Environmental Engineering Commons^™

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 …

Cee 433: Water Technology & Policy Syllabus, University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Ashlynn Stillwell

All ECSTATIC Materials

This document is the syllabus for CEE 433: Water Technology & Policy, by instructor Ashlynn S. Stillwell at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The course is an elective class, open to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students.

Stormwater Capture In The Built Watershed: Fostering Public Awareness Of Water Conservation Through A Parcel-Level Approach To Stormwater Management, Benjamin Rigby

Pitzer Senior Theses

As California contends with climate change and more extreme cycles of drought and deluge, water management agencies and conservation groups are looking towards solutions to the decreasing reliability of imported water supplies. Stormwater has historically been perceived as a threat to development but when captured properly, it presents a resource that can augment local water supplies. Solutions to water supply issues in California have traditionally employed technical and centrally controlled methods for importing water, but there is a growing understanding that parcel-level capture through vegetated swales presents an opportunity for reducing the impact that development has on California’s hydrology. Vegetated …

Hydro-Climatological Summer Trends In The Continental United States, Naya Mairena Flores

REU Final Reports

We investigated trends in air temperature, stream temperature and discharge for rivers across the continental United States from the summer months of 1996 to 2016. Using GAGES II from USGS and PRISM and programming language R we analyzed specific hydrological trends in Mann-Kendall’s tests. After collecting the slope values whether they were negative or positive and the P-Values, the significance of that slope, we mapped slopes of trends in GIS. Stream temperature increased 12% of stations across the summer, while air temperature increased 22% of stations, and discharge decreased 15% of stations, respectively. Seven day moving average of daily maximum …

2018 Nebraska Groundwater Quality Monitoring Report

Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality: Reports

The 2001 Nebraska Legislature passed LB329 (Neb. Rev. Stat. §46-1304) which, in part, directed the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) to report on groundwater quality monitoring in Nebraska. Reports have been issued annually since December 2001. The text of the statute applicable to this report follows: “The Department of Environmental Quality shall prepare a report outlining the extent of ground water quality monitoring conducted by natural resources districts during the preceding calendar year. The department shall analyze the data collected for the purpose of determining whether or not ground water quality is degrading or improving and shall present the …

Water Quality Factor Prediction Using Supervised Machine Learning, Kathleen Joslyn

REU Final Reports

The objective of this research is to explore prediction accuracy of water quality factors, with techniques and algorithms in machine learning consisting of a variation of support vector machines - Support Vector Regression (SVR) and the gradient boosting algorithm Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost). Both the XGBoost and SVR algorithms were used to predict nine different factors with success rates ranging from 79% to 99%. Parameters of these algorithms were also explored to test the prediction accuracy levels of individual water quality factors. These parameters included normalizing the data, filling missing data points, and training and testing on a large set …

Assessment Of Watershed Nutrient Loads And Effectiveness Of Best Management Practices, Saeid Nazari

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Several methods have been developed for use in estimating the water quality loads associated with urban and agricultural landuses and practices. These include the use of sophisticated computer models, typically based on using pollutant loading and runoff functions, regression equations, load export coefficients (LECs), and event mean concentrations (EMCs). This research has examined the feasibility of using a simple EMC approach with the Kentucky Nutrient Model (KYNM). The thesis includes an extensive literature review of EMCs and a synthesis of recommended values for a range of typical urban and agricultural landuses. The thesis also includes an extensive literature review of …

Numerical Modeling And Isotope Tracers To Investigate Karst Biogeochemistry And Transport Processes, Admin Husic

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This dissertation investigated the physical and biogeochemical processes affecting the source, fate, and transport of sediment, carbon, and nitrogen within a highly-coupled fluviokarst system. Elemental and isotopic datasets were collected at surface and subsurface locations for both dissolved and particulate contaminant phases, new methodology regarding data collection was presented to the karst research community, an in-cave sediment transport model coupling physical transport with elemental and isotopic mass balances of carbon and nitrogen was formulated, pathway and process control on nitrate leaching from agricultural karst watersheds was assessed, and nitrate mobilization and fractionation were modeled using high frequency storm sampling and …

Evaluation Of Variable Rate Irrigation Using A Remote-Sensing-Based Model, John Burdette Barker, Derek M. Heeren, Christopher M.U. Neale, Daran Rudnick

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Improvements in soil water balance modeling can be beneficial for optimizing irrigation management to account for spatial variability in soil properties and evapotranspiration (ET). A remote-sensing-based ET and water balance model was tested for irrigation management in an experiment at two University of Nebraska-Lincoln research sites located near Mead and Brule, Nebraska. Both fields included a center pivot equipped with variable rate irrigation (VRI). The study included maize in 2015 and 2016 and soybean in 2016 at Mead, and maize in 2016 at Brule, for a total of 210 plot-years. Four irrigation treatments were applied at Mead, including: VRI based …

