Browsing by Author "Conrad, Steve, committee member"
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Item Open Access Artificial intelligence powered personalized agriculture(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Tetala, Satya Surya Dattatreya Reddy, author; Simske, Steven, advisor; Conrad, Steve, committee member; Gaines, Todd, committee member; Nalam, Vamsi, committee memberThe integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in agriculture has shown the potential to improve crop selection and enhance sustainability practices. In this study, we aim to investigate the benefits and feasibility of using AI-powered personalized recommendations for crop selection and sustainability practices in the context of agroecology. We propose to lay the foundation for an agricultural recommendation engine that considers several parameters that influence yield and presents the best crop(s) to sow based on the model's output. We aim to examine this recommendation engine's impact on agriculture's sustainability and to evaluate its effectiveness and accuracy. Our ultimate goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the potential benefits and challenges of using AI-powered recommendations in agriculture and to lay the foundation for the development of a practical, effective, and user-friendly recommendation engine that can help farmers make informed decisions about their crops and improve the long-term sustainability of agriculture.Item Embargo Assessing the triple bottom line co-benefits and life cycle cost tradeoffs of cloudburst infrastructure in New York City(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Fenn, Abby M., author; Arabi, Mazdak, advisor; Grigg, Neil, committee member; Sharvelle, Sybil, committee member; Conrad, Steve, committee memberUrbanization and climate change have increased the risk of urban flooding. Specifically, more frequent cloudburst events are on the rise in cities across the globe. Cloudbursts are characterized by high intensity rainfall over a short duration, causing unpredictable, localized flooding. Effective stormwater management is essential to manage extreme precipitation and runoff induced by cloudbursts. Stormwater control measures have evolved over time shifting from gray infrastructure to nature-based and green solutions. Recently, cloudburst specific infrastructure has emerged as a stormwater intervention strategy designed to handle larger volumes of water by capturing, storing, or conveying excess water in highly impervious areas. Cloudburst infrastructure systems are inextricably linked with land use in cities and thus, their implementation should incorporate life cycle costs, and social and ecological co-benefits. This study assesses the Triple Bottom Line co-benefits and environmental effects of cloudburst systems for flood control in New York City. Specifically, we explore the tradeoffs between the costs and co-benefits of alternative surface vegetation including grass, diverse vegetation, and trees. The study identifies the Pareto optimal set of solutions and quantifies effects of incorporating vegetation into the urban landscape via cloudburst systems. The results indicate that surface vegetation plays a key role in altering the co-benefits and life cycle costs of cloudburst infrastructure. Trees were the most frequent non-dominated solution and were linearly related to Triple Bottom Line score and exponentially related to Life Cycle Cost. The framework and results of this study provide valuable insight to support informed decision-making.Item Open Access Effect of spillway-ogee location on flow uniformity and turbulence at the crest of an ogee weir(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Alsultan, Faisal Abdulaziz, author; Ettema, Robert, advisor; Thornton, Christopher, committee member; Conrad, Steve, committee memberThis study investigated the effect of spillway-crest location relative to spillway entrance, and spillway-abutment shape, on uniformity of flow distribution and turbulence intensity of flow, over the ogee crest of a spillway. These issues are especially of concern for spillways for which the approach flow to the ogee weir is relatively shallow. Circular and elliptical shapes of abutments were used. These abutment forms, and the bathymetry of the reservoir approach to the spillway, cause the approach flow to the ogee weir to be non-uniformly distributed and turbulent for part of the ogee weir. Turbulence can be generated by flow separation from an abutment or by the manner whereby the flow approaches the spillway. In the latter case, the reservoir bathymetry at the spillway entrance is important, as it affects flow distribution at the spillway entrance. The base spillway used for the study was a hydraulic model used to assist in the design of the new spillway for Los Vaqueros Dam on Kellogg Creek near Brentwood, California. The flow approach to this spillway is typical of many, relatively shallow over-flow spillways that involve an ogee crest. As often is the case for spillways associated with embankment dams, the spillway is built on an abutment of the dam itself and must deal with non-uniform and turbulent approach flow from the reservoir retained by the dam to the spillway's location at the side of the dam. Consequently, the approach flow was non uniform and turbulent, and design questions arise as to where to place the ogee crest for the spillway and what shape to use for a spillway. Though the investigation used the spillway just mentioned, the results have general application. The experiments were performed using a spillway flume with a rectangular cross-section, a circular abutment intake and a controllable spillway crest with changing the crest location to five locations (one downstream of the selected location and three upstream of that location). Measurements included water profiles, velocity across transects downstream of the spillway's entrance. These measurements were made for a circular spillway-abutment and for an elliptical spillway-abutment. The results show that changing the crest location significantly affects flow uniformity and possible shed-vortex formation from the intake abutment. Therefore, the results also indicate that spillway crest location has a direct impact on the hydraulic performance of the spillway. Suitable selection of crest location can be used to minimize non-uniformity and vortex-related problems in spillway design. The present study recommends that the ogee crest face be placed at least 1.5 crest widths from the