Civil Engineering Commons^™

An Emergency Response System To Assist The Movement Of Vehicles During Emergency Operations In Urban Transportation Networks, Jamal Nahofti Kohneh

All Dissertations

Emergency responders need to arrive at the emergency scene as soon as possible, but operating vehicles under emergency conditions can pose a risk to both the responders and other road users, potentially resulting in crashes or delays in emergency operations. In this research, an emergency response system is proposed to assist emergency and non-emergency response vehicles (ERVs and non-ERVs) during emergency operations in a connected vehicle environment. This system collects the information from connected ERVs and non-ERVs, utilizes this information as inputs in the proposed models, and sends instruction messages back to vehicles. The proposed models provide the fastest ERV …

Improving Multi-Crane Planning On Construction Sites, Ali Khodabandelu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Designing the configuration of tower cranes, managing their operations, and coordinating material logistics are intricate processes that wield significant influence over the time, cost, productivity, and safety of construction projects. This complexity stems from the multitude of layout configurations, diverse crane types, varied tasks, and material supply points, all interacting within a dynamic environment. Collisions pose a heightened risk due to overlapping crane areas, further adding complexity to the planning of crane layouts and operations. Optimizing crane layout and operational planning while ensuring safety requires establishing effective connections between tasks, cranes, and material supply locations. Traditionally, research and industry practices …

Numerical Investigation Of Heat Generation And Accumulation Contributing To Elevated Temperature In Msw Landfills, Alborz Fathinezhad

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Landfills are complex geostructures which contains organic and inorganic municipal, and in some cases industrial, wastes and are expected to remain operational for long times. Due to the complex nature of physical, chemical, biological, and thermal reactions that carry on within the depths of a landfill, unexpected incidents such as elevated temperatures could become inevitable. While uncommon to happen, elevated temperatures cause health and environmental issues such as odors, rapid settlements, slope instabilities. In addition, elevated temperatures can negatively impact engineered components in composite bottom liners, cover systems, leachate collection, and gas extraction and recovery systems.

Air intrusion into municipal …

An Improved Polynomial Chaos Expansion Based Response Surface Method And Its Applications On Frame And Spring Engineering Based Structures, Mhd A. Hafez

ETD Archive

In engineering fields, computational models provide a tool that can simulate a real world response and enhance our understanding of physical phenomenas. However, such models are often computationally expensive with multiple sources of uncertainty related to the model’s input/assumptions. For example, the literature indicates that ligament’s material properties and its insertion site locations have a significant effect on the performance of knee joint models, which makes addressing uncertainty related to them a crucial step to make the computational model more representative of reality. However, previous sensitivity studies were limited due to the computational expense of the models. The high computational …

Energy Harvesting For Self-Powered Sensors For Smart Transportation Infrastructures, Anil K. Agrawal, Mohsen Amjadian, Hani Nassif

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

In this research project, an Electromagnetic Energy Harvesting System (EMEHS) is developed for harvesting the kinetic energy of ambient and traffic-induced vibrations and carry out a detailed feasibility study and impacts of such system for application on transportation infrastructures. The proposed EMEHS utilizes the innovative concept of creating array of large number of small permanent magnets through certain optimization criteria to achieve strong and focused magnetic field in a particular orientation. When these magnets are attached to a flexible sub-system and placed close to the copper coil, ambient and traffic-induced vibration of the sub-system induces eddy current in copper the …

Assessing The Impact Of Health Benefits And Carbon Footprint In Student Parking Decisions At A University Campus, Emiliano Ruiz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In the student parking location problem, traditionally, the parking permit cost, the last-mile travel time, and the ease of finding an available parking stall are the only decision criteria driving permit purchases. However, a studentâ??s choice of parking location has associated walking health benefits and sustainability impacts. These impacts are related to the walking distance from the parked vehicle to the final destination on campus, in addition to the location effect on the carbon footprint of a vehicle-trip taken to campus. As such, this Thesis examined a multi-criteria decision approach to a university studentâ??s choice of parking location. This approach …

Reveal Wind Loading Of Tornadoes And Hurricanes On Civil Structures Towards Hazard-Resistant Design, Ryan Honerkamp

Doctoral Dissertations

"Extreme winds impacting civil structures lead to death and destruction in all regions of the world. Specifically, tornadoes and hurricanes impact communities with severe devastation. On average, 1200 tornadoes occur in the United States every year. Tornadoes occur predominantly in the Central and Southeastern United States, accounting for an annual $1 billion in economic losses, 1500 injuries, and 90 deaths. The Joplin, MO Tornado in 2011 killed 161 people, injured more than 1000, destroyed more than 8000 structures, and caused $2.8 billion of property loss. Hurricanes occur predominantly on the United States East coast regions and along the coast of …

