Civil Engineering

Using galerkin’s method of finite element for predicting oxygen deficit in rivers is of great importance to water resources engineers. This is because of the trending discharge of untreated effluents in our water bodies which incidentally depreciates the dissolved oxygen needed by both man and aquatic organisms. As a numerical technique, it provides approximate solutions to physical problems with differential equations like the Streeter Phelps equation. In predicting the oxygen deficit along Nworie River in Imo State of Nigeria, a reconnaissance survey of the study area was conducted after which data were collected for physicochemical analysis of water samples; were determined using Galerkins weighted residual method. The study area was along Nworie river at three different locations namely: Amakohia head bridge; Assumpta-Holy Ghost college road; and Umezurike Hospital road. The result of the flow area after analysis gave 2.00, 5.28 and 5.32 m2 respectively. The velocities of flow of the three locations as well gave 0.467, 0.417 and 0.411 m/s respectively. The average discharge of the river gave 1.362 cubic metre per second. Furthermore, the concentration of dissolved oxygen from the laboratory experimental results were used to compute the oxygen deficit at the discharge point using dissolved – oxygen model (Streeter Phelps equation) by applying Galerkin’s weighted residual method approach. The oxygen deficit results at the five discretized nodes at location 1 (Amakohia head bridge) were: 5.728 mg/l at first node, 5.543 mg/l at the 2nd node, 5.356 mg/l at the 3rd node, 5.164 at the 4th node and 4.969 mg/l at the end node. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and the measure of good fit using least square method denoted as ‘r’ value of 0.982 was computed during analysis. This showed that estimated dissolved oxygen using Galerkin’s weighted residual (GWR) method result is strong, positively correlated to the measured values of dissolved oxygen. The results in this research are invaluable for water resources and irrigation Engineers in predicting the effect of water pollution on the downstream users.

Hydraulic jump type energy dissipaters are widely accepted methods of energy dissipation while designing the hydraulic structures like dams, weirs and barrages. They are popular for their simplicity and efficiency, but have certain limitations when there is variation in discharge conditions. The energy dissipaters satisfactorily function at design discharge condition. But in case of varying discharge conditions they are not efficient as the location of hydraulic jump tends to shift on apron. This would result in percentage reduction in energy dissipation and in turn damage hydraulic structures and adversely affect tail channel conditions. Therefore it is necessary to address the issue of controlling the location of hydraulic jump and evolve a new technique for the same. This paper discusses the design of hydraulic jump type stilling basin for the overflow weir of canal escape at Warana dam (India). It also throws light on the aspect of jump location and percentage energy dissipation. A physical model study is carried out by applying Froude’s model law.

This study is aimed to observe the effect of mix proportion of Sylhet and locally available river sand on the compressive strengths of concrete. A series of laboratory tests is carried out for six different mix proportions 5:0, 4:1, 3:2, 2:3, 1:4 and 0:5 of Sylhet sand and local river sand. For all of the mix ratios, compressive strengths are determined at 28 days. The compressive strengths increase by designing the appropriate gradation of sand mix, which is determined by fineness modulus of both types of sand and their mixes. The results indicate that the best of the corresponding six mix proportions of Sylhet and local sand is 3:2.

This paper employs widely used Water Quality Index (WQI), which is valuable and unique rating to depict the overall water quality status in a single term and simple (e.g., good or poor) for reporting to authorities management and the public in a consistent manner , that is helpful for the selection of appropriate treatment technique to meet the concerned issues. The water quality of Muthanna Province has been assessed from 2011 to 2014 to express the suitability of water for drinking purposes. Water quality data obtained from two sampling sites. According to the WQI values, the water quality at most of the sites was within an environmentally satisfactory condition during summer, and during the winter. Generally, the results showed that water quality varied from Excellent to Medium range during seasons. The results of the study confirm the suitability of all selected water sources for drinking purposes. Since this is unprecedented attempt to apply WQI on Muthanna , the used WQI proved to be a highly effective tool to assess the water quality of Muthanna in simple way, and its use is strongly recommended.

This paper studies the behavior of both green cement and Geopolymer concrete. Twenty-seven concrete mixes were prepared and tested in the fresh and hardened state. The properties of both Ordinary Portland Cement Concrete (OPCC) and Geopolymer concrete (GC) incorporating quarry limestone waste as a replacement of fine aggregate were studied. It was found that quarry waste fine aggregate increased the slump of fresh cement and Geopolymer concrete up to 50% as a replacement for fine aggregate. Improvements of properties of both cement and Geopolymer concrete were detected when quarry waste fine aggregate was replaced up to 50% of fine aggregate. The overall test results revealed that quarry limestone waste fine aggregate can be consumed efficiently in both cement and Geopolymer concrete up to 50%.

With the rapid technological growth in the computer industry over the last decades, spatial related problems and issues have found their way into computer-based systems used to store and manipulate geographically referenced data, these systems which are commonly referred as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have become widely established in many disciplines. GIS is a powerful software tool, by using this technology it is very convenient to assemble maps quickly from predefined layers, add data from coverage, shape files, geo databases, preparation of models etc. The GIS can be used for identifying suitable locations for buffers. The use of technologies such as GIS can also be very effectively used for fixing the canal alignment. A buffer analysis tool in GIS is a proximity analysis used to create polygons based on a specified distance from the original geometric feature and the output is a large zone or region that surrounds and encompasses the feature. The Buffer output is often used to determine any feature that are within a specified distance of a point, line or polygon. Building Information Modeling (BIM) tools is an intelligent model based process which is very helpful for planning and designing purpose. The aim of this study is to present the applications of buffer analysis which is basically a GIS software tool along with BIM tools for comparing the proposed canal alignments in Somnala Minor Irrigation Scheme of Gosikhurd Indira Sagar Project.

