Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-41). / by Arnaud L. Morange. / M.Eng.

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2014. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 39-41). / Given the upward trend of global energy consumption in recent decades, it has become imperative that countries reduce the amount of energy used on an annual basis. In America, the residential sector is one of the primary energy consumers, but many homeowners lack reliable information about how to build sustainable homes. This lack comes from the difficulty found in trying to quantify energy savings and costs of different sustainable technologies. Focusing on the commonwealth of Massachusetts, this thesis has compiled costs and energy savings for four different sustainable technologies- geothermal heating, heat recovery ventilation, triple-pane windows and a range of insulation materials. Considering all of these options, an interactive computer code was designed to take in inputs from the user about their home, calculate the energy needs of the home, and optimize the technologies and materials chosen based on a budget given by the user. The final result is a list of insulation choices for the walls, roof and floor of a home, the heating and ventilation systems, and window types for the highest energy savings within the users budget. / by Kelley Victoria Determan. / M. Eng.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 225-230). / by Palitha Nalin Wikramanayake. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil Engineering, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Timothy Donald Tonya. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2011. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 129-131). / The extension of the Spanish high-speed rail network into the Basque Country will connect the capital cities of the three Basque provinces, creating an opportunity to drive change at many levels of the transportation network and making the region more attractive to both internal and external business interests. Accordingly, accessibility improvements can drive economic growth, with particular benefit to traditionally "peripheral" regions from the point of view of air accessibility such as Donostia-San Sebastiin and Vitoria-Gasteiz. This thesis aims to identify how multimodal integration and decision timelines impact network characteristics that collectively make the region more accessible for business travel both originating in and destined for the Basque Country. The high-speed rail alone will improve accessibility to a few destinations, but a multimodal journey - provided there is a direct high-speed rail connection to Bilbao Airport - results in many sizeable activity centers becoming reachable within a critical timeframe important to business journeys. A system dynamics model captures the relationships between the various subsystems including the high-speed rail network, the urban transportation networks, and Bilbao Airport. The main contribution is to support decision-making that will prevent repeating historical mistakes in the area of intermodality. This approach helps to depict the synergistic nature of sequential decisions that can activate particular system feedback, resulting in compounded benefits. Due to the nonlinearity of complex systems driven by reinforcing and balancing feedback loops, prioritizing intermodality sooner than later will be much more impactful in the long term, leading to not only faster growth but stabilizing and higher levels of performance - creating a sustainably attractive landscape for business activity. / by Kari Linn Hernández. / S.M.in Transportation

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-60). / by Bassam H. Chaptini. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 166-168). / by Wei Wang. / S.M.

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-71). / The purpose of this investigation was to determine and describe the microbial drinking water quality problems in the Kathmandu Valley. Microbial testing for total coliform, E.coli, and H2S producing bacteria was performed in January 2000 on drinking water sources, treatment plants, distribution points, and consumption points. Existing studies of the water quality problems in Kathmandu were also analyzed and comparisons of both data sets characterized seasonal, treatment plant, and city sector variations in the drinking water quality. Results showed that 50% of well sources were microbially contaminated and surface water sources were contaminated in 100% of samples. No samples from drinking water treatment plant outflow were microbially contaminated; however almost 80% of samples collected at distribution points had microbial contamination and 60% were contaminated with E.coli. Drinking water quality varied little throughout the city but had significant seasonal variation. Microbial contamination in the Bagmati River was also studied and extremely high levels of microbial pollution were found. Pollution concentrations in the river are increasing over time as the population of the Valley grows rapidly. Wastewater treatment is virtually non-existent and most of the wastewater generated in the City flows untreated into the river. This causes increased pollution concentrations as the Bagmati flows downstream from the sparsely populated headwaters through the heavily urbanized Kathmandu City. Despite the high microbial pollution levels, many people use the river for washing, scavenging, and religious purposes. These activities, as well as contaminated drinking water, threaten the health of the population. Recommendations for drinking and surface water quality improvements can be divided into three areas: regulatory, policy, and technical. Laws and regulations are needed that specify those individuals and agencies who are responsible for water quality and monitoring, set water quality standards, and assign penalties to polluters. Drinking water policy must focus on fully funding programs and educating the public. Technical recommendations include separating drinking water and wastewater pipelines to eliminate leakage between the two and community or household-scale systems for both drinking water and wastewater treatment. / Andrea N.C. Wolfe. / M.Eng.

Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 47-48). / Current modeling and analysis tools are extremely powerful and allow one to generate and analyze virtually any structural shape. However, most of them do not allow designers to integrate structural performance as an objective during conceptual design. As structural performance is highly linked to architectural geometry, there is a need for computational strategies allowing for performance-oriented structural design in architecture. In order to address these issues, this research combines interactive evolutionary optimization and parametric modeling to develop a new computational strategy for creative and high-performance conceptual structural design. Parametric modeling allows for quick exploration of complex geometries and can be combined with analysis and optimization algorithms for performance-driven design. However, this methodology often questions the designer's authorship as it is based on the use of black-box optimizers. On the other hand, interactive evolutionary optimization empowers the user by acknowledging his or her input as fundamental and includes it in the evolutionary optimization process. This approach aims at improving the structural performance of a concept without limiting the creative freedom of designers. Taking advantage of the two frameworks, this research implements an interactive evolutionary structural optimization framework in the widely used parametric modeling environment constituted by Rhinoceros and Grasshopper. Previous work has illustrated the benefits of combining parametric modeling and genetic algorithms for design space exploration. Comparatively, the implemented design tool capitalizes on Grasshopper's versatility for geometry generation but supplements the visual programming interface with a flexible portal increasing the designer's creative freedom through enhanced interactivity. The tool can accommodate a wide range of structural typologies and geometrical forms in an integrated environment. This research offers a versatile, performance- and user-oriented environment for creative and efficient conceptual structural design. / by Renaud Aleis Pierre Emile Danhaive. / M. Eng.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-176). / by Thorarinn Sveinsson. / M.S.