Comparative life cycle assessment of lighting systems and road pavements in an Italian twin- tube road tunnel

This work calculates and discusses the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of four scenarios composed of two types of road pavements and two types of lighting systems to be built in an Italian twin-tube road tunnel. A 20-year time horizon is adopted to assess the burdens of construction and maintenance of both flexible and rigid pavements and high-pressure sodium (HPS) and lightemitting diode (LED) lamps, traffic, and switching on of lamps. All considered scenarios are comparable with each other in terms of technical performances, but significantly differ regarding their environmental consequences. The geometrical and technical characteristics of the examined scenarios comply with current Italian standards for highways. In all the examined cases, LCA is carried out according to the European standard, EN 15804, and includes 19 impact categories (IC). The analysis demonstrates that the use of more reflecting surface pavement materials (i.e., concrete vs. asphalt) and more performing lighting systems (i.e., LED vs. HPS) can effectively mitigate the deleterious burdens related to road construction, maintenance, and use. For most of the examined ICs, the most environment-friendly scenario has LED lamps and concrete pavement

Environmental, human health and socio-economic effects of cement powders: The multicriteria analysis as decisional methodology

The attention to sustainability-related issues has grown fast in recent decades. The experience gained with these themes reveals the importance of considering this topic in the construction industry, which represents an important sector throughout the world. This work consists on conducting a multicriteria analysis of four cement powders, with the objective of calculating and analysing the environmental, human health and socio-economic effects of their production processes. The economic, technical, environmental and safety performances of the examined powders result from official, both internal and public, documents prepared by the producers. The Analytic Hierarchy Process permitted to consider several indicators (i.e., environmental, human health related and socio-economic parameters) and to conduct comprehensive and unbiased analyses which gave the best, most sustainable cement powder. As assumed in this study, the contribution of each considered parameter to the overall sustainability has a different incidence, therefore the procedure could be used to support on-going sustainability efforts under different conditions. The results also prove that it is not appropriate to regard only one parameter to identify the ‘best’ cement powder, but several impact categories should be considered and analysed if there is an interest for pursuing different, often conflicting interests

Technical and Economic Criteria to Select Pavement Surfaces of Port Handling Plants

A port is an intermodal system in which many logistics activities requiring properly constructed areas occur. The large extension of these areas poses a major problem in choosing materials with technical and economic implications. Choice and design of pavements are directly related to the port handling systems and procedures for the disposal of the cargo units. The paper presents the design and verification procedures for three equivalent pavements for a handling pavement in an Italian medium-sized port trafficked by reach stackers moving containers. An asphalt pavement, a concrete pavement, and a concrete block pavement have been considered during the 20-year service life. Empirical and analytical methods have been adopted to design and verify the pavements. The structures have been examined in terms of economic concerns during the overall service life, considering both construction and maintenance costs, in order to determine the most cost-effective option. The results demonstrate the inappropriateness of asphalt pavement, in the examined case, from a construction costs point of view. Furthermore, the overall discounted costs show an inversion of convenience between block concrete pavement and cast in situ concrete: the latter is the cheaper solution. The proposed methodology can balance often conflicting objectives in matters of durability and funds management, providing answers to a complex topic

Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda: design drawings compared

Giuseppe Damiani Almeyda is among the most important designers, architects, engineers and designers at the end of '800. He has participated in numerous architectural competitions, both at Palermo in Sicily and again in Italy. He has conducted numerous studies on the identification of significant types of construction from coffee house to the shrines cemeteries, the decorative detail to the urban study on a large scale. Of course He is remembered in our city, especially as the designer of the Politeama, an imposing structure that dominates the central square of Palermo. Very old city, whose roots, evidenced by the presence dating back to the Punic, have never found a break until the present day, offering a repertoire of great architectural prestige and international reputation. Moreover, capital, enjoys a privilege that few other cities can boast: it has two of the most important theaters in the history of Architecture: the Politeama and the Teatro Massimo. And our dear Almeyda participated in both competitions, winning one and losing the second. But what were the real reasons why he did not win the second project? Perhaps the town is terrified of being left with a certified copy of the already made Politeama? Or, participation in the race by Giovan Battista Filippo Basile unquestionably compromised the expert advice? Or perhaps, again, the second project did not meet in style, beauty and greatness, the grandeur of the former? These and more are the questions we have approached the study of two extraordinary projects proposed architectural competitions with only one signature, but hides itself, strange stylistic mechanisms but also social, historical, political

Geometrical and functional criteria as a methodological approach to implement a new cycle path in an existing Urban Road Network: A Case study in Rome

Most road accidents occur in urban areas and notably at urban intersections, where cyclists and motorcyclists are the most vulnerable. In the last few years, cycling mobility has been growing; therefore, bike infrastructures should be designed to encourage this type of mobility and reduce motorized and/or private transport. The paper presents a study to implement a new cycle path in the existing cycle and road network in Rome, Italy. The geometric design of the new path complies with Italian standards regarding the technical characteristics of bicycle paths, while the Highway Capacity Manual has been considered for the traffic analysis. In particular, a before-after approach has been adopted to examine and compare the traffic flow at more complex and congested intersections where the cycle path will pass. Trams, buses, cars, bikes and pedestrians were the traffic components considered in each analysis. The software package PTV VISSIM 8 allowed the simulations of traffic flows at traffic-light intersections; an original linear process has been proposed to model dynamic intelligent traffic controls, which are not admitted by the software used. The traffic analysis allowed the identification of the best option for each of the five examined intersections. Particularly, the maximum queue length value and the total number of passed vehicles have been considered in order to optimize the transport planning process. The results of this study highlight the importance of providing engineered solutions when a cycle path is implemented in a complex road network, in order to avoid negative impacts on the citizens and maximize the expected advantages