An Agent-Based Model To Study Competitive Construction Bidding And The Winner's Curse, Amr Elsayegh, Cihan H. Dagli, Islam H. El-Adaway

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Reverse auction theory is the basis for competitive construction bidding process. The lowest bid method is utilized for selecting contractors in public projects. The winning contractor having the lowest bid value could be cursed when the submitted bid value results in negative profits. This is caused by many factors such as the contractor's estimation accuracy and markup. This is addressed in this paper by providing a model simulating the construction competitive bidding and the occurrence of the winner's curse. To this end, the authors show the extent to which the winner's curse affects the status of contracting companies. The objectives …

Optical Fiber Based Integrity Test Of Civil Engineering Materials: Numerical Analysis, Ruoyu Zhong

Masters Theses

“Major advancement in Civil Engineering cannot be accomplished without the help of sensors. Among different types of sensors, fiber-optic sensor is known for its light weight, high accuracy, resolution, immunity to electromagnetic interference, and resistance to harsh environment. This research mainly focuses on fiber-optic sensor application on concrete structures as temperature sensor. Thermal Integrity Profiling (TIP) is a non-destructive integrity testing method which makes use of the hydration heat from the concrete curing process to detect defects within a drilled shaft. Any defect of concrete could result in a temperature anomaly in a drilled shaft. The accuracy of the current …

Strengthening Of Concrete Deep Beams With Extreme Discontinuities Using Near-Surface Mounted Composites, Moustafa Seifeddin Mansour

Civil and Environmental Theses

Installation of a web opening that fully interrupts the natural load path in concrete deep beams produces regions of extreme discontinuities and reduces the shear strength. This research examined the effectiveness of using near-surface-mounted carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (NSM-CFRP) reinforcement to restore the shear strength of deep beams with extreme discontinuities. The strut-and-tie model (STM) procedures were utilized to develop three different strengthening solutions around the discontinuity regions. A total of eight deep beam specimens (150 x 500 x2700 mm) with a shear span-to-depth ratio of a/h = 0.8 were constructed and tested. One beam was solid. Seven beams had a …

Effects Of Moving Bottlenecks On Traffic Operations On Four-Lane Level Freeway Segments, Jianan Zhou

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

The Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) was developed to provide capacity and level of service analyses for roadway facilities. Trucks may adversely affect the quality of traffic flow on a roadway. In HCM, the passenger car equivalent (PCE) of a truck, which represents the number of passenger cars that have an equivalent effect on traffic flow, is used to account for the impacts of trucks. However, in the past ten years rural freeways in the western rural U.S. have experienced conditions that lie outside the standard HCM conditions. Also, the current HCM truck PCEs may not be appropriate for the western …

Modeling And Simulation Of Damage In The Brazilian Indirect Tension Test Using The Finite-Discrete Element Method, Jeremiah C. Leyba

Civil Engineering ETDs

The Brazilian indirect tension test is used to investigate possible correlations between progressive damage and associated permeability changes. The test offers ease of replicability with a damage behavior known to lead to fracture openings as a tool for interpreting the indirect tensile strength of concrete and rocks. This behavior can lend insight into the nature of tensile damage and fracture progression in association with changes in permeability. The nature of these brittle materials is known to exhibit rapid failures in the Brazilian indirect tension test and require a method to retard the progression of damage for the possibility of acquiring …

Developing A Framework To Optimize The Operations Of An Intermodal Underground Freight Transportation Terminal Using Simulation, Fatemeh Rezaeifar

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), by 2040, nearly 30,000 miles of our busiest highways will be clogged daily and it is important to increase the capacity of our transportation system. Construction of intermodal underground freight transportation (UFT) systems for freight movement through underground pipelines or tunnels, can increase the capacity of the existing shipping network. The intermodal terminal is a major component of the UFT’s innovative infrastructure project. Increasing demand for container transportation systems in terminals will raise the risk of terminal congestion and delivery delay due to the increase in freight transportation system bottlenecks (traffic jams …

Meso-Scale Simulation Of Size-Dependent Shear Behavior In Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymer Reinforced Concrete Beams Without Stirrups, Sina Khodaie

Theses and Dissertations

There is extensive experimental evidence of the decrease in the shear stress at failure at increasing effective depths in concrete beams reinforced with glass fiberreinforced polymer (GFRP) bars without shear reinforcement. An important practical implication is that extrapolating strength values from typical laboratory-scaled experiments to design larger members may be misleading. The complexity of the underlying mechanics is reflected in the difficulty of using commercially available numerical tools to accurately estimate shear strength irrespective of beam size. This dissertation presents research on a Lattice Discrete Particle Model (LDPM) based model to simulate the response of scaled slender GFRP reinforced concrete …

Heat And Water Transport In Soils And Across The Soil-Atmosphere Interface: 2. Numerical Analysis, Jan Vanderborght, Thomas Fetzer, Klaus Mosthaf, Kathleen M. Smits, Rainer Helmig

