Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/23747

The Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, which is ranked in the top 10 accredited civil and environmental engineering departments by the US News and World Report survey, is one of the largest programs in the United States. The Department has 46 full-time faculty, 657 undergraduate, and 400 graduate students. Civil engineers are the principal designers, constructors, operators, and caretakers of many of the constructed facilities and systems that contribute to the high quality of life enjoyed in the United States. The Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers educational programs in all areas of civil engineering practice.

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A Case Study: Educating Transportation Engineers with Simulation Software
Luken, Brittany Lynn; Hotle, Susan; Alemdar, Meltem; Garrow, Laurie Anne (2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2011)
Accelerated Corrosion Testing of ASTM A1010 Stainless Steel
Hebdon, Matthew H.; Groshek, Isaac (American Institute of Steel Construction, 2018-04-11)
ASTM A1010 (recently adopted as ASTM A709 Gr50CR) is a material which has advantageous corrosion properties. It is a low-grade stainless steel which forms a protective patina and has been marketed as an alternative to other bridge steels and corrosion protection methods due to its corrosion resistance in highly corrosive environments. However, the material is currently available in plate form only, and several of the applications in the United States were required to use alternative materials when constructing and connecting secondary members to the A1010 plate girders. This paper addresses the corrosion behavior of A1010 in several different details relating to recent applications in the US. An accelerated corrosion study was performed which simulated a highly corrosive environment typical of the environment justifying the use of A1010. The research investigated the resulting galvanic corrosion and its effect on the corrosion rate of A1010 plates, several different common bridge steels, and typical fastener materials. In addition, common surface preparation methods were evaluated for their aesthetic effect during patina formation.
Airport Scheduling and Operational Performance: A Clustering Analysis of Airport Response to COVID-19
Alsalous, Osama; Hotle, Susan (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2023-06)
In early 2020, the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic started and forced air travel demand to decrease sharply in most parts of the world due to travel restrictions that were put in place to limit the spread of the virus. The pandemic also impacted capacity due to reasons such as workforce social distancing, days when Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities were shut down due to COVID cases, and financial challenges due to the decreased demand. The reduced demand created a unique challenge in the system since capacity exceeded demand by very large margins in the NAS, however, delays in the system did not fall to zero despite the sharp drop in demand. This study analyzed operations at 77 United States (US) airports to compare and contrast their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of capacity, throughput, and the resulting operational performance. We evaluate the response of airports to the initial shock event during 2020 in addition to the recovery period that followed in 2021. The data showed a 67% decline in total operations at the lowest point during the pandemic. The impact during the shock time period varied greatly across the airports, ranging from a reduction of 14.8% at MEM to 81.5% at LGA. We performed a clustering analysis to study airports’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a number of airport characteristics that were correlated to the changes in airport metrics. For example, the data showed that being located in a multi-airport city was significantly correlated to the decrease in operations during the shock, however, it was not significant in the recovery trends. Our analysis showed that delays in the system did not change proportionately to the change in operations. Similarly, there were only minor improvements in punctuality, on-time flights at the ASPM 77 airports increased by 9.5% while operations declined by 52% during the shock event time period compared to pre-COVID. Part of this phenomenon was a result of schedule peaking which caused delays due to creating busy hours at the airports. This analysis can inform airport management when responding to future disruptive events, it provides insight into airport operational resiliency, response to disruption, and demand recovery patterns based on airport characteristics.
Application of surrogate models for performance-based evaluation of multi-story concrete buildings at early design
Zaker Esteghamati, Mohsen; Flint, Madeleine M.; Rodriguez-Marek, Adrian (2022)
Data incompleteness and uncertainty impede the application of performance-based design of structures at early design, which relies on data- and time-intensive numerical simulations. Early design is the most influential stage in a buildings' life cycle performance, hence neglecting quantitative methods to evaluate the design in preliminary stages can lead to missing on opportunities to improve building resiliency. This study presents a framework to implement surrogate models for supporting performance-based early design of concrete multi-story buildings. Five different surrogate models including multiple linear regression, random forest, extreme gradient boosting, support vector regression machines, and k-nearest neighbors are developed and compared to represent the seismic-induced structural loss of 720 generic concrete office buildings using early design parameters. Additionally, variance-based sensitivity is used to determine influential parameters for the best-performing model. The results show that extreme gradient boosting and support vector regression machines can be used to relate crude topology and design parameters to building seismic performance with reasonable accuracy.