IMAGE-BASED MODELING TECHNIQUES FOR ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE 3D DIGITALIZATION: LIMITS AND POTENTIALITIES

3D reconstruction from images has undergone a revolution in the last few years. Computer vision techniques use photographs from data set collection to rapidly build detailed 3D models. The simultaneous applications of different algorithms (MVS), the different techniques of image matching, feature extracting and mesh optimization are inside an active field of research in computer vision. The results are promising: the obtained models are beginning to challenge the precision of laser-based reconstructions. Among all the possibilities we can mainly distinguish desktop and web-based packages. Those last ones offer the opportunity to exploit the power of cloud computing in order to carry out a semi-automatic data processing, thus allowing the user to fulfill other tasks on its computer; whereas desktop systems employ too much processing time and hard heavy approaches. Computer vision researchers have explored many applications to verify the visual accuracy of 3D model but the approaches to verify metric accuracy are few and no one is on Autodesk 123D Catch applied on Architectural Heritage Documentation. Our approach to this challenging problem is to compare the 3Dmodels by Autodesk 123D Catch and 3D models by terrestrial LIDAR considering different object size, from the detail (capitals, moldings, bases) to large scale buildings for practitioner purpose

Reconstructing urban scene 3D using VisualSfM

New computer vision techniques use photo dataset to rapidly build detailed 3D models. Computer- vision researchers have explored many approaches to city-scale 3D reconstruc on. Among these systems stands out VisualSfM developed by the University of Washington & Google Inc. It is a open source GUI applica on of a Structure from Mo on (SfM) so! ware that uses a feature extractor called Si! GPU and the Mul core Bundle Adjustment. In addi on it embeds the CMVS/ PMVS2 able to reconstruct dense 3D point cloud. Our goal is to demonstrate the metric accuracy of VisualSfM+CMVS/PMVS2 and that to get run it, you can use an unstructured photo dataset but the result improves if you use a structured photo dataset. The approach has been tested on several large datasets with structured images

Economic Sustainability of Concrete Pavements

AbstractEconomic evaluation of transport infrastructure is as important as its technical and structural design: often only initial construction costs are calculated to evaluate economic project sustainability. Instead forgetting maintenance costs exposes society to unacceptable risks of expensive decisions. Road pavements design and construction solutions affect maintenance works during service life, which not only entail economical and financial expenditures but also damage service regularity for users. Distress pavement analysis can contribute to find the financially most advantageous solution. This paper shows a computer program defined to analyze structural, functional and financial characteristics of concrete pavements

Analytical method for calculating sustainable airport capacity

Capacity is the attitude of an airport to manage a number of operations in a given time interval within a fixed maximum delay (and under given safety conditions). Capacity studies are commonly carried out on five levels of analysis according to the required detail in order to identify the best option that balances economic, logistic and safety issues. This study focuses on level 3 (i.e., analytical methods) developing a calculation model to assess the runway capacity. The model was calibrated by comparing the outputs of different airport configurations with those provided by the circular of the Federal Aviation Administration Airport Capacity and Delay. The model was well calibrated with maximum differences in the analyzed configurations that stood at 1 or 2 movements/hour. The runway capacity of an international airport was calculated and compared to that of the entire airside, assessed through fast time simulation, in a previous study. The analytical model provides runway capacity slightly higher than that of the entire air system, as it cannot evaluate all the critical issues present in the airport that reduce its maximum theoretical capacity. Therefore, depending on the degree of detail required, you can use the developed model or the simulation software; the use of the latter is possible when the airside infrastructure does not adequately support the runway system or in cases of advanced design level

THE DIAGNOSIS OF ROAD SURFACE DISTRESSES THROUGH IMAGE-BASED MODELING TECHNIQUES. EXPERIMENTAL SURVEY ON LABORATORY-RUTTED SAMPLES

In the past few years, there has been a drastic increase in the use of image-based modeling (IBM) techniques to create high quality, reality-based 3D models. The low costs of these techniques, as well as their attractive visual quality, have led many researchers and professionals to invest their energy and resources in several tests. IBM is rarely used in the field of road surface distresses as diagnosis is usually performed using other techniques and devices. Road safety statistics reveal that about a half of the total number of accidents occur mainly due to the deterioration of the pavement. The goal of effective road network management is often incompatible with economic resources designated for maintenance and rehabilitation. For this reason, IBM diagnosis of distresses seems necessary in order to both increase the level of road safety and to avoid incorrect interventions and treatments of road pavement. One of the strengthens of multi-view stereo techniques is the possibility to capture millions of points in a very short time, and to produce a 3D, textured polygonal model that can easily be used for visualizing and communicating digital assets. Our goal was to implement the IBM techniques on a laboratory-rutted sample and to verify the metric accuracy of the model and its validity for the distress diagnosis in terms of severity (rut depth). In order to assess the IBM technique, we compared its 3D model to the blue LED 3D scan (Artec Spider) of the same rutted sample