Transportation Engineering Commons^™

Community Transportation Needs And Willingness To Use Shared Micromobility: A Case Study Of Fort Smith, Arkansas, Anthony Michael Kammerer

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Shared micromobility is utilized in “targeted service areas with the usage generally intended for short trips such as "first- and last-mile" connections to complete trips made via other modes, including transit” (Price et al., 2021). In the United States, this practice has especially taken off with the implementation of sharing-based systems. This is evidenced by ridership numbers in the United States growing from 84 million riders nationwide in 2018 to 136 million riders in 2019 (NACTO, 2020). Users often use their smart phone or another similar device to unlock the vehicle after paying a fee on the device through their …

North 14th Street Corridor Improvements Project, Ashley Nguyen, Samantha Corey, Maricela Paramo Reyes, Pooja Rajeev

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The following project report was a study of the North 14^th Street corridor ranging from Adams Street to Virginia Street conducted by University of Nebraska-Lincoln students for a senior design capstone project. Main focuses of the project were the intersection of Adams and 14^th Street and the 14^th Street bridges over Cornhusker Highway and Oak Creek. Study of this area included work in transportation, traffic, structural, geotechnical, water resources, and environmental engineering. However, this report done by students should not take the place of work done by licensed professional engineers.

This project was done in collaboration with …

Cruser Place Green Streets Plan, Neal Friedman

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

Combining green and complete street design techniques leads to multiple environmental, social and economic benefits that often enhance each other's effectiveness. In urban areas confronting increased pressures of sea level rise, green streets, which incorporate landscaped features or vegetative areas to manage stormwater within the right of way, can be crucial pieces of pedestrian oriented urban design and multimodal planning frameworks that consider and plan for diverse, complementary transportation options. This plan works with the Colonial Place and Riverview Civic League as well as the Norfolk Preservation Collective to come up with green street design recommendations in order to strengthen …

An Enhanced Framework To Compute Road User Costs Associated With Construction Zones, Jeremiah Adebiyi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The monetary quantification of inconveniences caused to the road users by ongoing construction activities is known as the Road Users Costs (RUCs). While the importance of RUCs is widely known, some highway agencies lack an appropriate methodology to compute RUCs. Thus, there is a need to develop a framework to compute RUCs that can be adopted quickly by highway agencies. This study reviewed existing literature and conducted a nationwide survey to identify and summarize the current practices of computing RUCs. It developed an enhanced framework and tool to compute RUCs that balances the effort required to calculate RUCs and the …

Comparison Of The Resistance Of Belitic Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cement And Portland Cement To Sulfate Attack And Sulfuric Acid, Rilye Dillard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microbially induced corrosion (MIC) is a fairly common concrete deterioration mechanism with many negative effects. MIC is a complex chemical and biological process that occurs in sewage systems and is nearly impossible to replicate in a laboratory setting. For this study, sulfate and sulfuric acid attack on concrete were studied to mimic two stages of the MIC process. The ASTM C1012, Standard Test Method for Length Change of Hydraulic-Cement Mortars Exposed to a Sulfate Solution and a modified ASTM C1012 accelerated method were used to compare the sulfate resistance of belitic calcium sulfoaluminate (BCSA) cement, portland cement (PC), and PC-fly …

Analysis Of Shear-Strength In Weathered Shale Strata Along A Highway Slope Failure Site In Northwest Arkansas, Olivia Overton

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Slope failures cost millions of dollars per year to repair and can be deadly. Accurate modeling of slope conditions, including soil parameters, water table locations, and depth to bedrock, are essential to determining the overall stability of a slope. This project is a continuation of the work completed in 2019 by a former University of Arkansas researcher, Vanessa LeBow. LeBow RocScience used Slide2 modeling software to model two highway embankment slopes in Northwest Arkansas that experienced slope movement to determine whether increased use of geophysical data could increase the accuracy of slope stability models. A parametric study of shear strengths …

Going Green: A Comparative Analysis Of Green Urbanism In Paris And Shanghai, Jeanne Torp

Honors Theses

As climate change becomes more pressing with each day and as we scramble to slow down the challenges it poses, adapting the means of operation within our cities will become an invaluable tool for reducing humanity’s carbon footprint. This paper seeks to study the ways in which green infrastructure in global cities can be used to do just that—adapting to and mitigating the effects of challenges resulting from climate change. In order to provide a broad overview of the effectiveness of such green infrastructure systems across the globe, this research will focus on two cities that vary greatly in their …

Evaluation Of Liquid Ice Melting Additives For Winter Maintenance Applications, Erin Lammers-Staats

