ORCID Identifier(s)

0000-0003-3071-1869

Graduation Semester and Year

2018

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Civil Engineering

Department

Civil Engineering

First Advisor

Anand Puppala

Abstract

Transportation infrastructure, such as roads, embankments, bridges, railroads, airports, docks, and canals, serve as pathways for the mobility of people, goods, and services, and form the backbone of cities and communities. The construction, operation, and rehabilitation of these facilities put significant strain on the local, state, and federal agencies, including depletion of natural resources, and contributing to the global carbon footprint and greenhouse gas emissions. Further, these features stimulate anthropocentric development in a region which affects the land-use patterns and influences the demography of communities. In recent years, most transportation infrastructure are typically designed to withstand external and internal disturbances without considerable loss of functionality over time while enhancing sustainability elements in every phase of the design. Geotechnics, being an integral element of almost every such infrastructure feature and development, can be leveraged to enhance the sustainability and resilience of the transportation network. Sustainability focuses on socio-economic impacts and environmental stewardship, while resilience is the capacity of a system to withstand, recover, and adapt to extreme events. Though efforts are being made to incorporate sustainable and resilient design and construction practices in most of the development projects or new initiatives, limited research has been conducted to develop a unified methodology that evaluates both the sustainability and resilience of transportation infrastructure systems. A number of models, metrics, benchmarks and charts have been developed to assess the sustainability of such systems, however, in the majority of these models, the concept of resilience is sequestered from sustainability. This research study presents a multi-criteria quantitative framework for a combined assessment of the relative sustainability and resilience of geotechnical design alternatives for a transportation infrastructure. Measures or metrics of both sustainability and resilience and how they can be addressed together during the design, planning, and construction stages are the major focus points of this study. The framework also establishes the relative threshold indices depicting the suitability of a project. A pictographic representation of the sustainability and resilience elements is effected through the study. The framework provides a powerful decision-making tool to engineers, owners, state and federal agencies, and other stakeholders for selection of appropriate design or construction alternatives while balancing both the sustainability and resilience aspects.

Keywords

Sustainability, Resilience, Life cycle assessment, Pavement, Bridge settlement, Dam, Surficial slope stabilization

Disciplines

Civil and Environmental Engineering | Civil Engineering | Engineering

Comments

Degree granted by The University of Texas at Arlington

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