Civil Engineering Commons^™

South Texas Coastal Area Storm Surge Model Development And Improvement, Sara E. Davila, Cesar Davila Hernandez, Martin Flores, Jungseok Ho

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The intensification of climatic changes, mainly natural geophysical hazards like hurricanes, are of great interest to the South Texas region. Scientists and engineers must protect essential resources from coastal threats, such as storm surge. This study presents the development process and improvements of a hydrodynamic finite element model that covers the South Texas coast, specifically the Lower Laguna Madre, for the aid of local emergency management teams. Four historical tropical cyclone landfalls are evaluated and used as a means of verification of the hydrodynamic model simulation results. The parameters used to improve the accuracy of the model are the tidal …

Evaluation Of Temporal Damage Progression In Concrete Structures Affected By Asr Using Data-Driven Methods, Vafa Soltangharaei

Theses and Dissertations

Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) is a chemical reaction, which causes damage in concrete structures such as bridges, dams, and nuclear containments and powerplant structures. The ASR-induced damage may endanger the integrity and serviceability of structures. Several methods such as visual inspection, petrographic analysis, demountable mechanical strain gauges, and cracking index have been utilized for study the effect of ASR on structures, which are not always efficient in early damage detection and some are destructive and prohibited in nuclear structures. Nondestructive methods and structural health monitoring techniques can be alternatives for the condition assessment of structures. Among the nondestructive methods, acoustic emission …

Effects Of Physical And Chemical Characteristics Of Slags And Cements On Durability Of Portland Cement-Slag Blended Systems, Farzaneh Nosouhian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) which is a commonly used supplementary cementitious material (SCM) needs to be more investigated for improving durability of concrete elements and service life of concrete structures. This research focuses on the effect of the physical and chemical characteristics of GGBFS and portland cement on durability of portland cement-slag blended systems. The effect of cement replacement level is also investigated using control mixes (no slag) and four different levels of slag content. To this end, eight GGBFS and eight portland cements were selected based on their physical characteristics and chemical composition. Four series of experimental …

Congestion-Clearing Payments To Passengers, Paul Minett, John S. Niles, Richard W. Lee, Brittany Bogue

Mineta Transportation Institute

Peak period motor vehicle traffic volume congests roads all over the world. This project hypothesizes implementing congestion- clearing payments to passengers as a permanent congestion-management solution. Ongoing congestion-free travel would be achieved by removing existing congestion, and absorbing (re)generated demand, at costs that would be expected to increase as the total number of travelers increases over time. The project develops a comprehensive, step-by-step methodology to calculate the benefits and costs of paying for drivers to become passengers at a congestion-clearing level and to maintain this level over time. The method is derived from the literature, analysis by the project team, …

Freeways And Farms: Veggielution & Taylor Street Urban Farms Study, Joshua Baur, Ashley Estrada

Mineta Transportation Institute

This report presents the results of a project conducted by researchers at San Jose State University in partnership with Veggielution and Taylor Street Farm staff, funded by the Mineta Transportation Institute in San Jose, CA. The research team interviewed staff and volunteer farm workers to explore how nearby roadways impact experiences at farm sites. Research on outdoor nature-based recreation consistently identifies peaceful, natural site characteristics as important to a positive outdoor experience. This project sought to identify whether farm user attitudes and experiences would be consistent with these research findings resulting in farm users reporting that nearby roadways negatively impacted …

Case Study: Diesel-Powered Loaders Compared To Hybrid Loaders In Heavy Civil Construction, Jesus O. Pena

Construction Management

With the construction industry constantly changing, the environmental impacts of greenhouses gases have become a huge concern. Many contractors are adapting and switching over to hybrid powered systems to allow for more energy saving methods for heavy equipment, an increase in productivity, and efficient construction equipment that comply with emission regulations. The goal for this paper is to analyze the feasibility of heavy civil construction companies switching over from conventional diesel-powered wheel loaders to hybrid wheel loaders. Due to the competitive and saturated market in roadwork construction, many contractors have already begun to invest into hybrid systems. This provides cost …