Bioinspired cementitious-polymer composite for increased energy absorption
Painter, Timothy; Schwab, Emily; MacCrate, Nicole; Brand, Alexander S.; Jacques, Eric (EDP Sciences, 2021-11-15)
Preliminary results are presented on the energy absorbing characteristics of a cementitious-polymer architecture bioinspired by the organic-inorganic composite structure of nacre. The proposed bioinspired architecture consists of an open cell, platelet-shaped 3D-printed thermoplastic lattice filled with high performance cementitious paste. The hypothesis is that, similar to nacre, the platelet arrangement and differences in mechanical properties of the thermoplastic lattice and cementitious platelets would result in increased energy absorption. Initial laboratory scale investigations were performed using notched beam samples subjected to static three-point bending. Stereo-digital image correlation was used to track global strain displacement field and Hillerborg’s method was used to estimate the total fracture energy. The results indicate that this “brick-and-mortar” hierarchy can increase the energy absorbing capacity of the composite by upwards of 2490% compared with the benchmark cementitious specimen. The load-deformation behaviour and total fracture energy of the bioinspired composite were found to be influenced by the platelet arrangement and size and the lattice thickness.
Determining typical buyer sensitivity for solar installation cost - Energy savings benefit
Miller, S. E.; Rapp, R. R.; Hebdon, Matthew H. (American Solar Energy Society, 2012-12-31)
A survey was conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 in Washington, DC to determine why American consumers have not yet adopted solar electric technology in their homes. With over 700 respondents, the data showed the three most prevalent concerns include: cost of installation and maintenance, geography, and knowledge about the technology. The survey also sought to find what customers accepted as a payback period if a solar electric home would cost them 20 percent extra. Purdue University's entry in the 2011 competition, the INhome, promoted the practicality of solar living by presenting an efficient, affordable, and conventional home. With a second place finish in the decathlon, Team Purdue's design showed consumers the reality that solar living is achievable today. The following analysis of the survey data obtained at the decathlon compares American residential consumer concerns and desires regarding solar electric power with Team Purdue's INhome.
Disciplinary Influences on the Professional Identity of Civil Engineering Students: Starting the Conversation
Groen, Cassandra J.; Simmons, Denise Rutledge; McNair, Elizabeth D. (2016-06)
As the discipline of civil engineering has evolved from an apprentice-based trade to a socially-engaged profession, the role of the civil engineer has responded to shifts within the ever-changing culture of society. These shifts and historical events have directly influenced what is considered to be valued civil engineering knowledge, behaviors, and practices that we teach to students during their undergraduate careers. As part of a larger grounded theory study that is currently being conducted by the authors, the purpose of this paper is two-fold. First, we present the topic of professional identity formation as heavily influenced by unique historical events that shape the civil engineering discipline. . To establish the connection between identity formation and the history of civil engineering, we interpret historical events as constituents that create a disciplinary identity that is communicated to and subjectively applied by students during their undergraduate careers. Second, we hope to promote and invoke conversations surrounding the relevancy of civil engineering professional identity formation in engineering education among our colleagues within the technical disciplines. Through this paper, we add to ongoing research exploring the professional formation of engineering identities and promote discussions surround this topic at the disciplinary level. While most research conducted on identity formation has been generalized to include all or most engineering disciplines, we focus our discussion solely on professional identity formation within the civil engineering discipline. To reinforce the relationship between the history of the civil engineering profession and students’ professional identity formation, we review the literature on these two areas of inquiry. In particular, we will frame our paper using the following key discussion points: 1) providing a brief overview of key historical events of civil engineering in the United States; 2) discussing the influence of this history on instructor pedagogies and student learning within civil engineering education; and 3) conceptualizing this learning process as a means of professional identity formation. From this work, we will begin to understand how major historical shifts within our discipline maintain the potential to impact its future as we educate the next generation of civil engineering students. To conclude this paper, we will introduce current research that is being conducted by the authors to further understand the nuances of professional identity formation in undergraduate civil engineering students and how instructors may help or hinder that development.
