Structural Engineering Commons^™

Probabilistic Analysis Of Slide-Rocking Structures Under Earthquake Loads, Taylor J. Knickerbocker

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

Estimates of rare seismic hazard are essential for the resilience of critical infrastructure and facilities. However, these estimates are highly uncertain at long return periods due to the lack of observed earthquake records. Several ground motion prediction equations have been proposed to close this gap and estimate rare seismic demands; however, these models were developed based on more moderate earthquake records and can yield physically unrealizable ground motions when extrapolated to long return periods. For this reason, seismologists have proposed using precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) as a way to constrain rare seismic hazard. PBRs are a type of fragile geologic …

Experimental Investigation Of Whitmore Section And Block Shear Failures In Steel Gusset Plates Using Digital Image Correlation, Prajwal Pokhrel

Civil Engineering Theses

Gusset plates are necessary for transferring loads from one structural member to another. During load transfer gussets can undergo shear, net section rupture and gross section yielding. Gusset design is a complex process and there is still a lack of knowledge regarding the stress and strain distribution in gusset plates. Current design practices which use Whitmore method, may not be sufficient to accurately predict the capacity of a gusset plate. An experimental study was conducted at The University of Texas at Tyler to understand the failure mechanism of gusset plates under uniaxial tensile loading. Variables considered for the experiment are …

Reliability Of Corroding Reinforced Concrete Structures, Travis Honore

LSU Master's Theses

The enhanced performance due to the addition of steel within concrete elements has thrust reinforced concrete structures to be one of the most commonly used construction materials in the world. Reinforced concrete structures are exposed to a variety of deterioration mechanisms during their operational existence, each of which contributes to reducing their service life, durability, and load bearing capacity. The longevity of these reinforced concrete structures is strongly connected to degradation processes, whose origin is environmental and/or functional. Among these processes is the initiation and evolution of corrosion on the steel reinforcement. Steel reinforcement has direct effects on the durability, …

Cost-Effective Methods To Retrofit Metal Culverts Using Composites, Mahmoud Reda Taha, Susan Bogus Halter

Data

One of the current pressing problems for all DOTs is the corrosion-oriented deterioration of existing metal culverts. These metal culverts typically are designed for a life of 50 years. However, corrosion is making them last no longer than 30 years. A Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers (GFRP) pipe section has been evaluated as a fit-in GFRP profile liner for complete repair and rehabilitation of the corroded metal culvert with an expected life of 75 years. This is mainly because of the corrosion free nature of the GFRP material. A comprehensive rehabilitation methodology and laboratory scale three-point bending test was conducted to …

Effect Of External Expanded Polystyrene (Eps) Panels On Slabs Subjected To Impact Load, Yosra El Maghraby

Civil Engineering

No abstract provided.

Load Distribution Of A Prestressed Self-Consolidating Concrete Bridge, Eli S. Hernandez, John J. Myers

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Bridge A7957 is the first Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) large-scale project using self-consolidating concrete (SCC) and high-strength self-consolidating concrete (HS-SCC). The objective of this research was to monitor the initial in-service behavior of the precast-prestressed concrete primary elements of Bridge A7957 and to obtain the load distribution of the bridge using field and finite element models (FEM) data. An initial series of diagnostic load tests was conducted on the bridge superstructure. Embedded sensors recorded strain variations at different section of the instrumented girders for different load configurations. An automated total station (ATS) collected the vertical deflection of the girders …

Cost-Effective Methods To Retrofit Metal Culverts Using Composites, Mahmoud Reda Taha, Susan Bogus Halter

Publications

One of the current pressing problems for all DOTs is the corrosion-oriented deterioration of existing metal culverts. These metal culverts typically are designed for a life of 50 years. However, corrosion is making them last no longer than 30 years. A Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers (GFRP) pipe section has been evaluated as a fit-in GFRP profile liner for complete repair and rehabilitation of the corroded metal culvert with an expected life of 75 years. This is mainly because of the corrosion free nature of the GFRP material. A comprehensive rehabilitation methodology and laboratory scale three-point bending test was conducted to …

Influence Of Tempering And Cryogenic Treatment On Retained Austenite And Residual Stresses In Carbonitrided 18crnimo7-6 Low Alloy Steel, Richard Katemi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This work investigated the influence of tempering conditions coupled with cryogenic treatment on thermal stabilization of retained austenite and residual stress distributions in carbonitrided 18CrNiMo76 low alloy steel samples. The carbonitriding conditions were set to enable attaining surface carbon and nitrogen content of 0.87 and 0.34 mass.-percent respectively. After carbonitriding, some of the samples were subjected to varying tempering conditions followed by cryogenic treatment at-120 °C using nitrogen gas. Analysis of both retained austenite and residual stresses was conducted using X-ray diffraction. In the as-quenched state, carbonitrided samples contained 52 mass.-percent. Samples that were directly subjected to the cryogenic treatment …