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Winter weather can often pose difficulties for transportation agencies as they work to clear roads of snow and ice quickly so that motorists can travel safely and efficiently. Kentucky has made efforts to maximize efficiency within its winter maintenance program by focusing on optimized equipment usage and personnel time management. This study’s objective was to evaluate novel anti-icers and calculate how their performance compared to the current performance of brine and calcium chloride mixture. New brine additives claim to offer better results, but there is very little guidance about how to systematically evaluate new anti-icers. The author developed a testing …

The Influence Of Channel Deepening On Tides, River Discharge Effects, And Storm Surge, S. A. Talke, Ramin Familkhalili, D. A. Jay

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

We combine archival research, semi-analytical models, and numerical simulations to address the following question: how do changes to channel geometry alter tidal properties and flood dynamics in a hyposynchronous, strongly frictional estuary with a landward decay in tidal amplitudes? Records in the Saint Johns River Estuary since the 1890s show that tidal range has doubled in Jacksonville, Florida. Near the estuary inlet, tidal discharge approximately doubled but tidal amplitudes increased only ∼6%. Modeling shows that increased shipping channel depths from ∼5 to ∼13m drove the observed changes, with other factors like channel shortening and width reduction producing comparatively minor effects. …

Impact Of Blended Salt Anti-Icers/Deicers On Properties Of Asphalt Binders, Nurudeen A. Abidoye

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Anyone who has ever attempted to remove a layer of ice from a roadway or sidewalk by plowing or shoveling knows it is no easy task when the ice is firmly bonded to the asphalt/concrete surface. Winter anti-icing/deicing operations are moral choices that mankind has made to combat winter storms. This research is aimed at evaluating the macro and nano structural impacts of (anti-icing/de-icing) salt on aged and unaged asphalt binders. The macro structural impacts focused on the rheological and creep properties, and the nano structural impacts focused on the surface topography, adhesion force, and modulus of asphalt binders. Rheological …

Laboratory Testing And Mechanistic Analysis Of Treated Subgrade Soils, Hari Kumar Reddy Yarrapureddi

Civil Engineering Theses

Calcium-based stabilizing agents such as cement and lime have been extensively used to improve the engineering properties of base and subgrade layers of pavement systems. Recently, polymers and chemical stabilizers have become popular due to cost efficiency, ease of application, and fast curing times. In this study, California Bearing Ratio (CBR) values of polymer and chemical treated soils were compared with the CBR values of soils treated with conventional stabilizers. Parametric sensitivity analyses was carried out on key parameters including the type of subgrade soil, stabilizing agent, stabilizing agent treatment levels, and moisture conditioning. Additionally, numerical analyses was performed to …

Expanding The Concept Of Comprehensive Area Ratio Parameter To The South-Central States Towards Simplifying The Structural Evaluation Of Flexible Pavements At The Network Level, Nitish R. Bastola

Civil Engineering Theses

The surface deflection bowl data collected through Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) has been widely utilized by various Department of Transportation (DOTs) in the South-Central States and other places. The primary purpose of using deflection-based NDTs in network-level assessment is to identify a weak pavement section that requires further analysis at the project level. The falling weight deflectometer (FWD) test is one of the common NDT based tests utilized by highway agencies in assessing the performance of the flexible pavement. However, a robust method to evaluate pavement sections utilizing FWD data from all the sensors are seldom developed. There is always a …

St. Mary And St. Anne Cathedral, Cork: An Optimum Heating Solution For Heritage Buildings?, Christopher Shiell, Roger P. West

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Cathedrals and most churches are characterised by having large internal, undivided spaces and permeable building envelopes. They are often used little, intermittently, but predictably and, in spite of the fact that they are unique in still being largely used for the purpose for which they were built many centuries ago, they are now often used for additional purposes, for which they were never designed. These uses include concerts, graduation ceremonies, filming and a host of other uses all of which require a level of thermal comfort not envisaged by the original builders. Research was undertaken by the authors into the …

Challenges And Opportunities To Deep Retrofitting Of Traditional Fabric Buildings To Achieve Nearly Zero Energy Building (Nzeb), Maria Lopez Zambrano, Paul Kenny, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Many of our traditional buildings are disappearing or in danger of being under utilised because they are not comfortable for modern day living and do not meet our present day needs. If a building does not have a use, inevitably it deteriorates and eventually becomes a ruin or gets demolished. It is important to retrofit these buildings, which are part of our identity and can be powerful tourist attractions even though most of them are not listed. Some owners want to apply for retrofitting schemes and grants, but they are rejected because there are no standard solutions to achieve low …

Can Deap Help Us To Predict The Energy Demand And Indoor Temperature Of Homes Before And After Renovation? A Case Study From Dublin, Paul Moran, Jamie Goggins