Development Of A Mash Test Level 4 Open Concrete Bridge Rail, Jacob Delone

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

An open concrete bridge rail was designed and developed according to safety performance guidelines in the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) for Test Level 4 (TL-4). Systems designed and developed under previous guidance were studied, and their geometric information and full-scale crash testing performance was studied to establish the geometry of the new bridge rail. Yield-Line Theory and the AASHTO Post and Beam design methods were studied, and a modified version of the AASHTO Post and Beam method was utilized to determine the capacity of the new open concrete bridge rail. …

Development Of An Improved Arterial Roadway Performance Reliability Methodology, Ernest Tufuor

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

The need for reliable performance measures of urban arterial roadways is increasing because of the rise in traffic congestion and the high value of travel time. Consequently, travel time reliability (TTR), which combines components of measures of central tendency and measures of dispersion of travel times, has recently received considerable research interest.

The basis of all TTR metrics is the travel time distribution (TTD). Estimating and forecasting arterial TTDs for TTR analysis is the focus of this dissertation. This dissertation proposes a new TTR methodology that is a marked improvement on recent TTR estimation and forecasting methodologies including the current …

Bs News July/August

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Performance Of A New Passive Damper For Seismic Protection Of Structures, Ghaedi Khaled

Student Works (2020-2029)

Passive energy dissipation devices have been successfully implemented in buildings around the world to reduce structural responses primarily to earthquakes, wind and other dynamic loads. Unlike active and semi-active control systems, passive systems make use of control devices that serve secondary functions. They are connected to structural members to increase structural damping without the use of external forces. The aim of this research is to introduce and investigate the performance of a new passive damper device called bar damper (BD), which is made of a number of solid bars sandwiched between two plates. The concept, placement and material properties of …

Estimating Flood Magnitudes Of Ungauged Urban Msimbazi River Catchment In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Patrick Valimba Dr

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

More often daily climate data have been used in hydrological models to estimate flood flows in small data scarce urban and rural catchments where flow peaking and recession are quick within short periods of few hours. This study assesses magnitudes of error of using daily climate data to simulate flood flow hydrographs of a small urban river catchment, Msimbazi River. Spot discharge measurements were available for Apr-May 2014 and Mar May 2015 periods.10-minutes climate records were available at one station, daily temperatures at two stations while daily rainfall records at several stations within the catchment. Visual analysis characterise rainfall events …

Data-Driven And Model-Based Methods With Physics-Guided Machine Learning For Damage Identification, Zhiming Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Structural health monitoring (SHM) has been widely used for structural damage diagnosis and prognosis of a wide range of civil, mechanical, and aerospace structures. SHM methods are generally divided into two categories: (1) model-based methods; (2) data-driven methods. Compared with data-driven SHM, model-based methods provide an updated physics-based numerical model that can be used for damage prognosis when long-term data is available. However, the performance of model-based methods is susceptible to modeling error in establishing the numerical model, which is usually unavoidable due to model simplification and omission. The major challenge of data-driven SHM methods lies in data insufficiency, e.g., …

The Effects Of Surface-Water Flow On The Quality Of Groundwater And Surface-Water Systems, Quanghee Yi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research has focused on the effects of surface-water flow on the quality of groundwater and surfacewater systems. For the first part of my research (Chapter 2 ), I s tudied the effects of s urface flow system changes in the water-conservation areas and canals in southeast Florida on the quality of groundwater in the surficial aquifer system.