Experimental Study On The Effect Of Moisture On Bolt Embedment And Connection Loaded Parallel To Grain For Timber Structures, Henry Meleki Kiwelu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Connections are critical parts of timber structures, transmitting static and dynamic forces between structural elements. The ultimate behaviour of a building depends strongly on the structural configuration and the capacity of its connections. The complete collapse of a building or other less extensive accidents that may occur usually start as a local failure inside or in the vicinity of a joint. The main aim of this study has been to investigate if the short-term capacity of steel-wood dowel joints loaded parallel to the grain is affected by variations in moisture content associated with post fabrication drying or wetting of the …

Performance Based Design For Bridge Piers Impacted By Heavy Trucks, Anil K. Agrawal

INSPIRE Archived Webinars

Based on bridge failure data compiled by New York State Department of Transportation, collision, both caused by vessel and vehicles, is the second leading cause of bridge failures after hydraulic. Current AASHTO-LRFD (2012) recommends designing a bridge pier vulnerable to vehicular impacts for an equivalent static force of 600 kips (2,670 kN) applied in a horizontal plane at a distance of 5.0 feet above the ground level. This research presents a performance-based approach for designing a bridge pier subject to impacts by tractor-semi-trailer weighing up to 80,000 lb based on an extensive investigation using finite element model of a tractor-semitrailer …

Nonlinear Dynamic Analysis Of Long-Span Cable-Stayed Bridges With Train-Bridge And Cable Coupling, Zhihui Zhu, Lidong Wang, Michael T. Davidson, Issam E. Harik, Anand Patil

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Span lengths of newly constructed cable-stayed railway bridges continue to show increases relative to those of older bridges. Accompanying such increases is the importance of ensuring that vibrations of long-span cable-stayed bridges satisfy both safety and serviceability requirements, particularly for bridges that support train passages. In contrast to modern design of bridges that support roadway vehicles, current methods for analyzing cable-stayed railway bridges do not yet typically account for coupling effects that may occur between cables and the surrounding bridge structure during train passages. This paper presents a computational framework for the nonlinear dynamic analysis of railway bridges based on …

In-Plane Cyclic Behavior Of A Steel Mesh Reinforced Cob Wall, Julia Fremuth Sargent

Master's Theses

This thesis presents the results from in-plane cyclic testing of a reinforced cob wall. Cob is an earthen building material composed of sand, clay, straw and water. Cob is typically constructed with no steel reinforcement; however, the California Building Code requires reinforcement in all buildings for resisting seismic forces. The purpose of this thesis is to provide additional technical data to integrate cob into the building code.

Test results are reported for a 7’ x 8’ x 14” wall with two layers of welded wire steel reinforcement constructed on a reinforced concrete foundation. In-plane cyclic loading was performed on the …

Pedestrian Bridge In Tanzania, Maja Sagaser, Karina Rosales

Architectural Engineering

This senior project originated to address the need of the community of Same, Tanzania. There is a deep and wide ravine which floods, making the path many adults and children take to the Majevu Primary School increasingly difficult and dangerous. This report encapsulates all of the steps taken to complete an approved final design for a footbridge to be constructed over this ravine. It includes the project overview, the architectural and structural design process, as well as the important considerations. There are also structural drawings that include plans, elevations, and details.

Steel Test Set-Up For Non-Ductile Concrete Shear Walls, Colin S. Ridgley

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this project was to provide a robust test set-up for the thesis work being conducted by graduate students, Jerry Luong & Rory de Sevilla. Their research aims to evaluate the feasibility of using fiber-reinforced polymer wraps and splay anchors to retrofit non-ductile concrete shear walls through a series of tests on reinforced concrete walls.

Four key constraints governed the design of the test set-up. First, the wall can be cyclically, laterally loaded to develop data for comparison with theoretical analysis methods. Second, the wall can be axially loaded to simulate interaction effects and prevent a sliding failure …

Rubberized Chip Seal Implementation In Mid-Missouri, Alireza Pourhassan, Ahmed Gheni, Mohamed Elgawady

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Technical Reports

Chip seal is one of the most common and cost-effective maintenance treatment approaches to improve the life-time of pavements. Recently, the research team developed a rubberized chip seal where natural aggregate is replaced with crumb rubber obtained from recycled tires. During this study, chip seal specimens with crumb rubber and mineral aggregate were designed and constructed according to three different common methods including McLeod, Kearby, and modified Kearby.

