Award Date

5-1-2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Committee Member

Jacimaria R. Batista

Second Committee Member

Aly M. Said

Third Committee Member

Thomas C. Piechota

Fourth Committee Member

Spencer M. Steinberg

Number of Pages

139

Abstract

A current environmental concern is that of urban stormwater runoff, which can carry a multitude of contaminants and could threaten or impair surface waters. Pervious concrete (PC) is a type of concrete with significant void spaces that can facilitate infiltration and lead to less runoff. The EPA cites previous research to show that pervious pavement structures reduce such contaminants as metals and total suspended solids. Since Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) is a well-known contaminant adsorbent, the purpose of this research was to determine if PC with added GAC would result in improved runoff treatment, while still maintaining its material properties.

Tests for compressive and tensile strengths, porosity and permeability were done on plain and GAC-containing PC mixtures. To test runoff treatment effects, samples of each mixture were subjected to synthetic runoff water containing several typical runoff contaminants. All mixtures were found to attain typical values for material properties. Changes in strength characteristics for the different mixtures were noted, although some experimental variations suggest that caution should be practiced when comparing within and between mixtures. Both plain PC and GAC-containing PC were found to significantly reduce overall concentrations of metals. None of the concrete mixtures were found to have any significant impacts on overall treatment for acetate.

In spite of the significant reduction of many contaminants, no significant differences were found in overall treated runoff quality between mixtures or between plain and GAC containing PC. It was considered that GAC became covered within the concrete matrix to the extent that it was no longer beneficial for runoff treatment. It is proposed that future work focus on modifying the method of GAC usage so that it is readily available for contaminant sorption.

Keywords

Carbon; Activated; Concrete--Permeability; Runoff--Purification—Filtration; Urban runoff

Disciplines

Civil Engineering | Environmental Engineering

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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