For the second part of my research, by developing analytical models using the superposition method, I investigated the effects of bidirectional surface-water flow on the conservative contaminant concentrations (Chapter 4) and mean residence time (Chapter 5) in streams and rivers as well …

Structural And Agricultural Value At Risk In Florida From Flooding During Hurricane Irma, Alexander J. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Flooding is the most costly type of natural disaster, as well as the most frequent. To provide risk-based flood insurance, providers such as FEMA must be able to accurately determine an asset’s risk of flooding. Additionally, after a flooding event, providers need to quickly determine the direct damages that occurred to verify insurance claims and provide assistance to the affected communities. Many current approaches to flood risk and flood damage estimation involve the use of data or statistical extrapolation that can add various sources of uncertainty into the final damage estimate. In order to reduce uncertainties in flood risk analyses, …

The Effect Of The Top Soil Layer On Moisture And Evaporation Dynamics, Zhen Li, Jan Vanderborght, Kathleen M. Smits

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

Understanding the effect of the top soil layer on surface evaporation and water distribution is critical to modeling hydrological systems. However, the dependency of near-surface soil moisture and fluxes on layering characteristics remains unclear. To address this uncertainty, we investigate how the arrangement of soil horizons affects the evaporation and soil moisture, specifically, the near-surface soil moisture, through the combination of numerical simulations and evaporation experiments. The characteristics of fluxes and moisture from different soil profiles are then used to understand the soil layering conditions. Results show that the top soil layer can significantly affect the evolution of soil moisture …

Work In Progress: Development Of A General Education First-Year Design Course, Courtney Hollar, Sondra M. Miller

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We discuss in this Work in Progress paper the development of a new first-year engineering course at Boise State University. ENGR 180 Communication in Design Thinking, was developed in order to emphasize the importance of communication throughout the design process. Communication with the client at the start of the design process occurs in order to understand the problem to be solved. The team and other stakeholders continuously communicate in order to work toward developing a prototype to solve the problem. The ability to effectively communicate is equally as important to the design of the final product. The development of ENGR …

Dynamic Response Of Highway Bridge Superstructures Subjected To Wave Action: Experimental Analysis And Numerical Modeling, Alaa Waleed Hameed

Dissertations and Theses

Bridges are critical lifeline components of the infrastructure network, enabling economies to function under normal conditions and disaster response and recovery missions to take place after extreme events. Therefore, ensuring satisfactory performance increases community resilience and minimizes both human and economic losses. Coastal bridges, which are the focus of this PhD dissertation, are vulnerable to coastal storms. High failure rates of these bridges during two major hurricane events in the mid-2000s have spurred research activities to better understand the wave-induced forces of coastal bridges.

This PhD research represents a continuation effort to build, implement, and introduce new fundamental concepts and …

Recent Shrinkage And Fragmentation Of Bluegrass Landscape In Kentucky, Bo Tao, Yanjun Yang, Jia Yang, S. Ray Smith, James F. Fox, Alex C. Ruane, Jinze Liu, Wei Ren

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

The Bluegrass Region is an area in north-central Kentucky with unique natural and cultural significance, which possesses some of the most fertile soils in the world. Over recent decades, land use and land cover changes have threatened the protection of the unique natural, scenic, and historic resources in this region. In this study, we applied a fragmentation model and a set of landscape metrics together with the satellite-derived USDA Cropland Data Layer to examine the shrinkage and fragmentation of grassland in the Bluegrass Region, Kentucky during 2008–2018. Our results showed that recent land use change across the Bluegrass Region is …

If Engineers Solve Problems, Why Are There Still So Many Problems To Solve?: Getting Beyond Technical “Solutions” In The Classroom, Cynthia Carlson, Catherine Wong

Librarian Publications

This Evidence-Based Practice Paper describes implementation and assessment of an exercise bringing international perspectives, liberal arts, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into a first-year engineering program - challenging the arbitrary boundary between engineering and the liberal arts. First-year engineering students (Civil, Mechanical, and Electrical) participated in a role-playing game recreating the 2009 United Nations Climate Talks in Copenhagen, Denmark. The exercise is part of a series of published games called Reacting to the Past (RTTP), with the purpose of engaging students to enhance their understanding of a given event or topic, while improving their research and communication skills. …