The macrotexture of the laboratory specimens was investigated using the sand patch and image processing methods to show how each reflects on the skid resistance. The values of the mean texture depth …

Detection Of Sand Boils From Images Using Machine Learning Approaches, Aditi S. Kuchi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Levees provide protection for vast amounts of commercial and residential properties. However, these structures degrade over time, due to the impact of severe weather, sand boils, subsidence of land, seepage, etc. In this research, we focus on detecting sand boils. Sand boils occur when water under pressure wells up to the surface through a bed of sand. These make levees especially vulnerable. Object detection is a good approach to confirm the presence of sand boils from satellite or drone imagery, which can be utilized to assist in the automated levee monitoring methodology. Since sand boils have distinct features, applying object …

Proposed New Military Live Load For Highway Bridges In The United States, Walter P. Parker

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the results of a mathematical analysis of various live load combinations on highway bridge spans up to 304.8 meters (1,000 feet) total lengths. The analysis included continuous beams, but only the results for simple beams is presented. The analysis was performed using an independently developed Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheet computation, based on superposition and classical mechanics.

In this thesis, several actual bridge live loadings and several hypothetical live loadings were analyzed and compared to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Load and Resistance Factor Design method. Also considered was the new bridge design method adopted …

Advanced Removal Of 4-Nitrophenol By Emerging And Intensifying Technology Of Emulsion Liquid Membrane With Magnetic Nanoparticles, Qusay Al-Obaidi, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

4-nitrophenol is one of the phenolic compounds found in industrial wastes that needs to be removed from treated wastewater. Emulsion liquid membrane (ELM) has been introduced as a developing technology for advanced wastewater and water treatment. This emerging technology of treatment can be intensified by strategically adding nanoparticles to organic membrane phase (O). To facilitate the industrial implementation of ELM with nanoparticles, we used magnetic iron nanoparticles added to the organic phase (O) in order to recover them by a magnet for reuse. This also assists in de-emulsification step. The results show that with the use of 1% (W/W) of …

Validation Of The State Based Peridynamic Lattice Model, Anima Bista

Civil Engineering ETDs

This thesis presents a study performed to validate the State-based Peridynamic Lattice Model (SPLM) using results obtained from laboratory experiments. The SPLM is capable of modeling cracking of solids using particle lattices. We use a plane stress, elastic-plastic damage SPLM model for the simulations. The SPLM model is appropriate for computational simulations of cementitious materials as it automatically allows cracks to develop. In this study, the lattices are rotated through different angles and the variations of the cracking patterns are studied. In the laboratory, we performed nine Brazilian split cylinder tests, three anchor pullout/direct tensile tests, and eight compression tests …

Investigation Of Flexural Behavior Of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete And Steel Fiber Orientation Control During Construction, Maria Kolisnichenko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world, and its consumption has been increasing. The main benefits of concrete include its durability, availability of the components, and great strength in compression. Despite all these advantages, however, concrete is a brittle material with a relatively low tensile strength and deformation capacity. It is, therefore, vulnerable to cracking under tension, which can lead to sudden catastrophic failures of concrete structures. In order to control and reduce cracking, reinforcement of concrete is necessary.

The most commonly used reinforcement technique in structural application is the use of deformed steel bars. However, …

Development Of A Mechanical Device For Measuring Connection Rotations During Seismic Loading, Garrett Tatum

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This engineering design project sought to design a cheap and easy-to-use sensor to monitor seismic connection rotations in steel buildings during earthquakes by using a linear ratchet mechanism. The idea for the project goes against the mainstream of research that is seeking to develop complex digital networks for monitoring structures in earthquake regions. Whereas many modern sensor networks require high-cost, professionally maintained digital networks, an analog sensor could provide much of the same information at a fraction of the cost, allowing sensors to be more widely utilized, particularly in developing countries. This project required an iterative engineering design process to …

Point Cloud Technology For Analysis Of Existing Structures, Jacob Cano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For this thesis, a study was completed on two different structures on the UCF Orlando campus through the use of both structural plans and point cloud technology. The results sought to understand the viability of point cloud technology as an accurate tool for the static and dynamic modal analysis of existing structures. For static analysis, a portion of the framing of Spectrum Stadium was rendered, modeled, analyzed and compared to a previous case study. The results emphasized how different users can render dissimilar member sizes and lengths due to human judgment on point cloud visuals. The study also found that …

