Situated cognition theory emphasizes the role that social and material contexts have on learning and knowledge application. Several studies of engineering workplace environments have noted differences between the social and material contexts of the workplace and those of undergraduate engineering education. No existing research has studied the social and material...
Unlike other industries, overall efficiency of construction projects has been growing minimally which directly causes cost overruns of projects. Though reducing idle time and increasing operational efficiency of construction equipment could result in significant cost saving, there is lack of practical knowledge of adjusting operational efficiency and integrating cost and...
Cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels have been gaining popularity as diaphragm elements in mid- to high-rise construction projects. In addition, CLT-concrete composite (CCC) diaphragms have been implemented to expand the use of CLT diaphragms. To understand the behavior of CLT and CCC diaphragms, this research effort sought to characterize the cyclic,...
Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) is one of the latest engineered wood products to show promising structural features for a variety of structural purposes including resisting lateral loads. For CLT to be widely adopted, its modal behavior needs to be fully evaluated through experimental and numerical methods. It is important to the...
In 2017, the cost of congestion in the United States was around 305 billion dollars, and city-dwellers, on average, lost 1400 dollars while sitting 42 hours in traffic jams. Aiming for better mobility and more efficient utilization of the transportation network, emerging connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies and their...
The goal of the first part of this project was to investigate the influence of aggregate source and entrained air on the transport properties of concrete. Currently, there are several ASTM standards available that provide systematic procedures to evaluate mass transport properties of concrete. ASTM C642-13 (ASTM 2013), often referred...
Landslides are a natural hazard that have major societal, economic, and
environmental impacts. The understanding of landslides begins with the observation that
they are a spatial problem. Spatial relationships have historically been explored with
maps, and landslides are no different. Such maps range in focus from inventory maps,
which identify...
Dilemma zones on the approach to high-speed signalized intersections have been identified as a safety problem that can contribute to rear–end and right–angle crashes. However, in situations when a pair of vehicles is caught in the dilemma zone, it is not well understood how the following vehicle’s headway and classification...
The Large Wave Flume at the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory houses a piston wavemaker with a built-in active absorption system designed by MTS Systems Corporation. The performance of the active absorption system has not been properly assessed yet. This thesis evaluates the performance of the MTS active absorption system...
Wood plays a key role in modern electrical infrastructure; crossarms and power poles utilize the high strength to weight ratio, availability and low cost of wood to facilitate the access of power to millions of Americans. However, wood presents a variety of challenges as a material. In structural applications, one...