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications - Archive

In an accompanying paper, we presented an overview of a wide variety of modeling concepts, varying in complexity, used to describe evaporation from soil. Using theoretical analyses, we explained the simplifications and parameterizations in the different approaches. In this paper, we numerically evaluate the consequences of these simplifications and parameterizations. Two sets of simulations were performed. The first set investigates lateral variations in vertical fluxes, which emerge from both homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media, and their importance to capturing evaporation behavior. When evaporation decreases from parts of the heterogeneous soil surface, lateral flow and transport processes in the free flow …

Introduction To Water Resources Systems - University Of Colorado Boulder, Joseph Kasprzyk

All ECSTATIC Materials

This is the introductory lecture to a Water Resource Systems and Management class from Spring 2017 at the University of Colorado Boulder, by Joseph Kasprzyk. Learning goals include (i) defining integrated water resources management, (ii) identifying Colorado water management issues (ii) identifying how RiverWare simulation and optimization can be used to develop water plans (iii) use the HyMod model to perform rainfall-runoff modeling (iv) generating random parameter samples and understanding how parameter uncertainty affects model results.

Experimental And Numerical Evaluation Of A New Composite Pressure Pipe For A Trenchless Rehabilitation Technology, Xuanchen Yen

Doctoral Dissertations

The information presented in this dissertation is based on research work conducted at Trenchless Technology Center (TTC) at Louisiana Tech University. This work was performed through a contract with China University of Geoscience (CUG) for a gas company. China's gas pipelines need replacement or rehabilitation after 15 to 30 years of service. China's gas industry is looking for suitable techniques to transfer into their market.

When compared to conventional excavation pipeline renewal or replacement methods, there are obvious advantages of TRT for gas pipelines that can impact the triple bottom-line of economic, social and environmental benefits. An introduction of TRT …

3d Infrastructure Condition Assessment For Rail Highway Applications, Teng Wang

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Highway roughness is a concern for both the motoring public and highway authorities. Roughness may even increase the risk of crashes. Rail-highway grade crossings are particularly problematic. Roughness may be due to deterioration or simply due to the way the crossing was built to accommodate grade change, local utilities, or rail elevation. With over 216,000 crossings in the US, maintenance is a vast undertaking. While methods are available to quantify highway roughness, no method exists to quantitatively assess the condition of rail crossings. Conventional inspection relies on a labor-intensive process of qualitative judgment. A quantifiable, objective and extensible procedure for …

A Robust Data Exchange Framework For Connected Vehicle Technology Supported Dynamic Transit Operations, Yucheng An

All Theses

Transit systems are an integral part of surface transportation systems. A connected vehicle technology (CVT) supported transit system will assist the users to manage trips both dynamically and efficiently. The primary focus of this research is to develop and evaluate the performance of a secure, scalable, and resilient data exchange framework. In the developed data exchange framework, a new data analytics layer, named Transit Cloud, is used to receive data from different sources, and send it to different users for a Dynamic Transit Operations (DTO) application. The DTO application allows the transit users to request trip information and obtain itineraries, …

Water Resources Systems Analysis - University Of Texas San Antonio, Marcio Giacomoni

All ECSTATIC Materials

Systems Analysis methods use algorithmic and mathematical approaches for problem-solving. These are powerful methods that can be applied to solve complex design and management problems for water resources systems and other engineering areas. This class will focus on optimization methods, such as linear programming, integer programming, nonlinear programming, genetic algorithms, and dynamic programming, and their application to water resources systems. Advanced Systems Analysis methods, including sensitivity analysis, alternatives generation, and multi-objective optimization will be introduced to address the complexities associated with public sector decision-making. Course taught at University of Texas San Antonio.

Water Resources Systems Analysis - Colorado State University, Darrell Fontane

All ECSTATIC Materials

Applications of systems analysis, simulation and optimization techniques in water resources planning and management. Course taught at Colorado State University.

Modeling And Simulation Of Evacuation Plan For Hancock Stadium, Nirmal Neranjan Weerasekara

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study is to use Modeling and Simulation of Evacuation Plan (MSEP) to support management to execute proper evacuation plan in case of emergency at Hancock Stadium in Illinois State University. Analyses of the research literature and evacuation scenarios are used to build a simulation system that will connect a description of emergency and evacuation situation with its context. It shows how an evacuation plan actually functions. The results of the study will help safety managers to understand the current situations of evacuation according to the specific simulation scenarios. The evacuation simulation is categorized according to the …