Integration Of Hydrogeophysical Datasets And Empirical Orthogonal Functions For Improved Irrigation Water Management, Catherine E. Finkenbiner, Trenton E. Franz, Justin P. Gibson, Derek M. Heeren, J. D. Luck

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Precision agriculture offers the technologies to manage for infield variability and incorporate variability into irrigation management decisions. The major limitation of this technology often lies in the reconciliation of disparate data sources and the generation of irrigation prescription maps. Here the authors explore the utility of the cosmic-ray neutron probe (CRNP) which measures volumetric soil water content (SWC) in the top ~ 30 cm of the soil profile. The key advantages of CRNP is that the sensor is passive, non-invasive, mobile and soil temperature-invariant, making data collection more compatible with existing farm operations and extending the mapping period. The objectives …

Three-Dimensional Modeling Of Nitrate-N Transport In Vadose Zone: Roles Of Soil Heterogeneity And Groundwater Flux, Simin Akbariyeh, Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt, Daniel D. Snow, Xu Li, Zhenghong Tang, Yusong Li

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Contamination of groundwater from nitrogen fertilizers in agricultural lands is an important environmental and water quality management issue. It is well recognized that in agriculturally intensive areas, fertilizers and pesticides may leach through the vadose zone and eventually reach groundwater. While numerical models are commonly used to simulate fate and transport of agricultural contaminants, few models have considered a controlled field work to investigate the influence of soil heterogeneity and groundwater flow on nitrate-N distribution in both root zone and deep vadose zone.

In this work, a numerical model was developed to simulate nitrate-N transport and transformation beneath a center …

Development Of Artificial Intelligence Approach To Nowcasting And Forecasting Oyster Norovirus Outbreaks Along The U.S. Gulf Coast, Shima Shamkhali Chenar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Oyster norovirus outbreaks pose increasing risks to human health and seafood industry worldwide. This study presents an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based approach to identifying the primary cause of oyster norovirus outbreaks, nowcasting and forecasting the growing risk of oyster norovirus outbreaks in coastal waters. AI models were developed using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and Genetic Programming (GP) methods and time series of epidemiological and environmental data. Input variable selection techniques, including Random Forests (RF) and Forwards Binary Logistic Regression (FBLR), were used to identify the significant model input variables among six independent environmental predictors including water temperature, solar radiation, gage height, …

Datumate, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Datumate is digitally transforming civil engineering processes used in construction, surveying and infrastructure inspection markets with fully automated, highly precise, cost effective and safe tools. It utilizes state-of-the-art image processing and advanced drones and camera technologies dramatically reducing the amount of time surveying crews spend in the field, speeding up construction progress checks and shortening infrastructure inspection duration, while maintaining survey grade accuracy. The intuitive, simple and automated solutions increase productivity by saving field and office time in civil engineering and inspection projects of roads, intersections, stockpile volumes, topography, piping, industrial facilities, bridges, property surveys, building facades, railways, cellular infrastructure …

Rice Hull Bioreactor For Recirculating Aquaculture, Marlon A. Greensword

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The engineering of floating media biofilters has been optimized over the years. The backwashing process has made them more energy and water efficient. Likewise, moving bed bioreactors (MBBR) are gaining interest and popularity because they are relatively affordable to build. Yet, developing countries’ aquaculture production remains largely excluded from the advances made in recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). This discrepancy is partially driven by the high costs of media such plastic beads and Kaldnes (KMT) media, commonly used in MBBR.

This dissertation evaluates the usability and profitability of rice hulls (RH), an abundant by-product in many developing nations, as a sinking …

Laboratory Characterization Of Unsteady Boundary Layers, Umair Sarwar, Cary Troy

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The study of waves and their effects on mean flow and turbulence in natural water bodies is an important issue for applications in aquatic biology, coastal engineering, sediment transport and hydrodynamic of the lake. These waves result in the generation of an oscillatory (Stokes) boundary layer near the bottom of the water column. The goal of this study was to conduct various experiments that will be used to characterize the turbulence in unsteady boundary layers and help understand the relation between various flow variables (e.g. wave amplitude, frequency, water depth, turbulent kinetic energy, etc.). Using the research facilities provided, three …

Technology To Manufacture Oriented Pvc (Pvc-O) Pipes, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

The development of Molecor´s technology, which is based on the application of a Molecular Orientation process, has delivered a significant turning point in the pipelines sector. With this technological development, the company has begun to manufacture TOM® PVC-O pipes, the most eco-friendly pipes on the market. The Molecor technology enabled eradicating many of the existing disadvantages of thermoplastic pipes.