Resilience Within And Resilience Without: Mindfulness And Sustainability Programming Using An Embedded Engineering Librarian Approach, Catherine Wong, Cynthia Carlson

Librarian Publications

Students are facing an increasingly chaotic world in part due to global climate change and environmental degradation, causing rising levels of stress and anxiety. Mindfulness and sustainability programs were initiated over three years by a faculty-librarian collaborative team to assist first-year engineering students in building environmental literacy and personal resilience skills. The faculty-librarian team established in class and out of class themes, games, assignments, and programming using an embedded librarian approach. Sustainability programming included environmental movie nights with curricular links and conversations about climate change using the World Café methodology. These activities allowed students time outside of class to engage …

Changes In The Exposure Of California’S Levee-Protected Critical Infrastructure To Flooding Hazard In A Warming Climate, Iman Mallakpour, Mojtaba Sadegh, Amir Aghakouchak

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Levee systems are an important part of California's water infrastructure, engineered to provide resilience against flooding and reduce flood losses. The growth in California is partly associated with costly infrastructure developments that led to population expansion in the levee protected areas. Therefore, potential changes in the flood hazard could have significant socioeconomic consequences over levee protected areas, especially in the face of a changing climate. In this study, we examine the possible impacts of a warming climate on flood hazard over levee protected land in California. We use gridded maximum daily runoff from global circulation models (GCMs) that represent a …

A Multi-Objective Optimization Model To Minimize The Gap In Accessibility To Multi-Use Paths While Maximizing The Economic Efficiency Of Active Transportation Investments For Fresno, California, Chih-Hao Wang

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research examines the accessibility to multi-use paths in a variety of neighborhoods in Fresno, California. This study aims to develop a multi-objective optimization modeling framework to be used by decision makers in transportation and policy to maximize the total accessibility to multi-use paths across the city while minimizing the gap between low- and high- accessibility neighborhoods by an optimal allocation of active transportation. Researchers calculate accessibility to multi-use paths by measuring the total length of multi-use paths (walkway and bikeway) a resident could reach from their own Census block group with a 30-minute cycling ride. The study employs a …

Resilience Within And Resilience Without: Mindfulness And Sustainability Programming Using An Embedded Engineering Librarian Approach, Catherine Wong, Cynthia Carlson

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Students are facing an increasingly chaotic world in part due to global climate change and environmental degradation, causing rising levels of stress and anxiety. Mindfulness and sustainability programs were initiated over three years by a faculty-librarian collaborative team to assist first-year engineering students in building environmental literacy and personal resilience skills. The faculty-librarian team established in class and out of class themes, games, assignments, and programming using an embedded librarian approach. Sustainability programming included environmental movie nights with curricular links and conversations about climate change using the World Café methodology. These activities allowed students time outside of class to engage …

Quantitative And Qualitative Error Re-Analysis Of Tidal Datasets, Ernesto Andrew Ledezma

Master's Theses

Tidal data forms the basis for understanding and quantifying sea-level rise and tidal statistics. While quality assurance methods based upon spectral and harmonic analysis have been applied to individual tidal records, these methods have not been used to assess global tidal datasets. In this thesis, four west coast tidal records were examined using harmonic analysis methods to investigate uncertainty on a monthly averaged basis. Uncertainty was identified using a method that quantifies time lag as a linear regression of height difference between a predicted and measured tidal height and the predicted rate of change of tidal height. Errors identified through …

Sacrificial Piles As Scour Countermeasures In River Bridges A Numerical Study Using Flow-3d, Mohammad Nazari-Sharabian, Aliasghar Nazari-Sharabian, Moses Karakouzian, Mehrdad Karami