Data-Driven Simulation Modeling Of Construction And Infrastructure Operations Using Process Knowledge Discovery, Reza Akhavian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) domain, simulation modeling is mainly used to facilitate decision-making by enabling the assessment of different operational plans and resource arrangements, that are otherwise difficult (if not impossible), expensive, or time consuming to be evaluated in real world settings. The accuracy of such models directly affects their reliability to serve as a basis for important decisions such as project completion time estimation and resource allocation. Compared to other industries, this is particularly important in construction and infrastructure projects due to the high resource costs and the societal impacts of these projects. Discrete event simulation …

A New Methodology For Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Bus Rapid Transit Strategies, Ahmad Alomari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the last few years, public transportation has become more desirable as capacity of existing roadways failed to keep up with rapidly increasing traffic demand. Buses are one of the most common modes of public transportation with low impact on network capacity, especially in small and congested urban areas. However, the use of regularly scheduled buses as the main public transport mode can become useless with the presence of traffic congestion and dense construction areas. In cases like these, innovative solutions, such as bus rapid transit (BRT), can provide an increased level of service without having to resort to other, …

Generic Incident Model For Investigating Traffic Incident Impacts On Evacuation Times In Large-Scale Emergencies, Andrew J. Collins, Peter Foytik, Erika Frydenlund, R. Michael Robinson, Craig A. Jordan

VMASC Publications

Traffic incidents cause a ripple effect of reduced travel speeds, lane changes, and the pursuit of alternative routes that results in gridlock on the immediately affected and surrounding roadways. The disruptions caused by the secondary effects significantly degrade travel time reliability, which is of great concern to the emergency planners who manage evacuations. Outcomes forecast by a generic incident model embedded in a microscopic evacuation simulation, the Real-Time Evacuation Planning Model (RtePM), were examined to quantify the change in time required for an emergency evacuation that results from traffic incidents. The incident model considered vehicle miles traveled on each individual …

Developing A Framework For Determining The Contribution Of Transportation Project To Sustainable Development, Karim Ahmed Abdel Warith

Open Access Dissertations

In the past few years, stakeholders in the transportation industry have been concerned with sustainability. However, transportation decision makers have had difficulty incorporating sustainability into transportation infrastructure decisions. This is mainly attributed to the vagueness of the term. Incorporating sustainability into transportation decision making has been a desire put forth by engineers for that past 10 years. However, with no apparent method of defining sustainability, designers and decision makers have not been able to fulfill this desire.

This investigation attempts to define sustainability in a comprehensive and quantitative manner. The research proposes a new methodology that relies on the objective …

Dynamics And Dislodgment From Pore Constrictions Of A Trapped Nonwetting Droplet Stimulated By Seismic Waves, Wen Deng, M. Bayani Cardenas

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Seismic waves affect fluid flow and transport processes in porous media. Therefore, quantitative understanding of the role of seismic waves in subsurface hydrodynamics is important for the development of practical applications and prediction of natural phenomena. We present a theoretical fluid dynamics model to describe how low-frequency elastic waves mobilize isolated droplets trapped in pores by capillary resistance. The ability of the theoretical model to predict the critical mobilization amplitudes (A_c) and the displacement dynamics of the nonwetting droplet are validated against computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Our theory has the advantage of rapid calculation of A_{c …}

Microsimulation Evaluation Of Eurocode Load Model For American Long-Span Bridges, Bernard Enright, Colm Carey, Colin Caprani

Articles

The ability to accurately predict traffic loading is essential for cost-effective bridge maintenance and repair programs. The traffic load model currently used in the United States for the design of long-span bridges was developed over three decades ago. In the meantime vehicle characteristics and traffic patterns have changed. The Eurocode for traffic loading is more recent, but was calibrated only for bridges up to 200 m long. In this work, Weigh-In-Motion traffic records from 11 different sites across Alabama are used to establish congested traffic loading. Traffic microsimulation is used to generate the congestion, based on the real traffic data. …

A Study On Lane-Change Recognition Using Support Vector Machine, Weiping Deng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses primary on recognition of lane-change behaviors using support vector machines (SVMs). Previous research and statistical results show that the vast majority of motor vehicle accidents are caused by driver behavior and errors. Therefore, the interpretation and evaluation of driver behavior is important for road safety analysis and improvement. The main limit to understanding driver behavior is the data availability. In particular, a full-scale lane-change data set is difficult to collect in a real traffic environment because of the safety and cost issues. Considering the data demands of the recognition model development and the obstacles of field data …

A Framework For Process Data Collection, Analysis, And Visualization In Construction Projects, Reza Akhavian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Automated data collection, simulation and visualization can substantially enhance the process of designing, analysis, planning, and control of many engineering processes. In particular, managing processes that are dynamic in nature can significantly benefit from such techniques. Construction projects are good examples of such processes where a variety of equipment and resources constantly interact inside an evolving environment. Management of such settings requires a platform capable of providing decision-makers with updated information about the status of project entities and assisting site personnel making critical decisions under uncertainty. To this end, the current practice of using historical data or expert judgments as …