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Learning Engineering is Engineering
Published in Jim Goodell, Janet Kolodner, Learning Engineering Toolkit, 2023
Avron Barr, Brandt Dargue, Jim Goodell, Brandt Redd
One way that engineers manage the complexity of all the unknowns is by creating and using models.8 Models may be used as a simpler representation of the complex system or to simulate very complex systems in a way that would be difficult or costly in the real world. Civil engineers use models of population growth and other demographics to ensure solutions are “right sized” for the life of their use. Civil engineers, for example, use models of material strength to ensure safety over time, even as the population who uses a bridge or road grows. They use models of weather as well as models of how materials decay and erode to ensure that their solutions last. Some of these models aren’t precise; rather, they’re estimates that usually have a safe margin of error that must be understood by the engineer. Some, like models of the strength of materials, are as simple as trigonometry tables or even the multiplication tables we used when learning math. For many of these models, the engineer must be able to extrapolate to a finer level represented in the table.
Context-specific assessment of the life cycle environmental performance of pavements considering neighborhood heterogeneity
Published in John Harvey, Imad L. Al-Qadi, Hasan Ozer, Gerardo Flintsch, Pavement, Roadway, and Bridge Life Cycle Assessment 2020, 2020
Hessam AzariJafari, Xin Xu, Jeremy Gregory, Randolph Kirchain
As a consequence of population growth and economic development in cities, a significant trend in urbanization has been observed. This trend delineates the importance of environmental impacts assessment in urban neighborhoods, where a growing community is exchanging resources and emissions with the ecosphere. As a holistic tool, life cycle assessment (LCA) has been implemented to evaluate the environmental burdens of different products or services being provided in these neighborhoods. The LCA tool has been incorporated into various studies to assess the environmental impacts of city infrastructures, such as pavements that provide traffic services and to facilitate suburb-to-city commuting. Owing to its long lifetime, the use phase has been identified as the environmental hotspot of the pavement life cycle (Loijos et al. 2013, Xu et al. 2019). However, efforts to improve the assessment quality of the use phase is limited. In fact, the impacts of use phase, such as albedo, were often quantified using simplified models, which are not able to capture and distinguish the context of the study and consequently, results in an uncertainty in the results (Noshadravan et al. 2013, AzariJafari et al. 2016).
Application to European Population Prediction
Published in Yunong Zhang, Dechao Chen, Chengxu Ye, Toward Deep Neural Networks, 2019
Yunong Zhang, Dechao Chen, Chengxu Ye
With the world population increasing rapidly, the conflicts between the population and limited resources have become more and more severe. Population growth is a root cause of many environmental and social problems. Therefore, it is of vital importance to make population predictions. However, predictions based on standard cohort-component method fail to consider all relevant impact factors and may neglect some important uncertainty factors. To overcome the inherent limitations, in this chapter, we present a Chebyshev-activation weights-and-structure-determination (WASD) neuronet approach for the population prediction. This neuronet algorithm is applied to predicting European population, with numerous numerical studies conducted as a research basis to guarantee the feasibility and validity of our approach. It is predicted with the most possibility that European population will decrease in the near future.
A fast and precise double-diode model for predicting photovoltaic panel electrical behavior in variable environmental conditions
Published in International Journal of Ambient Energy, 2023
Aslan Gholami, Mohammad Ameri, Majid Zandi, Roghayeh Gavagsaz Ghoachani, Maryam Gholami
Population growth increases energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions, which pose many environmental concerns (Aryanfar et al. 2021; Aryanfar et al. 2021). Such concerns have attracted much attention to the use of clean energies in recent years (Stritih et al. 2018; Deetjen et al. 2018; Aryanfar et al. 2021). Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energies (Akrami, Khazaee, and Gholami 2017; Akrami et al. 2018). Therefore, many research studies have investigated the performance of active solar-based energy systems (Eslami et al. 2019, 2020) or passive ones (Gholami et al. 2018) and paved the path for a sustainable transition from fossil fuel-based energy generation systems to renewable ones (Noorollahi et al. 2021; Noorollahi, Khatibi, and Eslami 2021). These studies show that harnessing solar energy to generate electricity depends heavily on the site's climatology (Gholami et al. 2019; Gholami et al. 2019; Amin Aryanfar et al. 2020; Gholami et al. 2021a; Gholami et al. 2019).
Comparative assessment of alternative water supply contributions across five data-scarce cities
Published in International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2022
Janez Sušnik, Osman Jussah, Mohamed O. M. Orabi, Muhammed C. Abubakar, Richmond F. Quansah, Wahid Yahaya, Justin A. Adonadaga, Carlos Cossa, Jose Ferrato, Castigo A. Cossa, Wahyono Hadi, Adhi Yuniarto, Bowo Djoko Marsono, Alfan Purnomo, Franҫoise Bichai, Chris Zevenbergen
Accra has a population of about 4.6 million people (Adank et al., 2011; Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), 2016) (Table 2). Despite effort by Ghana Water Company Ltd (GWCL), increasing demand has not been met by supply (World Bank, 2010), and only 44% of the population has safely managed potable water. Population growth has outpaced water supply infrastructure projects (Adank et al., 2011; Owusu & Afutu-Kotey, 2010). Rapid population growth, socio-economic development and pollution of surface water bodies by illegal mining affect water quantity and quality (Amankwaa et al., 2014). Nima is a low-income, densely populated area with 80,800 inhabitants (GSS, 2016). New Achimota has a population of about 5500 medium- to high-income earners. GWCL is unable to supply enough water to meet growing demand in Madina in LaNkwantanang Municipality. Similar to Lilongwe, a combination of high urban growth rate, poor network performance and an under-developed water supply network contribute to supply being less than expected demand. Current results (Table 3 and Figure 2) indicate all areas suffer water supply–demand deficits (New Achimota: about −5,960,000 m3; Nima: about −2,135,000 m3; and Madina: about −5,356,000 m3).
Probabilistic slope stability assessment of laterite borrow pit using artificial neural network
Published in International Journal of Geotechnical Engineering, 2022
Due to the exponential population growth in developing countries and the consequential rapid urbanization, there is an increase in the construction of roads, buildings and other civil engineering structures. This has led to high demand for engineering construction materials. Laterite is one of the engineering materials majorly used as fills for embankments and earth dams, foundations for roads, airfield pavements, production of earth bricks etc. (Oyelami and Van Rooy 2016a; Kahl 1976). Laterite, which is commonly found in the humid tropical and subtropical zones of the world, is a type of residual soil that contains extremely variable amounts of iron and aluminium oxides (Pinard et al. 2014; Kahl 1976; Alexander and Cady 1963). Laterite is excavated from the earth surface leading to the creation of borrow pits around construction sites. The pits are often abandoned after construction activities without reclamation, especially in some developing countries.