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Scour is defined as the erosive action of flowing water, as well as the excavating and carrying away materials from beds and banks of streams, and from the vicinity of bridge foundations, which is one of the main causes of river bridge failures. In the present study, implementing a numerical approach, and using the FLOW-3D model that works based on the finite volume method (FVM), the applicability of using sacrificial piles in different configurations in front of a bridge pier as countermeasures against scouring is investigated. In this regard, the numerical model was calibrated based on an experimental study on …

Rainfall Manipulation Experiments As Simulated By Terrestrial Biosphere Models: Where Do We Stand?, Athanasios Paschalis, Simone Fatichi, Jakob Zscheischler, Philippe Ciais, Michael Bahn, Lena Boysen, Jinfeng Chang, Martin De Kauwe, Marc Estiarte, Daniel Goll, Paul J. Hanson, Anna B. Harper, Enqing Hou, Jaime Kigel, Alan K. Knapp, Klaus S. Larsen, Wei Li, Sebastian Lienert, Yiqi Luo, Patrick Meir, Julia E.M.S. Nabel, Romà Ogaya, Anthony J. Parolari, Changhui Peng, Josep Peñuelas, Julia Pongratz, Serge Rambal, Inger K. Schmidt, Hao Shi, Marcelo Sternberg, Hanqin Tian, Elisabeth Tschumi, Anna Ukkola, Sara Vicca, Nicolas Viovy, Ying-Ping Wang, Zhuonan Wang, Karina Williams, Donghai Wu, Qiuan Zhu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Changes in rainfall amounts and patterns have been observed and are expected to continue in the near future with potentially significant ecological and societal consequences. Modelling vegetation responses to changes in rainfall is thus crucial to project water and carbon cycles in the future. In this study, we present the results of a new model‐data intercomparison project, where we tested the ability of 10 terrestrial biosphere models to reproduce the observed sensitivity of ecosystem productivity to rainfall changes at 10 sites across the globe, in nine of which, rainfall exclusion and/or irrigation experiments had been performed. The key results are …

Editorial: Water Environmental Research, Brooke K. Mayer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Cell Surface-Expression Of The Phosphate-Binding Protein Psts: System Development, Characterization, And Evaluation For Phosphorus Removal And Recovery, Faten Hussein, Kaushik Venkiteshwaran, Brooke K. Mayer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Simultaneous overabundance and scarcity of inorganic phosphate (P_i) is a critical issue driving the development of innovative water/wastewater treatment technologies that not only facilitate P_i removal to prevent eutrophication, but also recover P_i for agricultural reuse. Here, a cell-surface expressed high-affinity phosphate binding protein (PstS) system was developed, and its P_i capture and release potential was evaluated. E. coli was genetically modified to express PstS on its outer membrane using the ice nucleation protein (INP) as an anchoring motif. Verification of protein expression and localization were performed utilizing SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), western blot, and …

Analysis And Optimization Of Colorimetric Nanosensors For Rapid Detection Of Microbes In Water, Ruby A. Lang

Master's Theses

Access to safe water is a basic human right recognized by the United Nations General Assembly in 2010 (WHO, 2020). However, a least 2.2 billion people globally still are without safely managed water services meaning they use a drinking water source that can be contaminated with faeces (WHO, 2020). With such a pressing global health issue, it is clear that improvement to water systems is important and required in the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, to improve water systems and prove they are safe water sources, water quality testing must occur. A solution to this issue is the …

Modeling Artificial Groundwater Recharge In The Santa Rosa Creek Watershed, Alexander J. Murray

Master's Theses

The Santa Rosa Creek Watershed is an approximately 48 mi2 large watershed located on the central coast of California. This watershed drains to the Pacific Ocean through Santa Rosa Creek as it passes through agricultural land and the town of Cambria. Historically the groundwater within the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed has been used for irrigation, municipal and domestic uses, and the creek is critical habitat steelhead trout. During dry years, there is less water for all uses. When low groundwater levels occur, water can be drawn out of the creek and into the soil, drying out steelhead habitat. Seven agricultural …