Civil Engineering Commons^™

Feasibility Of Using Graphene Oxide Nanoflake (Gonf) As Additive Of Cement Composite, Jinwoo An, Matthew Mcinnis, Wonseok Chung, Boo Hyun Nam

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The object of this study is to investigate the feasibility of ball-milled graphene oxide nanoflakes (GONFs) produced by a mechanochemical process as an additive in Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)-based paste and concrete. Different percentages of GONFs (0.01–1 wt. %) were added in OPC paste mix to find the optimum content of GONF in GONF-combined cement composites. To investigate the effect of the changes in the mix design on OPC paste, two mix design methods were employed: (1) Dry-mix, where GONFs and OPC powders are mixed prior to paste formation and (2) Wet-mix, where sonicated GONFs solution is used as the …

Helipad Design And Best Practices, Andrew Swanson

Purdue Road School

Heated Permeable Concrete Helipads for Safety and Surety - The latest in helipad construction technologies has combined with aeronautical consultant-guided design to create helipads that are safe and environmentally friendly and that meet the guidelines of the FAA, state, local agencies, and first responders. Join us to learn about heated permeable concrete helipads, which offer safety to flight crew, patient, and helicopter by eliminating ice and snow on the pad and pathways.

Rehabilitation Of Central Avenue Historic Stone Arch, Katlyn Shergalis

Purdue Road School

Indianapolis’s Central Avenue Historic Arch over Fall Creek was in immediate need of rehabilitation. Due to the historic nature of the structure, coordination was required with all of the state agencies to resolve issues and conflicts while maintaining the original integrity. We will share lessons learned as they relate to the complexity of the design with regard to the historic arch, the mapping of stones, and the plan details required to identify all features.

Incorporating Ada And Aps Work On Traffic Contracts: Design Guidance And Construction Standards, Joseph Bruno

Purdue Road School

The presentation provides an overview of the Indiana Department of Transportation's design guidance and construction standards on curb ramps and accessible pedestrian signals. The presentation also summarizes the Indiana Department of Transportation's policy on when existing curb ramps and pedestrian pushbuttons must be upgraded as part of a traffic construction contract and when an upgrade is optional.

When To Use Midwest Guardrail System (Mgs) W-Beam Guardrail, Katherine Smutzer

Purdue Road School

In this session we will discuss when MGS w-beam guardrail should be placed on state and local projects and review pertinent INDOT Design Memos released over the past year.

The Quest For Hydrological Signatures: Effects Of Data Transformation On Bayesian Inference Of Watershed Models, Mojtaba Sadegh, Morteza Shakeri Majd, Jairo Hernandez, Ali Torabi Haghighi

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Hydrological models contain parameters whose values cannot be directly measured in many field-scale projects, hence need to be meaningfully inferred through calibration against historical records. Much progress has been made in development of efficient search algorithms in order to find optimal parameter values and their underlying uncertainty distributions. Yet, relatively little is known about the effects of calibration data (or error residual) transformations on the identifiability of model parameters and reliability of model predictions. Effects of calibration data transformations on the posterior parameter distribution and predictive capability of two parsimonious hydrological models are analyzed herein. Our results depict that calibration …

A Digital Image Analysis Of Gravel Aggregate Using Ct Scanning Technique, Jiangfeng Wu, Linbing Wang, Yue Hou, Haocheng Xiong, Yang Lu, Lei Zhang

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Particle shape was one of the most important factors which affects the gravel aggregate’s properties. It was also one of the important factors that directly affects the performance of asphalt pavements. In this paper, the gravel aggregate of quartzite was studied by using the industrial CT instrument. MATLAB was used to capture the aggregate slice properties including reverse color, median filtering, noise reduction, binarization and so on. The 3D aggregate model was reconstructed by using the software of MIMICS. The three-dimensional model of the aggregate was further optimized. The best fitting cuboid, cylinder, cone and sphere information of the aggregate …

Educating And Developing Construction Professionals: Integrating The Co-Op Program With Construction Engineering Education, Yong Bai

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Bs News March/April

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Framework For Assessing The Economic Feasibility Of Leed For Homes Guidelines For Water Efficiency, Mohamed Abdel-Raheem, Jennifer Lima

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Sustainable practices have been on the rise during the last decade. From recycling to alternative energy sources, many studies have been conducted to incorporate green practices into people’s daily lives. However, cost efficiency can be a significant deterrent to begin or continue these practices. Homes are responsible for the consumption of a large portion of water in the United States. As such there is a need for more studies directed toward the assessment of the practical implementation of water efficiency. This study follows LEED v4 for homes guidelines to examine the feasibility of adopting green practices for water reduction. The …