Dynamic Travel Time Prediction using Pattern Recognition
Chen, Hao; Rakha, Hesham A.; McGhee, Catherine C. (TU Delft, 2013)
Travel-time information is an essential part of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATISs) and Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMSs). A key component of these systems is the prediction of travel times. From the perspective of travelers such information may assist in making better route choice and departure time decisions. For transportation agencies these data provide criteria with which to better manage and control traffic to reduce congestion. This study proposes a dynamic travel time prediction algorithm that matches current traffic patterns to historical data. Unlike previous approaches that use travel time as the control variable, the approach uses the temporal-spatial traffic state evolution to match traffic states and predict travel times. The approach first identifies candidate historical time intervals by matching real-time traffic state data against historical data for use in prediction purposes. Subsequently, the selected candidates are used to predict the temporal-spatial evolution of traffic. Lastly, dynamic travel times are constructed using the identified candidate historical data. The proposed algorithm is tested on a 37-mile freeway segment from Newport News to Virginia Beach along the I-64 and I-264 freeways using historical INRIX data. The prediction results indicate that the proposed method produces predictions that are more accurate than the state-of-the-art K-Nearest Neighbor methods reducing the prediction error by 15 percent to less than 3 minutes on a 50-minute trip.
Evaluation of Taxiing Behavior by Airport and Flight Characteristics
Li, Mia K.; Hotle, Susan (AIAA, 2020-06)
Taxiing efficiency is a critical measurement for airport surface performance. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of airport and flight characteristics on taxiing behavior that is not included in preceding surface performance studies based on Aviation System Performance Metrics (ASPM) timestamps. Specifically, the influence of the airport, flight’s equipment type Taxiway Design Group (TDG), time of day (peak vs off-peak), and taxiing area (movement vs non-movement area) on taxiing speed and distance are included. This study evaluates the taxiing efficiency at six major U.S. airports using Airport Surface Detection Equipment – Model X (ASDE-X) Surveillance data, which provides the aircraft position with second-by-second timestamps for each recorded movement at the airport. The computer tool is created to overlay the ASDE-X flight tracks with the geospatial information of the airport layouts. This study presents the advantages of using surveillance flight data and the computer tool to extract valuable information for both landing and takeoff operations. Results suggest that the operation (i.e. arrival vs departure), airport and TDG are important to incorporate when estimating surface performance benchmark metrics.
Force-displacement relationship of a butterfly-shaped beams based on gene expression programming [conference proceeding]
Farzampour, Alireza; Mansouri, Iman; Mortazavi, Seyed Javad; Hu, Jong Wan (2019-11)
Structural steel plates having engineered cut-outs to exhibit controlled yielding is recently proposed for desirable performance compared to conventional systems. Butterfly-shaped beams with hexagonal cut-outs inside of the beam’s web is studied to better align the bending strength diagram along the link length with the corresponding demand shape of the applied moment diagram. In previous studies, it has been reported that these links have substantial energy dissipation capability and sufficient ductility which necessities further investigations. In this study, a set of 240 nonlinear finite element models are developed for creation of a database and subsequently calibrated with finite element software packages. The capability of the gene expression programming (GEP) is explored for prediction of force-displacement relationship of a butterfly-shaped beam. Two new models are developed based on the reliable generated database. Subsequently, the proposed models are validated with several conducted analysis and statistical parameters, for which the comparisons are shown in detail. The results represent that the proposed models are able to predict the force-displacement relationship of a butterfly-shaped beam with satisfactory accuracy.