In-Situ Field Monitoring Of A Uhpc And Hpc Bridge Superstructure Under Diagnostic Load Testing Using Digital Image Correlation, Prajwol Sharma

Civil Engineering Theses

New innovative methods of bridge design are being sought to increase the service life of these structure. High Performance Concrete (HPC) and Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) utilizes a mix of high strength concrete with steel fibers to create a strong and ductile reinforced concrete mix. While not new to civil engineering construction, this material still has some uncertainty of its performance both long and short term. As a result, in-situ experimental monitoring is important to verify methods of design and the suitability of the materials. A two-span pre-stressed UHPC and HPC reinforced concrete bridge superstructure was designed at New Mexico State …

The Influence Of Citric Acid On Setting Time And Temperature Behavior Of Calcium Sulfoaluminate-Belite Cement, Edgar Soriano

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Today the need to opt for alternative cementitious materials is growing due to environmental reasons and construction time frames that portland cement cannot always satisfy. Calcium Sulfoaluminate (CSA) cements are a strong candidate to supplement or replace portland cement in the construction field for certain applications. In the United States, CSA cement has been limited mostly to pavement repairs because of its rapid initial setting time. The chemical compound responsible for this phenomenon is the alumina. This compound and sulfate are present in larger proportions compared to portland cement. The purpose of this research is to study how the use …

Tension Splitting Strength Of Bcsa Concrete Cylinders, Andrew Steven Deschenes

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The focus of this research was to compare the tension splitting strength (TSS) of belitic calcium sufloaluminate (BCSA) cement concrete to tensile strength predicted by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) and to similarly proportioned portland cement (PC) concrete. BCSA is a rapid-setting cement with higher early strength, higher ettringite content, and lower calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) content than PC. PC and BCSA cement concrete cylinders were broken at different ages in both uniaxial compression and TSS. It was found that BCSA had a similar TSS to both the ACI prediction and PC TSS, but the results require further testing for …

Turbulent Effects On Building Pressure Using A Two-Dimensional Finite Element Program, Jonese Woods

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Much of the knowledge about building aerodynamics today was obtained from physical testing like wind tunnel testing. Physical testing is time-consuming and very expensive. As a result, computational methods like the finite element method are being explored for use in building aerodynamics. Despite several years of research, there is still not a clear understanding of the peak pressure on buildings due to turbulence. Many of the research thus far has focused on comparing different computational methods. However, much work is needed in understanding the capability of the individual methods. In this work, a two-dimensional finite element program is used to …

Program Progress Performance Report #4, Missouri University Of Science And Technology. Inspire - University Transportation Center

Semi-Annual Progress Reports

No abstract provided.

Urban Underground Infrastructure Monitoring Iot: The Path Loss Analysis, Abdul Salam, Syed Shah

Computer Information Technology Faculty Publications

The extra quantities of wastewater entering the pipes can cause backups that result in sanitary sewer overflows. Urban underground infrastructure monitoring is important for controlling the flow of extraneous water into the pipelines. By combining the wireless underground communications and sensor solutions, the urban underground IoT applications such as real time wastewater and storm water overflow monitoring can be developed. In this paper, the path loss analysis of wireless underground communications in urban underground IoT for wastewater monitoring has been presented. It has been shown that the communication range of up to 4 kilometers can be achieved from an underground …

2019 Student Steel Bridge Team, Kourtney Arena, Andrew Biglin, Brett Palmer, Nathaniel Maute, Kenneth Reiser, Jacob Dicks, Paul Kowaleski

STEM Student Research Symposium Posters

Every year AISC runs a regional and national steel bridge competition. The competition offers a chance for civil engineering students to gain valuable experience designing a bridge. In addition to this, mechanical engineering students are provided the opportunity to practice machining steel parts. For the competition, teams from participating schools are given a scenario with certain constraints to design a bridge for. At the competition, the bridges are ranked based on weight, structural efficiency, construction economy, assembly speed, deflection, aesthetics, and overall performance.

The program Risa 3D was used in order to design and perform analysis on the bridge. Using …

Unl-Cc Outdoor Education Center Master Plan, Marie Wagner

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The following report contains the work done by the group Griswold Engineering in completion of the Senior Design requirements for Civil Engineering and the Honors Requirements of the Project Manager. As the project manager, my job was to organize the project as a whole and to work alongside the Structural Engineer on the project. One of the main problems to overcome was the division of labor amongst the group. The project was originally conceived as a group project with one project manager and five other students to serve as the project engineers in each subdiscipline. Since this group only had …