Occupational Noise Dose Reduction Via Behavior Modification Using In-Ear Dosimetry Among Usaf Personnel Exposed To Continuous Impulse Noise, Jesse A. Trawick

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to investigate the use of in-ear noise dosimetry and worker feedback to reduce noise exposures among combat arms instructors and heavy equipment operators in the Air Force. Specifically, this thesis sought to determine how effectively hearing protection devices (HPDs) are being utilized currently, and whether providing at-ear noise exposure data to workers results in reduced noise exposures or changes in worker attitude. These questions were addressed by performing a six-month field study using dosimeters to record worker noise exposures under HPDs. Subjects served as their own control, receiving feedback in only the latter half …

Advancing Distributed Data Management For The Hydroshare Hydrologic Information System, Hong Yi, Ray Idaszak, Michael Stealey, Chris Calloway, Alva L. Couch, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

HydroShare (https://www.hydroshare.org) is an online collaborative system to support the open sharing of hydrologic data, analytical tools, and computer models. Hydrologic data and models are often large, extending to multi-gigabyte or terabyte scale, and as a result, the scalability of centralized data management poses challenges for a system such as HydroShare. A distributed data management framework that enables distributed physical data storage and management in multiple locations thus becomes a necessity. We use the iRODS (Integrated Rule-Oriented Data System) data grid middleware as the distributed data storage and management back end in HydroShare. iRODS provides a unified virtual file system …

Two-Stage Concrete As A Sustainable Production, Hakim Salem Abdelgader, Ali Said Ahmed El-Baden, H. A. Abdurrahman, A. S.M. Abdul Awal

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Two-stage concrete (TSC) is a sustainable concrete which is produced by forcing a flowable cement grout mixture through the voids of a skeletal mass made of compacted preplaced aggregates. From the technical and economic aspects, TSC is particularly useful for construction and repair of concrete structures especially foundations, underwater construction, nuclear reactors, concrete dams, heritage structures and in constructions with closely spaced reinforcement. TSC differs from ordinary concrete in that it contains a higher proportion of stone aggregate and the aggregate stays in point-to-point contact as placed. Thus, the mechanical characteristics of the TSC in failure conditions are distinctly different …

Analysis Of Cross-Cultural Training Provided To United States Air Force Civil Engineer Officers, And How Engineering Efforts Are Affected On Overseas Air Force Installations: A Delphi Study, Bianca E. Boney

Theses and Dissertations

U.S. military personnel perform a wide array of roles and missions at locations all over the world. As such, this research investigates and describes the current process of cultural training, its adequacy, and examines how cultural differences and collaboration efforts may impede or enhance project management and engineering efforts. This qualitative analysis is conducted through a Delphi study of U.S. Air Force officers consisting of 15 subject matter experts (SMEs) with experiences from 13 different countries. All reported to have daily to weekly interactions with locals and foreign partners due to job requirements; however, no set standard of cultural training …

Stabilization Of Lead (Pb) And Zinc (Zn) In Contaminated Rice Paddy Soil Using Starfish: A Preliminary Study, Deok Hyun Moon, Inseong Hwang, Agamemnon Koutsospyros, Kyung Hoon Cheong, Yong Sik Ok, Won Hyun Ji, Jeong Hun Park

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) contaminated rice paddy soil was stabilized using natural (NSF) and calcined starfish (CSF). Contaminated soil was treated with NSF in the range of 0-10 wt.% and CSF in the range of 0-5 wt.% and cured for 28 days. Toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test was used to evaluate effectiveness of starfish treatment. Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX) analyses were conducted to investigate the mechanism responsible for effective immobilization of Pb and Zn. Experimental results suggest that NSF and CSF treatments effectively immobilize Pb and Zn in treated rice paddy soil. TCLP levels for …

Fully Probabilistic Analysis Of Frp-To-Concrete Bonded Joints Considering Model Uncertainty, Dongming Zhang, Xiang-Lin Gu, Qian-Qian Yu, Hongwei Huang, Baolin Wan, Cheng Jiang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This work presents a full reliability-based analysis framework for fiber-reinforced polymer(FRP)-to-concrete bonded joints considering model uncertainty. Eight frequently used bond strength models for FRP-to-concrete bonded joints were calibrated by defining a model factor. A total of 641 well-documented tests were considered. Four of the eight models had model factors that correlated with input design parameters and the systematic part of the model factor was removed by a regression equation f. By doing this type of characterization, all eight model factors could be comparatively uniform and described by lognormally distributed random variables. The merit of the uniform model uncertainties …

