Civil Engineering

Energy crop has been receiving extensive attention due to its potential to replace fossil fuel to replace fossil fuel. There is an on-going debate about whether energy crop could replace fossil fuel or not, because of processing of crop to ethanol requires energy input thus there is a possibility of negative net energy balance. Result from previous study indicated that by considering co-product produced from ethanol processing plant either from corn or cellulosic plant both could achieve positive net energy balance as much as 60,000 Btu for cellulosic based ethanol and 20,000 to 30,000 Btu for corn based ethanol. Energy crop requires large area to produce substantial amount of ethanol. This report estimated that in order to satisfy 20% of energy demands in 2050, energy crop would require 1,735 million ha of land. One of the benefits of energy crop is less emission of greenhouse gas emission and this study indicated that cellulosic based ethanol could acquire much higher reduction of greenhouse gas emission compared with corn based ethanol in term of life cycle assessment.

Municipal solid waste (MSW) has some amount of contribution in the GHG emission which is the major issue for the climate change. This amount of contribution mainly came from the handling of MSW and GHG produced in landfill. MSW management strategy such as recycling and composting could provide a positive impact in the reduction of GHG by averting some amount of MSW from being end up in the landfill. Recycling also has benefit in replacing “virgin” material to produce a new product which is basically more energy efficient and will reduce the GHG emission in the manufacturing process. The quantification of recycling strategy for GHG emission reduction shows that it could potentially reduce global GHG emission to as high as 3.77% considering 80% of recyclable waste can be collected for recycle.

Rapid growth in the electrical and electronic equipment leads to the increase of E-waste generation. E-waste is generally separated from municipal solid waste management and generally ends up in either landfill or recycling process to recover the material. Increase in E-waste generation was also contributed from shorter lifetime period of a product due to high technology innovation in recent years. Promoting reuse in electrical and electronic equipment could potentially extend the lifetime of a product. GHG emission related with E-waste will be estimated for year 2010 considering four scenarios: (1) without recycling or reuse (landfill), (2) recycle 50% and 80%, (3) reuse 50% and 80%, (4) together reuse 50% and recycle 50%. From the four scenarios, highest reduction of GHG emission is observed related with global total GHG emission in year 2010.

This research presents a model for surveying networks configuration which is designed and called a Computerized Integrated System for Triangulation Network Modeling (CISTNM). It focuses on the strength of figure as a concept then on estimating the relative error (RE) for the computed side (base line) triangulation element. The CISTNM can compute the maximum elevations of the highest obstacles of the line of sight, the observational signal tower height, the contribution of each triangulation station with their intervisibility test and analysis. The model is characterized by the flexibility to select either a single figure or a combined figures network option. Each option includes three other implicit options such as: triangles, quadrilaterals, and central-point figures (which is to be subdivided into: triangle; quadrilateral, and pentagon). The model also has the property of the diverse modes of display for the output results; i.e. the results can be displayed in the shape of Two-Dimensional (2-D) and Three-Dimensional (3-D) representations. Visual Basic is the software depended as a main core in designing CISTNM to draw the suggested network in 2-D to display the network point positions and formations, and it can be linked with the available software such as ArcMap (GIS). The input data which is used as an application of the targeted geodetic surveying techniques (triangulation) is Chamchamal region as a case study in this research. The area lies in the north of Iraq. The results obtained after this application and verification, have proved that the CISTNM can perform the required task easily and accurately.