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Improving the energy efficiency of buildings via retrofitting is seen as one of the key mitigation measures to reducing the energy demand and carbon emissions of the built environment in Ireland. However, while energy efficiency retrofits for buildings are effective in theory, the energy savings estimated by statistical or engineering models can often be inaccurate. The Domestic Energy Assessment Procedure (DEAP) is the standard assessment procedure used for assessing the energy performance standard of residential buildings in Ireland. This paper examines the gas energy demand for space and water heating and the internal temperature profiles in contrast to DEAP estimates …

Operational And Embodied Energy Analysis Of 8 Single-Occupant Dwellings Retrofit To Nzeb Standard, Richard O'Hegarty, Shane Colclough, Oliver Kinnane, Donal Lennon, Etienne Rieux

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In line with the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, Irish dwellings are being retrofit to near Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards - with a number of the deep energy retrofits classified as A-rated. As a result of the low operational energy, the embodied energy share of an nZEB's life cycle energy is significantly increased. Therefore, to obtain a holistic picture of the change in energy profile of buildings, the embodied energy of the material added to achieve that low performance should also be taken into account. This paper presents results from a case study of 8 single-occupant terrace bungalows retrofit …

The Broader Development Of The Student Engineer Through Industry Based Experiential Learning, Donogh Coleman, Ted Mckenna, Mary Moloney

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The global drive for industry-aware and industry-ready engineering graduates, has led to the development and integration of experiential learning through work placements. Industry is looking to recruit graduates with not just the requisite technical engineering skills, but also graduates with inter alia high levels of teamwork and communications skills. This has been recognised by CIT with the integration of work placement in most of its undergraduate programmes. This paper provides an overview of the student placement process in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at CIT, includes the work placement alternative which was implemented due to the COVID-19 …

Art In Engineering: Evoking A Creative Response From Engineering Students And More, Jamie Goggins, Marta Fuente, Eamonn Madden

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The concept of creativity being only associated with writers, painters, and artistic professions is outdated. The future engineer must embrace maths, art and creativity to unlock innovative solutions. Traditional engineering courses with an emphasis predominately on maths and science can produce graduates who are constrained in developing design solutions without creativity to unlock innovative solutions. This paper describes a short course introduced in the School of Engineering at NUIGalway in 2018 to expose students to creative thinking research and principles and engage in various forms of creative expression (photography, painting and essay writing) to articulate their response to a set …

Teaching Of Structural Analysis Into The Future, Dermot O'Dwyer

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The engineering curriculum has always been full. In the past civil and structural engineers studied a wide variety of technical subjects within the broad field of engineering science and spent many hours working on design projects. Modern engineering curricula try to cover these areas while also dedicating more time to structured group-work, report writing and communication skills. Although students spend longer in college the number and range of technical fields that students must master is considerably larger than in the past. As a result the time available to any one topic area has reduced. At the same time the work …

Loading On Long Span Bridges In Heavily Trafficked Areas, Michael Quilligan, Eugene O'Brien

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The critical traffic loading condition for long-span bridges is congestion when vehicles may be closely spaced together. Data on very high traffic flows is limited however, as induction loops which are typically used to collect traffic data, are ineffective when traffic flow breaks down. A number of long span bridges are located in areas of high traffic with periods of recurring congestion occurring daily. While the inter-vehicle gap distances are greater than those occurring during non-recurring full stop accident type events, the high frequency of the recurring congestion events can increase the probability of a critical load case occurring.

A Numerical Study Of The Effect Of Wind Barriers On Traffic And The Bridge Deck, Yuxiang Zhang, Philip Cardiff, Jennifer Keenahan

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Wind actions can have a great impact on both bridges and traffic on bridges. However, structures designed to shelter the traffic from wind can influence the aerodynamic performance of the bridge deck, especially for long-span bridges. This study compares the effect of non-perforated walls and perforated walls used as wind barriers for traffic by conducting Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations on three-dimensional geometries of a four-lane bridge deck. Steady-state simulations employ the Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) method with the k-epsilon turbulence model and all simulations use parallel computing. An open-sourced software OpenFOAM is used.

Long-Run Traffic Simulations For Multi-Lane Road Bridges, Róisín Donnelly, Lorcan Connolly, Ilaria Bernardini

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The maintenance and repair of ageing bridges is a concern for road infrastructure managers. This issue is amplified by the increasing weights and frequency of travel of freight vehicles in recent times. In order to accurately assess the risk of damage for road bridges, it is essential to have knowledge of both historical and current bridge loading. When available, site-specific Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) data can be effective in creating representative load models for a structure. However, for cases where WIM data is not available and in cases where future damage must be predicted, it is necessary to simulate appropriate data using …

Simulation Of Traffic Loading On Long Span Bridges, Hang Zhang, Michael Quilligan

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Existing long span load models have typically been developed using a number of conservative assumptions, and as such are more applicable to the design of new bridges rather than the assessment of existing structures. Excessive conservatism in such assumptions can lead to expensive and unnecessary interventions in existing bridges. Furthermore, existing load models do not always allow for correlations in traffic weights and vehicle positions on the bridge.