Evaluation Of Continuous Monitoring As A Tool For Municipal Stormwater Management Programs, Walter M. Mcdonald, Randel L. Dymond, Vinod K. Lohani

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the uncertainty attributable to inadequate temporal sampling of stormwater discharge and water quality, and understand its implications for meeting monitoring objectives relevant to municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4s). A methodology is presented to evaluate uncertainty attributable to inadequate temporal sampling of continuous stormflow and water quality, and a case study demonstrates the application of the methodology to six small urban watersheds (0.8-6.8 km²) and six large rural watersheds (30-16,192 km²) in Virginia. Results indicate the necessity of high-frequency continuous monitoring for accurately capturing multiple monitoring objectives, including …

Electro-Kinetic Remediation Processes -- A Brief Overview And Selected Applications, Chandra Mouli Tummala, Sanjay Tewari

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this growing world the need for in-situ remediation has grown importance for various reasons. In-situ remediation is the application of remediation in the subsurface – as compared to ex-situ remediation, which applies to media readily accessible above ground and many times involves excavation and disruption of the soil. In-situ remediation may be applied in the unsaturated/vadoze zone or in saturated soils and groundwater. Anthropogenic activities (municipal and industrial) have resulted in contamination in subsurface soil/water environment. There are several in-situ remediation methods for example bio-remediation, thermal desorption, soil vapor extraction, and soil flushing just to name a few.

The …

Spot-R By Triax, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Triax’s Spot-r system was developed to tackle the construction industry’s unique safety and productivity challenges, stemming from a demonstrated lack of total jobsite visibility and automatically collected, easily accessible field data. Spot-r by Triax combines a proprietary mesh network with sensor technology to record and transmit previously unattainable workforce and equipment location, activity and safety data within a defined area – all in real-time.

The Spot-r network is installed around the site and operates in a 900 MHz network, with a subset using a cellular connection to forward Spot-r sensor data to Triax’s custom, cloud dashboard. In the hazardous construction …

Effects Of Short-Term Aging On Asphalt Binders And Hot Mix Asphalt At Elevated Temperatures And Extended Aging Time, Rubben Lolly, Waleed Zeiada, Mena Souliman, Kamil Kaloush

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The production process of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) causes a short term aging (STA) to asphalt binder due to the heating of both asphalt binder and aggregates before mixing together. Laboratory protocols are followed to simulate the STA conditions for both asphalt binders and asphalt mixtures. STA protocols expose asphalt binders or asphalt mixtures to specific aging temperature for a specific period of time to produce stiffening that is similar to that of actual production conditions. Successful construction of HMA in cold season/regions may require elevating the production temperature of HAM to achieve proper compaction of HMA layers. Producing HMA …

Investigation Of Morphological Changes In Small Coastal Rivers During Flood, Tanzina Afrin

LSU Master's Theses

The delivery of fluvial sediment to coastal margins is one of the major concerns for river and coastal morphodynamics. Relevant research has primarily focused on large rivers that transport substantial sediment load and thus are responsible for building deltaic landscapes. However, less research is concentrated on small coastal rivers. A need exists to better understand the sediment dynamics in small coastal rivers that have different backwater regimes than their larger counterparts. The main objective of this research was to examine the influence of backwater on the morphodynamics of a small coastal meandering river during a large flood event. The investigation …

Exploring The Determinants Of Vulnerable Road Users’ Crash Severity In State Roads, Álvaro Caviedes

PSU Transportation Seminars

Part of the Student Presentations from TRB

Pedestrians and bicyclists are the most vulnerable road users and suffer the most severe consequences when crashes take place. An extensive literature is available for crash severity in terms of driver safety, but fewer studies have explored non-motorized users’ crash severity. Furthermore, most research efforts have examined pedestrian and bicyclist crash severity in urban areas. This study focuses on state roads (mostly outside major urban areas) and aims to identify contributing risk factors of fatal and severe crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in state roads. The results seem to suggest that besides improvements …

Epics Global Service Learning Pedagogy Explored For Construction Engineering Education, Brandon Fulk, Seyedali Ghahari, Makrand Hastak