Fracture Resilience and Redundancy of Built-up Steel Girders
Hebdon, Matthew H.; Connor, Robert J. (American Institute of Steel Construction, 2016-04-15)
Internal member redundancy provides built-up steel girders with the ability to resist total member failure in the event an individual component fails. Anecdotal evidence of in- service performance has historically shown this to be the case in many bridges. However, due to the lack of experimental data, these members are currently required to be inspected as fracture-critical when deemed non-redundant. The full-scale experimental and analytical research program described in this paper provides needed information on parameters that affect the ability of built-up members to arrest a fracture, as well as describing the length of the remaining fatigue life. The results from this study have been used to develop recommended assessment procedures for built- up flexural members when a component has failed. Proposed evaluation guidelines will permit bridges with built-up steel girders where sufficient capacity exists, and the fracture critical designation can be removed, to be inspected using a rational in-service interval and level of detail. Considering the large number of riveted fracture critical bridges in the inventory, both highway and railroad bridge owners will benefit from this research since it allows for implementation of a more rational inspection strategy without compromising safety and reliability. The strategy provides a more integrated approach to inspection that accounts for the probability of detection capabilities, fatigue life, and fracture resilience. Further, new members utilizing high-strength bolted built-up members have the potential to be used without the penalty of being classified as fracture critical in terms of inspection
Geographical Self Organizing Map Clustering in Large-Scale Urban Networks for Perimeter Control
Elouni, Maha; Rakha, Hesham A.; Menendez, Monica; Abdelghaffar, Hossam M. (2024-05-02)
Traffic congestion in urban areas presents a major challenge to efficient transportation systems. Recent advancements in traffic management provide promising solutions, with perimeter control emerging as a technique to tackle network-wide congestion. However, it is crucial to identify geographically connected homogeneously congested areas for effective implementation. This research explores the application of clustering techniques, particularly geographical self-organizing maps (GeoSOM), to identify spatially connected and homogeneously congested areas within transportation networks. While GeoSOM has found applications across various domains, its adaptation to transportation networks for congestion clustering is novel. This study introduces and implements an adaptation of the GeoSOM algorithm tailored for the large-scale urban environment of downtown Los Angeles. Its performance is assessed through a comparative evaluation with two other clustering algorithms, namely DBSCAN and K-means. The results demonstrate that GeoSOM surpasses other clustering algorithms, exhibiting improvements of up to 43% in traffic density variance, up to 61% in the spatial quantization error, and 15% in the quantization error. This finding demonstrates that the proposed clustering algorithm is effective in identifying a spatially homogeneous congested area within a large-scale transportation network.
The impact of hazard-consistent ground motion scenarios selection on structural seismic risk estimation
Zaker Esteghamati, Mohsen; Bahrampouri, Mahdi; Rodriguez-Marek, Adrian (The Geo-Institute of ASCE, 2021)
Structural risk-based evaluation requires a large number of time-history analyses at different ground motion (GM) intensity levels, where the scenarios (e.g. magnitude and distance) of the GMs used in the time-history analyses should be consistent with the site's hazard. The current practice of GM selection typically simplifies the choice of scenario to either an average scenario or the modal scenarios based on the site's hazard deaggregation results. This paper investigates the impact of hazard deaggregation and scenario selection on estimating structural seismic risk. For a hypothetical site in the Eastern US, a Monte Carlo seismic hazard analysis is performed to derive a site-consistent GM suite that captures 1,000,000 years of the site's seismic activity. The complete GM suite consisting of 99,917 records is then used to perform nonlinear dynamic analyses on a mid-rise concrete office building to derive a benchmark seismic demand curve. Subsequently, four GM sets are selected based on average and modal scenarios from two different hazard deaggregation formulation, and the resulting demand curves are compared to the benchmark. The results show that the hazard deaggregation method and scenario choice impacts the demand curve estimation. When deaggregation is performed on IM exceedance, GMs that were selected based on both methods agree well with the benchmark up to higher damage states where mode-based records outperform average-based records. On the other hand, when deaggregation is formulated based on IM occurrence, average scenario-based GMs better match the benchmark, except for higher damage states where again modal scenario-based GMs are in better agreement with the benchmark.
