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A Pre-Tensioned Bridge Bent System for Accelerated Bridge Construction
Nearly all bridge bents (intermediate supports) are constructed of cast-in-place reinforced concrete. Such bridges have served the nation well in the past, but to meet current design expectations, they need to be improved in three areas: 1) speed of construction, 2) seismic resiliency, and 3) durability. Building on previous ...
Numerical Study of Crack Propagation in Boulders Subjected to Diurnal Solar Irradiation
Considerable evidence from field observations and measurements suggests that thermal stresses induced by daily exposure to the sun contribute significantly to mechanical weathering, the breakdown of rocks at the ground surface (Mcfadden et al. 2005; Aldred et al. 2016; Eppes et al. 2016). A solid theoretical foundation for ...
Stabilization of Unstable Equilibria in Bistable Structures
Snap-through buckling provides an intricate force-displacement relationship for study. With the possibility for multiple limit points and pitchfork bifurcations and large regions of instability, experimental validation of numerical analysis can become difficult. This requires stabilization of unstable static equilibria, for ...
Preparing cities for package demand growth: predicting neighborhood demand and implementing truck VMT reduction strategies
E-commerce has empowered consumers to order goods online from anywhere in the world with just a couple of clicks. This new trend has led to significant growth in the number of package deliveries related to online shopping. Seattle’s freight infrastructure is challenged to accommodate this freight growth. Commercial vehicles ...
Effects of Accelerated Curing on the Time-Dependent Properties of Concrete
The long-term creep and shrinkage behaviors of concrete can greatly affect the serviceability and constructability of prestressed concrete structures. To account for these effects, it is necessary to reliably predict the deformations of the concrete through time. These calculations are particularly challenging for precast, ...
Experimental and Numerical Validation of Three-Dimensional Tsunami Wave Pressures and Forces on an Elevated Structure
The implementation of evacuation structures was proven to be an effective means of tsunami evacuation during the 2011 tsunami in Japan. However, there is currently a lack of experimental and numerical work concerning the three-dimensional interaction of tsunamis and elevated structures. To date experimental work has focused ...
The role of market scale in electric vehicle adoption: consumer and infrastructure perspectives
This thesis seeks to improve understanding of the role of market scale in electric vehicle (EV) adoption, by exploring consumer and infrastructure perspectives. First, we use new vehicle post-purchase consumer satisfaction survey to explore the reasons for low EV adoption. We investigate consumers’ level of satisfaction and ...
Recovering biomethane from fats, oils, and greases: Examining the impacts of microbial ecology on anaerobic codigester stability and bioconversion kinetics
Recovering biomethane with anaerobic digestion is of global interest to reduce carbon footprints and improve process economics for the treatment of organic wastes. Fats, oils, and greases (FOG) are desirable co-substrates for biomethane recovery because they have a substantially higher energy density than wastewater treatment ...
Shear Resistance of Circular Concrete-Filled Steel Tubes
Concrete-filled steel tubes (CFSTs) and reinforced concrete-filled steel tubes (RCFSTs) are used throughout the world in tall buildings and bridges. They are becoming increasingly popular in the United States transportation sector as bridge piers, piles, or shafts where lateral spreading and liquefaction potentials can create ...
Modeling of Creep in Hot-cured Concrete Used in Prestressed, Precast Bridge Girders
Concrete fabricators, contractors and designers need accurate predictions of time-dependent deformations of concrete, such as creep and shrinkage. This is especially true for fabricators of precast, prestressed bridge girders, for which large differences in camber between adjacent girders can lead to significant contractual ...