Engagement & Service-Learning Summit

EPICS is a service-learning design program in which teams of students partner with local and global community organizations to address human, community, and environmental needs. EPICS is an academic program in which teams of Purdue students partner with local not-for-profit community organizations to provide technology solutions. Team Ecuador is a division of the non-profit EPICS program at Purdue University. Since 2012 Team Ecuador has been partnered with FEVI, a non-governmental organization, to develop education infrastructure in Lumbisi. The current focus of Team Ecuador is to design, fundraise, and construct and Education Center for the community of Lumbisi. We are working …

Nandi Clean Kitchen Study, Oliver S. Schroeder, Mina Mohsenian

Engagement & Service-Learning Summit

No abstract provided.

System Nonlinear Performance Of Low-Rise Buildings Under Database-Assisted Hurricane Loads, Jing He

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Light-frame wood buildings account for over 95% of all residential structures in the U.S, of which the majority are designed as low-rise buildings. These low-rise residential buildings in the U.S. have performed unsatisfactorily and are the largest source of the damage and fatality during the past extreme wind events. To deepen the understanding and reduce the vulnerability of the infrastructures, the accurate prediction of the hurricane loss has been an urgent need, and the hurricane catastrophe models are developed in response. However, the current hurricane catastrophe models are focused on the economy loss estimation rather than investigating the root causes …

Purdue’S Biowall, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Mechanical ventilation, energy recovery ventilation, and infiltration (air that leaks into a building) are commonly used to introduce fresh air. These are all valid approaches, but a living plant-based filter is an innovative complement to these traditional technologies. A Biowall has the potential to improve indoor air quality while reducing the quantity of air needed for ventilation, creating the potential for energy savings. Figure 1 shows a Biowall prototype being evaluated in the ReNEWW House, a research home located near the Purdue University campus (http://www.renewwhouse.com/).

Mdp (Machine Drive Power) Intelligent Compaction Technology, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Caterpillar developed MDP (Machine Drive Power) technology to fill this gap. Rather than an accelerometer and vibratory drum, it uses the principle of rolling resistance to provide indications of soil stiffness. This allows it to perform more reliably on cohesive and granular soils with less variability than accelerometer systems. It also means that the technology can be used on both vibratory and static drum compactors, which are often used on larger sites. While the technology is quite useful on its own, it is even better as a complementary technology to the existing accelerometer-based systems. Contractors who use vibratory soil compactors …

Spatial Delineation Of Corrosion Zones For Metal Culverts Based On Coastal Louisiana Soil Characteristics, Sanjay Tewari, Francis Manning

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Corrosion of metal pipes used as culverts is a problem that affect many agencies directly involved in designing and maintaining these culverts. The corrosive environment of soil types found in a region could vary in a significant way (mildly corrosive to extremely corrosive) based on soil characteristics. Environmental conditions such as high water table, acidity and presence of various salts could make a soil corrosive to metal pipes. In this article, authors have applied a methodology of processing readily available soil data such as spatial distribution of soil types and soil characteristics (e.g. pH and conductivity) in delineating spatial corrosion …

Assessing The Impacts Of Climate Change On Streamflow And Reservoir Operation In Central Florida, Toni Panaou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is a global concern as it may affect many aspects of life, including water supply. A tool used to model climate change’s impacts is called a General Circulation Model (GCM). GCMs project future scenarios including temperature and precipitation, but these are designed at a coarse resolution and require downscaling for employment for regional hydrologic modeling. There is a vast amount of research on downscaling and bias-correcting GCMs data, but it is unknown whether these techniques alter precipitation signals embedded in these models or reproduce climate states that are viable for water resource planning and management. Using the Tampa, …

Pretreatment And Anaerobic Co-Digestion Of Selected Phb And Pla Bioplastics, Nicholas John Norio Benn, Daniel Zitomer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Conventional petroleum-derived plastics are recalcitrant to biodegradation and can be problematic as they accumulate in the environment. In contrast, it may be possible to add novel, biodegradable bioplastics to anaerobic digesters at municipal water resource recovery facilities along with primary sludge to produce more biomethane. In this study, thermal and chemical bioplastic pretreatments were first investigated to increase the rate and extent of anaerobic digestion. Subsequently, replicate, bench-scale anaerobic co-digesters fed synthetic primary sludge with and without PHB bioplastic were maintained for over 170 days. Two polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), one poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-4-hydroxybutyrate) and one polylactic acid (PLA) bioplastic were investigated. Biochemical methane …