Innovative Lateral Resisting Systems with Seismic Protective Dampers and Guideline Design Procedures
Farzampour, Alireza; Mansouri, Iman; Hu, Jong Wan (2022-01-01)
Several conventional structures are in need of proper design and construction to resist seismic loads without experiencing a significant amount of damages. Sufficient strength and stiffness of seismic protective devices would eventually reduce the structural vulnerabilities due to the serious damage under seismic loading. There are variations of structural elements with adequate ductility and energy dissipating capability, which could be implemented as structural fuses to reduce the seismic effects, especially for high-rise buildings. For this purpose, dampers are typically used for improving the seismic energy dissipation, the concentration of the damages in a specific part of the system, proving more ductility, and reducing the unpredictable high plastic strains within the structures. In this study, the widely used conventional eccentrically braced systems are considered for further investigations, and the effects of the implementation of the seismic links in multi-story structures are analyzed for multi-story prototype structures by using verified computational models. Subsequently, innovative seismic protective dampers consist of several butterfly-shaped shear links with a linearly varying width between larger ends, and a smaller middle section is introduced. Ultimately, guideline design procedures are developed for redesigning the conventional eccentrically braced frame (EBF) systems with innovative seismic protective dampers, and backbone curves are derived and compared accordingly.
Investigation of the beams and columns connection with infill plate on the structural behavior of the steel plate shear walls
Paslar, Nima; Farzampour, Alireza (University of Tokyo, Japan, 2019-10-14)
Steel plate shear walls are commonly used as structural lateral load resisting load systems in space-constrained areas. Many studies indicated that the implementation of the steel plate shear walls improves the ductility, stiffness and ultimate strength of the structure for which the interconnection of the steel infill plate with boundary members has a significant role. The typical connection of the infill shear plates to the boundary elements has a high-level fixity despite the general convenient construction procedures. In this study, the connection of the infill plates to the boundary elements are precisely investigated by establishing more than 21 computational models after verifying the modeling methodology. The structural performance of the partially connected plates with different commonly used connections types are evaluated and compared to the corresponding conventional fully connected infill plate systems. It is shown that column-only connected infill plate shear wall reduces the structural lateral load resisting capacity tangibly more than beam-only connected infill plates due to limited tension field action development. In addition, results indicated that systems with partial infill plate connection and connectivity ratio of 80% or more generally have similar structural performance compared to conventional systems with full connected infill plates.
Monte Carlo Simulation of Barrier-Island Systems and Tsunami Hazards
Irish, Jennifer L.; Weiss, Robert; Dura, Tina (Coastal Engineering Research Council, 2023-09-01)
Robust characterization of the future tsunami hazard is critically important for resilient planning and engineering in coastal communities prone to tsunami inundation. The hazard from earthquake-generated tsunami waves is not only determined by the earthquake's characteristics and distance to the earthquake area, but also by the geomorphology of the nearshore and onshore areas, which can change over time. In coastal hazard assessments, a changing coastal environment is commonly taken into account by increasing the sea-level to projected values (static). However, sea-level changes and other climate-change impacts influence the entire coastal system causing morphological change (dynamic). Here, we present the modeling framework and results initially published in Weiss et al. (2022), which employs within a Monte Carlo framework the barrier island-marsh, lagoon- marsh evolution model of Lorenzo-Trueba and Mariotti (2017) and the tsunami model Geoclaw (e.g., LeVeque et al. 2011). We compare the runup of the same suite of earthquake-generated tsunamis to a barrier system for statically adjusted and dynamically adjusted sea level and bathymetry over the period from 2000 to 2100. We employ Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6 and 8.5 without and with treatment of Antarctic ice-sheet processes (e.g., Kopp et al. 2017) as different sea-level projections.