Repair & Rehabilitation Of Daly's (Shakey) Bridge, Cork City, Michael Minehane, John Gamble

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

This paper describes the rehabilitation of (Shakey) Bridge, an existing single-span suspension bridge crossing the northern channel of the River Lee in Cork City. The bridge was opened in 1927 to replace an earlier ferry crossing at the same location. Daly’s bridge is included on the Record of Protected Structures and the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. It remains the only suspension bridge in Cork City and is the only surviving bridge of its kind in Ireland. It is considered to be a significant contributor to the architectural heritage of the city. This case study describes the project development including …

Development And Testing Of A Deployable Double Layer Tensegrity Grid, Michael Quilligan, Valentin Gomez-Jauregui, Cristina Manchado, Cesar Otero

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Tensegrity is a structural principle based on the use of isolated or contiguous pin jointed components in compression inside a net of continuous tension. Although the concept has been studied for many decades, relatively few examples of tensegrity structures have been used for civil engineering purposes.

Reinforcement Of Timber Elements In Compression Perpendicular To The Grain Using Compressed Wood Dowels, Michael Conway, Conan O'Ceallaigh, Sameer Mehra, Annette M. Harte

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In the past decade, there has been an increased focus on the environmental impacts of construction and a movement towards more sustainable construction products. Timber is one such sustainable product that can achieve these environmental targets but, while timber has a high strength-to-weight ratio parallel to the grain, it demonstrates poor strength perpendicular to the grain. As a result, stress perpendicular to the grain is an important factor in the design of timber structures, especially in areas of concentrated loading, such as supports. This paper describes a study, which examines the use of compressed wood dowels as a sustainable alternative …

An Evaluation Of Design Issues Identified During Reviews Of Structural Designs Of Buildings From 2015 To 2020, Patrick Crean, Richard Osborne

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

A recent study on failures of structures in Ireland indicated that approximately 40% could be apportioned to designer error. A 2019 report into recent structural cracking of a high-rise building in Sydney Australia recommended that Independent third party checking by a Chartered Engineer should be a requirement on all major projects prior to construction. The report also stated that the critical elements of the design on these projects should be identified. It is obvious that a certain percentage of buildings constructed each year contain design flaws and only a small proportion of these ever result in a failure. However there …

A Review Of The Engineering Constraints And Project Management Challenges Involved In Utilising Scot’S Church As A Heritage Asset Through Responsible Adaptive Reuse And Conservation Strategies, Óisín Smith

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

In the field of structural building, there has been a rising popularity in adaptive reuse of older structures, which stems from a variety of stimuli. Apart from preserving built heritage, providing old buildings with new functions promotes sustainability while preventing and containing urban sprawl. Target 11.4 of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030 explicitly outlines that “more efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage” are required. In order to valorise and regenerate obsolescent structures, intervention is often required. The dissertation provides a comprehensive overview of conservation engineering and demonstrates the importance of an engineer’s …

Potential Of A Low-Calcium Fly Ash (Fa) For The Production Of Alkali-Activated Materials., Omar Alelweet, Sara Pavia

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

Coal-FA from power stations is an industrial waste abundantly produced in the world. FA can be used as a silicate precursor, and activated with an alkali-metal source to produce alkali-activated materials (AAMs). AAMs are more sustainable than other traditional products, as the use of waste for their production, reduces carbon emissions, and raw materials and energy consumption. This paper studies the properties, composition and reactivity of an Irish FA to establish its potential for the production of AAMs. The results clearly evidenced that the FA is reactive. It is ultrafine, it has a high specific surface area and is partially …

Maximising The Potential Use Of Ground Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag (Ggbs) In Cement: An Irish Investigation, Brendan Higgins, Michael Curran, John P. Spillane

Civil Engineering Research in Ireland 2020

The production of cement is estimated to account for around 8% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions worldwide, and the Irish construction industry yields fifteen million tonnes of CO2 annually. Measures must be employed to reduce these emissions by incorporating less CO2 intensive admixtures such as blast-furnace slag, however, the Irish construction industry can often be resistant to change. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the potential implementation of ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) into the use of cement in Ireland, on the basis of maximisation over optimisation. This research is based on the hypothesis that if GGBS produces drastically less …