were taken into account during the modeling process. Results were compared to the AASHTO strip width method for design bridge decks, and the results showed that the strip width method would not be adequate for the design of NEXT-D bridges, so specific live …

A Methodology For Estimating And Comparing The Lifecycles Of High-Build And Conventional Waterborne Pavement Markings On Primary And Secondary Roads In South Carolina, Joseph Robertson

All Theses

Highway pavement markings constitute a vital component of roadway transportation systems and provide crucial visual cues for the basic driver task of following the road. In 2008, the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) initiated a multi-year study to evaluate pavement markings on non-interstate primary and secondary roads in South Carolina. This thesis discusses development of a methodology for estimating and comparing the lifecycles of high-build and conventional waterborne pavement markings based on retroreflectivity levels. The methodology was developed using nearly 3 years of field data from 66 sites throughout South Carolina. This thesis provides an overview of data collection …

Fault-Tree Model For Bridge Collapse Risk Analysis, Caitlyn Davis-Mcdaniel

All Theses

Bridges are vital components of the United States surface transportation infrastructure and, moreover, support the growth of our nation's economy. However, over the past few decades the design capacity and service condition of many bridges in the U.S. has been challenged. Numerous incidents of bridge collapse call for an urgent need to develop a systematic method of assessing the failure risks and identifying the initiating events that can lead to a bridge collapse. This thesis presents a process of bridge failure risk analysis through fault-tree modeling and identification of specific countermeasures, to minimize failure risk, related to structural health monitoring …

Analyzing Of Tort Claims And Lawsuits Against South Carolina Department Of Transportation Through Classification And Regression Tree Analysis, Sara Familian

All Dissertations

After losing sovereign immunity in 1985, SCDOT employees now focus a significant amount of time in processing tort claims and lawsuits filed against the agency. This is an important issue for transportation agencies considering the fact that money spent defending tort claims and lawsuits, is no longer available for safety and mobility improvements on the state highway system.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) processes approximately one thousand claims per year and is engaged in nearly one hundred lawsuits per year. SCDOT has paid just over a half million ($523,607) to settle on 1007 claims - approximately 1/3 of …

Water Quality Models For Stormwater Runoff In Two Lincoln, Nebraska Urban Watersheds, Jake Fisher

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

Water quality monitoring was conducted in two urban watersheds (Colonial Hills and Taylor Park) located in southeast Lincoln, NE over a three year period spanning from October 2008 through September 2011. In-line probes continuously measured for turbidity, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature while other water quality constituents were analyzed for discrete water samples collected using grab and automatic sampling techniques. The water quality data was used to calculate event mean concentrations (EMCs) for sixteen storm events sampled over the duration of the project period. Three types of stormwater quality multiple linear regression models were developed for the estimation of …

Water Quality Monitoring Of An Urban Stream For Total Maximum Daily Load Assessment, Jeffrey K. Mihulka

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

The purpose of this research project was to assess the water quality of an urban stream for total maximum daily load assessment in Omaha, Nebraska. This was accomplished by sampling the water quality at four different sites. These sites included sampling upstream, within, and downstream of the city. These samples were conducted throughout 2010 and 2011.

The results showed that concentrations of Escherichia coli (E. coli) are routinely above established criteria for the state of Nebraska. Concentrations of E. coli that exist in the Papillion Creek Watershed upstream of the City of Omaha have also been shown to be above …

Hydraulic Conductivity Of Environmentally Controlled Landfill Liner Test Pad, Camila Maldonado Soria Galvarro

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Laboratory and field hydraulic conductivity tests have been conducted on soil samples to develop and verify the zone of acceptance for liner placement. Compaction testing and flexible wall hydraulic conductivity tests were performed on fifteen (15) samples to determine the dry unit weight, molding water content, and laboratory permeability. Five of the fifteen samples were compacted at Standard proctor energy, five were compacted at 75 percent of Standard proctor energy, and five were compacted at 50 percent of Standard proctor energy. The results obtained from the laboratory portion of the testing program (the zone of acceptance) are presented. A ten …

Effects Of High-Impedance-Contrast Boundary Upon Multi-Modal Seismic Surface Wave Data, Prajwol Tamrakar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Synthetic studies and analyses of an experimental dataset were conducted to address the use of Rayleigh-type surface waves for estimation of shear wave velocity (VS) profiles of shallow bedrock sites. The shallow bedrock presents a high impedance contrast boundary which causes surface wave energy to be partitioned to higher modes. Idealized studies of hypothetical datasets and root-mean-squared calculations of error surfaces showed that if reliable dispersion data are available over a broad frequency spectrum, the VS profile can be recovered using the fundamental mode alone. However, when dispersion data are limited to a relatively narrow frequency band representing what might …

Influence Of Warm Mix Additives Upon High Rap Asphalt Mixes, William Rogers

All Dissertations

This study was conducted to determine the effect of warm mix (WMA) modifiers on asphalt mixes containing high percentages of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Mixes were created using three aggregate sources, four RAP percentages (0%, 20%, 35%, and 50%), and three warm mix modifiers (HMA, zeolite, and Sasobit®). Base binders from the same source (PG 64 -22, 58 -28, 52 -28) and one rejuvenator were used for each mix to ensure the final blended binder grade was at least PG 64 -10.
Specimens were created at HMA or suggested WMA temperatures and tested for rut depth, indirect tensile strength (ITS), …

Laser Particulate Counter Calibration To A Micro-Orifice Uniform-Deposit Impactor, Benjamen Fredrich Seely

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In semi-arid regions, like southwest Idaho, snowmelt is a significant source of water. Anthropogenic activities continue to increase demand for this vital natural resource. Water resource managers must be able to quantify both the timing and quality of snowmelt. Atmospheric contaminants can deposit on the snow, altering its physical properties. For example, deposition of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) can cause snow to darken, thereby increasing radiative forcing on the snowpack, potentially causing a change in snowmelt timing.