Signal timing is the technique which traffic engineers use to determine who has the right-of-way at an intersection. Signal timing involves deciding how much green time the traffic lights shall provide at an intersection approach, how long the pedestrian walk signal should be, and many numerous other factors. Traffic volume studies are conducted to determine the number, movements, and classifications of roadway vehicles at a given location. The collected data is converted into PCU units. These data can help identify critical flow time periods, determine the influence of large vehicles or pedestrians on vehicular traffic flow, or document traffic volume trends. The length of the sampling period depends on the type of count being taken and the intended use of the data recorded. For example, an intersection count may be conducted during the peak flow period. If so, manual count with 15-minute intervals could be used to obtain the traffic volume data. Webster’s method is a rational approach for signal design. The design is simple and is totally based on formulae’s laid down by Webster. In this method, the total cycle of the signal is determined which forms a total least delay occurring at signal.

The watershed resources management (WRM) model is a basin-scale model for continuous simulation. It is applicable in planning, forecasting and operational hydrology. Hydrological simulation requires calibration to match reality. In automatic calibration, optimization is carried out using selected model parameters. WRM model originally calibrated heuristically in FORTRAN for Curley’s and Mayne’s sub-watersheds Canada was converted to C# (C sharp) to allow flexibility in programming and to enable Graphic User Interface (GUI) creation, and autocalibrated for tropical watersheds. The WRM model was repackaged to run in normal and autocalibration mode. Two software programs, WRMGA and WRMGUI, were successfully developed, tested and applied. Genetic algorithm (GA) was employed as optimization technique. Four parameters (genomes) namely, the Manning roughness coefficient for land surface (MANN1), Manning roughness coefficient for stream surface (MANN2), Manning roughness coefficient for terrace surface (MANN3) and surface retention parameter (KRET) with high sensitivity were used to adjust the four input files (FOR001.DAT, FOR003.DAT, FOR005.DAT, optimized.dat and WRM.DAT.optimized.dat) for the autocalibration. Genomes were generated using a random number generator within specified ranges. The generated values were stored in a file, Optimized.dat, which the program calls up and uses to compute the best fit. For MANN1, MANN2, MANN3 and KRET, minimum values of 0.10, 0.01, 0.00 and 0.01 and maximum values of 0.18, 0.05, 0.05 and 0.05 respectively were set and used for optimization process. The optimization process with up to 1000 trials using these sets of minimum and maximum values gave optimized values of 0.1272, 0.0214, 0.0201 and 0.0102 for MANN1, MANN2, MANN3 and KRET respectively, with a best fitness test of 0.9998. Hydrograph plots of both the originally heuristically calibrated simulations for the watersheds and the autocalibration simulations for the same watershed were compared with measured hydrographs and statistically validated. WRM originally calibrated to the watersheds gave a regression coefficient (R) of 34.8% while the autocalibrated model gave 37% showing an improvement in the autocalibration scheme. The WRM model was successfully repackaged for autocalibration in this paper and could be employed by non-expert in hydrologic modelling.

The concept of Soft storey has taken its place in the Indian urban environment due to the fact that it provides the parking facility in the soft storey of the building. The cost of construction of this type of building is much less than that of a building with basement parking. The collapse mechanism of such type of building is predominantly due to the formation of soft-storey behavior in the ground storey of this type of building. The sudden reduction in lateral stiffness and mass in the ground storey results in higher stresses in the columns of soft storey under seismic loading. The study of behaviour of RCC structure with change in soft storey location for that G+4 RCC structure with parameter define liner is modeled and analysis 6 times. In which case 1 is for the structure without infill wall where case 2 to case 6 is for the RCC structure with infill wall except soft storey at particular levels. The result are considered under maximum bending moments shear force, storey displacement, base shear value. From the analysis, it is observe very clearly that the displacement of structure without infill wall is considerable very high as that compared to structure with infill wall. Further it is observe that, when the soft storey at ground level the nodal displacement are more and as the location of soft storey moves to the upper floor of displacement value decrease when the soft storey at the top. The reaction value increase when the soft storey location changes from top to bottom. The nature in base shear distribution changes with the change in soft storey location from the study done

Frequent occurrence of recent earthquakes in South Asian region has inspired the civil engineers to become more concern about earthquake resistant building design. In order to construct a building in a high seismic zone, the flexural members like beams, must have adequate ductility along with enough strength. Ductility is a solid material's ability to deform under tensile stress. To evaluate the flexural ductility, it is necessary to conduct non-linear moment-curvature experiment or numerical analysis. Moment curvature is a method to determine the load-deflection behavior of a concrete section using nonlinear material stress-strain relationship. As experimental analysis is time consuming and costly, a quicker and cheaper approach numerical analysis can be performed. In this paper, results of a numerical program conducted on sectional ductility behavior of a rectangular concrete beam are presented. Eighteen cross sections, with three different reinforcement ratio (0.007, 0.010 and 0.013), two different yield strength of reinforcement (400MPa-nominal strength steel and 500MPa-high strength steel) and three different concrete compressive strengths (25MPa, 30MPa and 35MPa) have been built and analyzed. An effort is made to order the performance of the samples according to moment capacity and ductility. From the program it has been observed that, moment capacity is higher in highly reinforced section. But more ductility is obtained from a lower reinforced high strength steel beam. The use of higher strength steel helps to maintain minimum level of flexural ductility along with higher flexural strength. It also leads to reduce construction cost by reducing dimension of a concrete section and by reducing steel requirement.