entrance of the spillway. This position enables the flow to the crest to become suitably uniform and turbulence of flow within the entrance to extensively (though not entirely) decay. The findings from this study are significant for engineers and researchers involved in spillway design and generally in many aspects of hydraulic engineering design. The findings also demonstrate the importance of careful consideration of crest location in spillway design to mitigate problems related to vortex formation. Overall, this study adds to the knowledge base regarding spillways and their design. Spillways have been used for hundreds of years but there are many aspects of these hydraulic structures requiring continued research.Item Open Access Lifecycle assessment modeling and encouraging reuse in the corrugated packaging industry using persuasion and operant conditioning(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2023) Ketkale, Harshwardhan, author; Simske, Steve, advisor; Miller, Erika, committee member; Conrad, Steve, committee member; Cleary, Anne, committee memberGreenhouse gas emission is a major contributor to climate change and global warming. Many sustainability efforts are aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These include recycling and the use of renewable energy. In the case of recycling, the general population is typically required to at least temporarily store, and possibly haul, the materials rather than simply throwing them away. This effort from the general population is a key aspect of recycling, and in order for recycling to work, some investment of time and effort is required by the public. In the case of corrugated cardboard boxes, it has been observed that there is less motivation for the general population to recycle them. Also, the manufacturing of a product such as a corrugated cardboard box (CCB) includes the extraction of a variety of raw materials in addition to supply chain efforts to get the raw materials to the industry. The extraction of raw material and its supply chain as well as the unproper end of lifecycle phase can significantly impact the carbon emission of a product over its lifecycle. This research explores different means of motivating people to reuse, and not just recycle, with different types of incentives. It addresses the use of persuasion techniques and operant conditioning techniques together to incentivize the general population to adopt sustainable efforts. Further, this study makes an attempt to segment the general population based on age, gender, persuasion preferences, operant condition preferences, personality types, awareness of environment/climate change as well as current recycling effort of the participants to use different forms of incentives and motivational work unlike any approaches found in the literature review. Four types of persuasion techniques and four types of operant conditioning are combined to give 16 different types of incentives. Three online surveys are conducted, and their data are analyzed (using entropy, Hamming distance, t-test, chi-square, and ANOVA). The results indicate that "positive reinforcement + ethos" is a cost-effective way to incentivize the general population. This study also conducts a Lifecycle Assessment (LCA) that gives the carbon emission of each phase of the product and a quantitative estimate of the overall product carbon footprint and its effect on the environment. This gives impetus to recommendations for improving the phases of the lifecycle to minimize carbon emissions. This research uses LCA to evaluate the carbon emission in each phase of the lifecycle of a typical 1 kg corrugated cardboard box in the United States. Carbon emission for the proposed "reuse" phase is also calculated, and the results are compared. To examine if the incremental cost of reusing the CCBs is less than the environmental and economic cost of reducing the extraction and supply chain of raw materials, this study explores the economic feasibility of the proposed "reuse" method that incentivizes the general population to reuse the CCBs instead of recycling or landfilling them. Economic tools such as willingness-to-pay vs. marginal cost curves and benefit-cost analyses are used to evaluate economic feasibility. The results indicate that the "reuse" method for CCBs is economically and environmentally feasible. It also supports the approach of using analytics, economics, and LCA to create a model that can be used for other products and processes as an evaluative process to determine if businesses can benefit from the reduction (or removal) of material extraction costs from the supply chain. The results of this study can be applied to a wide range of applications such as solar panels, incentives for vaccination, and other areas wherein sustainability-centric behavior is encouraged.Item Open Access Waste reduction in multi-family construction: a comparative study(Colorado State University. Libraries, 2024) Bond, Catherine E., author; Killingsworth, John, advisor; Elliott, Jon, committee member; Conrad, Steve, committee member; Schaller, Zachary, committee memberIn a linear economy, construction and demolition (C&D) waste is considered to have zero value and, thus, most C&D waste ends up in landfills. However, key stakeholders have begun to improve waste management practices, focusing on waste reduction, material reuse and recycling in an effort to meet Circular Economic and Zero Waste targets. Modular construction presents itself as a sustainable alternative to traditional, site-built construction, and an important component of the emergent circular economy in the built environment. The advertised advantages to modular are reduced construction time, reduced energy consumption, reduced onsite pollution, and reusability of modular units. This study compared wood framing waste during the construction of two multi-family projects – one volumetric modular and one traditional site-built. I found evidence to suggest that the volumetric modular manufacturing process allows for greater waste aversion and diversion than the site-built environment. Overall, the modular project produced 20-33 fewer tons of wood than the traditional site-built project, which, according to the methods from Toochi (2018) is approximately 10 -16.5 tons of sequestered CO2 per year. This was quantified through waste records, project plans, and site observation. This study is an important step in the growing body of work in circular economics in the built environment and the sustainability of modular construction.