This research is to calibrate a laser particulate counter (LPC) to a federal reference standard. The LPC provides real-time PM concentration data and …

Evaluating The Cost-Effectiveness Of Roadside Culvert Treatments, Francisco Daniel B. De Albuquerque, Dean L. Sicking, Ronald K. Faller, Karla A. Lechtenberg

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Roadside cross-drainage culverts have been found to affect vehicle accident injury levels. As a result, highway designers have commonly used three safety treatments to protect errant motorists from striking culvert openings. These safety treatments have included: culvert extension, guardrail installation, and the application of safety grating. However, the identification of the most appropriate safety treatment for roadside culverts may be challenging; accident costs may dramatically change under different road and traffic characteristics. The purpose of this study was to estimate accident costs for a wide range of road and traffic scenarios and then define the safest treatment (i.e., treatment with …

Dimensional Stability Of Geosynthetic Clay Liners In Landfill Applications, Gregory R. Olsen

Master's Theses

An investigation was conducted related to the dimensional stability of geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) in landfill applications. Multiple occurrences of panel separation of overlap seams in GCLs have been documented; however, explanation for the relative contribution of various mechanisms causing shrinkage has been limited. A systematic test program was conducted to determine the effects of a variety of conditions on GCL dimensional stability.

Effects of initial moisture content, permeant type, and overburden pressure were tested by subjecting various GCL products to wet-dry cycles and measuring the dimensional change with each cycle. Different GCL types were each tested under various combinations …

Influence Of Pavement Type On Near Surface Air Temperature, David Duncan

All Theses

Effects from an Urban Heat Island (UHI) can be detrimental to the world as a whole. This study examines a collection of permeable and conventional pavements in South Carolina to determine how they relate to near surface air temperatures, which is an indicator of the UHI impact of an area. Three locations were used, each with a different selection of pavement type. Permeable and conventional forms of both asphalt and concrete were tested, as were some open graded friction course samples. Air temperatures were measured and recorded from the pavement surface up to an elevation of 60-in.
Multiple days of …

Temporal Pier Scour Evolution Under Stepped Hydrographs, Mark Schillinger

All Theses

The present study was aimed at measuring the scour hole profile at bridge piers under clear water scour. Scour tests were performed under both steady state flow and under stepped hydrographs. Multiple smaller flood events were run to determine how flood history affects scour hole development. Various equilibrium scour depth equations and proposed temporal scour models were compared. The similarity of the scour hole profiles with time and flow history were evaluated.
Experiments were conducted in a 14.8 m long, 1.19 m wide, 1.22 m deep rectangular flume with a model bridge pier. A uniform sediment bed (d₅₀= …

Analysis And Parameterization Of The Flight Of Ember Generation Experiments, Hillary Harris

All Theses

This thesis presents a study on ember flight modeling based on a series of wind tunnel experiments. The purpose of these experiments and the data collected was to provide the input conditions for an ember flight model in order to compare and validate the model predictions. An analysis was performed which determined the sensitivity of model predictions of downwind mass distribution to uncertainties in the model input parameters.
From the wind tunnel experiments, flight distances were measured and characteristic ember size distributions were obtained from the collected data. A flight model was developed based on standard models published in the …

Robust Design And Monitoring Tools For Sustainable And Resilient Structural Design And Infrastructure Management, Sarah Dalton

All Theses

Structural systems are subject to inherent uncertainties due to the variability in many hard-to-control `noise factors' that include but are not limited to external loads, material properties, and construction workmanship. Two design methodologies have been widely accepted in the practicing engineering realm to manage the variability associated with operational structures: Allowable Stress Design (ASD) and Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD). These traditional approaches explicitly recognize the presence of uncertainty; however, they do not take robustness against this uncertainty into consideration. Overlooking this robustness against uncertainty in the structural design process has two drawbacks. First, the design may not satisfy …

Probabilistic Approaches To Stability And Deformation Problems In Braced Excavation, Zhe Luo

All Dissertations

This dissertation is aimed at applying probabilistic approaches to evaluating the basal-heave stability and the excavation-induced wall and ground movements for serviceability assessment of excavation in clays. The focuses herein are the influence of spatial variability of soil parameters and small sample size on the results of the probabilistic analysis, and Bayesian updating of soil parameters using field observations in braced excavations.
Simplified approaches for reliability analysis of basal-heave in a braced excavation in clay considering the effect of spatial variability in random fields are presented. The proposed approaches employ the variance reduction technique (or more precisely, equivalent variance method) …

Fluid Mud Underflows In Coastal Dredge Disposal, Mijanur Chowdhury

All Dissertations

This manuscript presents the results of a thorough theoretical and experimental investigation on fluid mud underflows generated in a typical coastal dredge disposal operation. The main goal of this investigation is to understand the propagation dynamics of fluid mud underflows that depends upon a number of factors, including: concentrations, rheological properties and released configurations of fluid mud. Laboratory experiments were conducted with different initial fluid mud concentrations in three different experimental set-ups: rectangular flume for constant volume release, rectangular flume for constant flux release, and a square pool for radial constant flux release of fluid mud. The experiments in the …