This technology delivers a clear objective; to provide the water industry with a solution for pipes carrying pressurized water in an environmentally friendly, yet cost efficient manner. This also extends a service life compared to pipeline materials currently in use.

The …

Full-Water Column Turbulence Parameterization Of Stratified Waters In Southern Lake Michigan, Kyla A. Prendergast, Cary D. Troy, David Cannon

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Full water column mean flow and turbulence structure was characterized at two stratified locations in Lake Michigan (a. Muskegon, MI; b. Michigan City, IN) in order to better understand the filtration potential of invasive quagga mussels. Invasive quagga mussels in Lake Michigan are filter feeders and can dramatically alter clarity as well as the biological/chemical characteristics of the water column. This filtering capacity is highly contingent on turbulence characteristics throughout the water column, which is poorly understood in the Great Lakes. Using velocity, temperature, and turbulence data collected from these locations, the structure of the water column turbulence was modeled …

Assessing The Hydraulics Of Water Heaters By Adding Fluoride As A Tracer To Inform Its Overall Effect On Water Quality, Christian A. Guerrero, William Schmidt, Antoine Aubeneau, Amisha D. Shah

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

As residential water heaters are the primary source of waterborne disease outbreaks in the U.S. there is a need to better understand how they are contributing to decreased water quality in buildings. Previous work has indicated that intermittent stagnation, low disinfection residual and operation temperatures promote the growth of pathogens in water heaters. The overall effect of hydrodynamics of water heaters on these factors remains unclear. Therefore, a tracer study was performed to determine the effect of and characterize hydraulics of the typical residential water heater on water quality. Controlling temperature and flow rate, a pilot-scale hot water system (50 …

Simulation And Prediction Of The Groundwater Level In The Surrounding Area Of The Nebraska Management System Evaluation Area Site In Central Nebraska., Cesar Augusto Gomez Peña

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

An efficient water budget is necessary to develop sustainable practices in irrigated lands and determine future trends. Despite a lack of detailed knowledge, climate change is found to profoundly influence groundwater resources through changes in groundwater recharge, groundwater elevation, and groundwater flow processes. Prediction of the groundwater level (GWL) under a changing climate is essential to improve agricultural management.

The goal of this research is to predict the GWL from 2056 to 2060 in the surrounding area of the MSEA. In order to achieve the target, the first research task is to develop a groundwater flow model and then simulate …

Fluid Isolator, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

Netpoint®, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

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

Smartvid.Io, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

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

Hillman Composite Beam (Hcb®), Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

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

The …

Industrial-Grade Monitoring Solution: Hoistcam, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

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

Remote Measurements Of Tides And River Slope Using An Airborne Lidar Instrument, Austin S. Hudson, Stefan A. Talke, Ruth Branch, Chris Chickadel, Gordon Farquharson, Andrew Jessup

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Tides and river slope are fundamental characteristics of estuaries, but they are usually undersampled due to deficiencies in the spatial coverage of water level measurements. This study aims to address this issue by investigating the use of airborne lidar measurements to study tidal statistics and river slope in the Columbia River estuary. Eight plane transects over a 12-h period yield at least eight independent measurements of water level at 2.5-km increments over a 65-km stretch of the estuary. These data are fit to a sinusoidal curve and the results are compared to seven in situ gauges. In situ– and lidar-based …

Purdue Ect Report - Fourth Quarter 2016, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

Fourth Quarter 2016

This is a quarterly report from the Purdue ECT.

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

Reports

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

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

Road Zipper™, Purdue Ect Team

ECT Fact Sheets Archive

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

Center Pivot Irrigation Handbook (Ec3017), Derrel Martin, William Kranz, Tyler Smith, Suat Irmak, Charles Burr, Ron Yoder

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Center pivot irrigation has been the most rapidly expanding form of irrigation in the Central Great Plains and across the United States. The amount of land irrigated with sprinkler, gravity and drip or trickle systems was determined for all states in the USA in the Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey1 by the USDA in 2012. Results of the survey for the Great Plains States shows that approximately 85% of the land in Nebraska is irrigated with center pivots and that very little land was irrigated with drip systems in 2012 (Figure 1). The percentage of land irrigated with sprinklers in …

2017 Nebraska Water Monitoring Programs Report, Marty Link, Ryan Chapman

Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality: Reports

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) is charged with monitoring, assessing, and to the extent possible, managing the state’s water resources. The purpose of this work is to protect and maintain high quality water and encourage or execute activities to improve poor water quality. Monitoring is done on nearly 17,000 miles of flowing rivers and streams, more than 134,000 acres of surface water in lakes and reservoirs, as well as the vast storage of groundwater in Nebraska’s aquifers.