NeTrainSim: A Network Freight Train Simulator for Estimating Energy/Fuel Consumption
Aredah, Ahmed; Fadhloun, Karim; Rakha, Hesham A.; List, George (2023-01-10)
Although train simulation research is vast, most available network simulators do not track the instantaneous movements and interactions of multiple trains for the computation of energy/fuel consumption. In this paper, we introduce the NeTrainSim simulator for heavy long-haul freight trains on a network of multiple intersecting tracks. Trains are modeled as a series of moving mass points (each car/locomotive is modeled as a point mass) while ensuring safe following distances between them. The simulator considers the motion of the train as a whole and neglects the relative movements between the train cars/locomotives. Furthermore, the powers of the different locomotives are transferred to the first locomotive as such a simplification result in a reduced simulation time without impacting the accuracy of energy consumption estimates. While the different tractive forces are combined, the resistive forces are calculated at their corresponding locations. The output files of the simulator contain pertaining information to the train trajectories and the instantaneous energy consumption levels. A summary file is also provided with the total energy consumed for the full trip and the entire network of trains. Two case studies are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the simulator. The first case study validates the model by comparing the output of NeTrainSim to empirical trajectory data using a basic single-train network. The results confirm that the simulated trajectory is precise enough to estimate the electric energy consumption of the train. The second case study demonstrates the train-following model considering six trains following each other. The results showcase the model’s ability in relation to maintaining safe-following distances between successive trains. Finally, the NeTrainSim is demonstrated to be scalable with computational times of O(n) for less than 50 trains (n) and O(n2) for higher number of trains.
Optimization, Modeling and Assessment of Smart City Transportation Systems
Rakha, Hesham A. (2021-04-29)
Probabilistic seismic assessment of a mid-rise eccentrically braced steel frame equipped with butterfly-shaped dampers
Zaker Esteghamati, Mohsen; Farzampour, Alireza (2020-09)
While modern code-conforming steel buildings can withstand seismic events without collapse through substantial inelastic action, the damages to structural members limit the building’s post-earthquake functionality and safety. An efficient approach to minimize structural damage is to implement elements with large ductility and energy dissipation capability as shear fuses. Shear fuses are designed to protect the surrounding members from damages by yielding and are then easily replaced after the event imposing significant lateral forces. The butterfly-shaped dampers are a novel type of structural fuse with varying width that has been shown to improve structural energy dissipation and eliminate the high strain concentration in critical areas. However, a detailed risk-based assessment is needed to investigate their implementation and effectiveness in seismic retrofitting of mid-rise buildings. In this study, the seismic performance of a six-story steel braced frame with supplemental butterfly-shaped dampers is investigated and compared with a conventional eccentrically-braced system using a probabilistic approach. Nonlinear finite element models are constructed using OpenSees simulation framework. Incremental dynamic analysis is then performed to derive seismic fragility and demand hazard curves in terms of the structure’s global responses. The results show that butterfly-shaped dampers tangibly improve the structural seismic performance of the braced frame system compared to conventional systems at all considered performance levels. In addition, the improvement is more pronounced at larger drift demand levels associated with higher damage states. In particular, butterfly-shaped dampers reduces the mean annual frequency of exceeding the complete damage of the original building by a factor of 4 for the studied building.
Probabilistic tropical cyclone surge hazard under future sea-level rise scenarios: A case study in the Chesapeake Bay region, USA
Kim, Kyutae; Lee, Jun-Whan; Irish, Jennifer L. (2023-05-21)
Storm surge flooding caused by tropical cyclones is a devastating threat to coastal regions, and this threat is growing due to sea-level rise (SLR). Therefore, accurate and rapid projection of the storm surge hazard is critical for coastal communities. This study focuses on developing a new framework that can rapidly predict storm surges under SLR scenarios for any random synthetic storm of interest and assign a probability to its likelihood. The framework leverages the Joint Probability Method with Response Surfaces (JPM-RS) for probabilistic hazard characterization, a storm surge machine learning model, and a SLR model. The JPM probabilities are based on historical tropical cyclone track observations. The storm surge machine learning model was trained based on high-fidelity storm surge simulations provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The SLR was considered by adding the product of the normalized nonlinearity, arising from surge-SLR interaction, and the sea-level change from 1992 to the target year, where nonlinearities are based on high-fidelity storm surge simulations and subsequent analysis by USACE. In this study, this framework was applied to the Chesapeake Bay region of the U.S. and used to estimate the SLR-adjusted probabilistic tropical cyclone flood hazard in two areas: One is an urban Virginia site, and the other is a rural Maryland site. This new framework has the potential to aid in reducing future coastal storm risks in coastal communities by providing robust and rapid hazard assessment that accounts for future sea-level rise.

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