Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering News

Tag: Spring 2012

Pavement Resurfacing Policy for Minimization of Life-cycle Costs and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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SFHI Transportation presents:

Jeffrey Lidicker
Ph.D. Candidate, University of California, Berkeley

Thursday, February 16
10:00 AM
Rekhi G06

In recent decades pavement management optimization has been designed with the objective of minimizing user and agency costs.  However, recent analyses indicate that pavement management decisions also have significant impacts on life-cycle GHG emissions.  This study endeavors to expand beyond minimization of life-cycle costs, to also include GHG emissions.  We extend previous work on the single-facility, continuous-state, continuous-time optimal pavement resurfacing problem, to solve the multi-criteria optimization problem with the two objectives of minimizing costs and GHG emissions. Results indicate that there is a tradeoff between costs and emissions when developing a pavement resurfacing policy, providing a range of GHG emissions reduction cost-effectiveness options.  Case studies for an arterial and a major highway are presented to highlight the contrast between policy decisions for various pavement and vehicle technologies.

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A Short History of Downtown Automated People Movers in U.S. Cities — An example of why technology alone cannot solve urban problems

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Thursday, February 16, 2012
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: DOW 642
Speaker: William Leder, Adjunct Professor and Roland A. Mariucci Distinguished Practitioner in Residence

In the early 1970s many automated guideway transit technologies and concepts were emerging, and numerous applications were proposed. One of the urban transportation initiatives of that era was the Downtown People Mover (DPM) Program, sponsored by the U.S government, in which support in the form of grants was provided to demonstrate automated guideway transit as a circulation system in downtowns. These systems were envisioned as important transportation links that would help to reverse urban decay. This presentation will provide a history of the Downtown People Mover (DPM) Program, a description of and current status of the three DPM systems that were built, and lessons learned.

More information: Civil Engineering Graduate Seminar-Bill Leder

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Needle-type Electrochemical Microsensors for In Situ Monitoring of Biological and Chemical Compounds and Applications for Biofilm Research

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Environmental Engineering CE 5992 Graduate Seminar

Monday, Feb. 6
Time: 2 p.m.
Location: Rekhi Hall G06

SFHI Water Systems presents:
Woo Hyoung Lee
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) Postdoctoral Research Fellow, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency

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Molecular Modeling of Polymers and Nanocomposites

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Civil Engineering CE 5990 Graduate Seminar

Thursday, February 2
Time: 4-5pm,
Dow 642

Presenter: Dr. Gregory M. Odegard, Associate Professor,  ME-EM, Michigan Tech

Abstract: Polymer-based composites and nanocomposite materials have the potential to provide significant increases in specific stiffness and specific strength relative to current Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Structures and Materials Technical Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.significant increases in specific stiffness and specific strength relative to current materials used for many engineering structural applications. To facilitate the design and development of polymer nanocomposite materials, structure-property relationships must be established that predict the bulk mechanical response of these materials as a function of the molecular- and micro-structure. The objective of this research is to establish an accurate and efficient approach for using computational modeling to develop structure-property relationships for polymer-based systems.  A combination of molecular dynamics and micromechanical modeling methods has been used to predict the mechanical response of high-performance polymers, nanoparticle/polymer composites, SWNT/polymer composites, and SWNT arrays.  An overview of this research will be presented along with the results from specific material systems.

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