REU: Sustainability of Horizontal Civil Networks in Rural Areas

Significance: The occurrence of microplastics, an emerging contaminant in agricultural systems, is very poorly characterized. Plastics are a frequently observed component of marine debris and there is growing concern about microplastic ecotoxicity, and the impacts of sorbed hazardous organic contaminants, heavy metals and biofilms on microplastic surfaces. However, microplastics are increasingly being found in terrestrial freshwater environments in addition to marine systems. To date, there is little information about how surrounding land use affects the concentrations of microplastics in freshwater streams. The primary research question to be addressed in this project is how concentrations of microplastics in freshwater streams differ between agricultural and suburban land uses.

Significance: The overarching goal is this project is to support commercial motor vehicle (CMV) safety programs with the acquisition of enriched, high-quality data sets of CMV movement in work zone areas and to target unsafe driving of CMVs and non-CMVs with proactive safety-focused countermeasures; that is, real-time guidance to mitigate future crash/near-crash events for approaching vehicles.  The project will create co-simulation tools and augment them with a virtual collaborative environment to educate the public, motor carriers, and CMV drivers about these work zone safety enhancement solutions. Many studies have demonstrated that combining data from multiple sensors, such as cameras, LiDAR, and RADAR, has the potential to significantly reduce vehicle detection errors and improve the overall quality of traffic data.  However, the effectiveness of fused data and Digital Twin technology for improving work zone safety has not been investigated. To bridge this gap, research is needed to investigate effective ways of multi-sensor data collection to develop work zone safety models, improve the accuracy and reliability of predictive models and ensure that these models can be used to mitigate potential safety issues.

Significance: The widespread use of plastic products in food handling poses a direct risk of releasing tiny plastic particles, such as microplastics (less than 5 mm) and nanoplastics (less than 1 µm), into our food. Recent research, including our own, has uncovered alarming findings about these particles being released from plastic food containers, even during typical usage or when usage guidelines are ignored. Some containers can release as many as 4.27 billion microplastics and 2.29 trillion nanoplastics into a liter of water in just three minutes of microwave heating. Our preliminary toxicity study shows that exposure to these particles can result in the death of human embryonic kidney cells. This revelation has prompted pressing public health concerns, with unresolved questions about release circumstances, plastic types, ingestion levels, and toxicity. Moreover, it is vital to explore potential disparities based on demographics and access to alternative containers. 

Significance: Rural bridges are crucial to agricultural economic activities, particularly during harvest seasons when crop yield transportation imposes heavy loads on bridges. Many bridges in rural areas are at or beyond their intended service life and were designed either for unknown or lower vehicle loading than required in modern codes. Unnecessarily imposing load restrictions on bridges leads to increased trip frequencies and lengths for freight vehicles, or demolishing and replacing safe bridges.  Therefore, it is desirable to maximize permitted vehicle loading and extend service lives of aging bridges. Reassessing the structural capacity and mechanical response to vehicular loads for rural bridges is critical to achieving this goal. The primary research question that this project addresses is: how does uncertainty in mechanical response to vehicular loads influence structural reliability for rural bridges?

Significance: Despite the criticality of the agricultural industry to both U.S. and global sustainable food production, the resulting lack of economic diversity in most rural areas is theorized to be a major contributor to the low resilience of rural communities to natural hazards, including earthquakes and windstorms. While resilience is a function of many socioeconomic and organizational factors, the disaster response of the built environment is a critical aspect that cannot be ignored. In many rural areas, critical infrastructure includes vital agricultural support and production systems, such freestanding irrigation systems, metal buildings, and grain bins. However, these structures are not typically designed to consistent standards and have been observed to perform poorly in recent severe windstorms. This research aims to generate a fundamental understanding of the performance of irrigation structures during extreme windstorms to enhance rural resilience to natural hazards.