Civil Engineering / İnşaat Mühendisliği

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11147/13

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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 7
    Citation - Scopus: 5
    Meteorological Drought and Trend Effects on Transboundary River Basins in Afghanistan
    (Springer, 2023) Hayat, Ehsanullah; Tayfur, Gökmen
    Afghanistan, as a landlocked country located within central and southwestern Asia, has an arid to semi-arid climate. Most of the people are involved in agricultural activities, and a major part of the country's gross domestic product depends on agriculture, but the country has the lowest water storage capacity. Consecutive periods of drought and rapid snowmelt due to climate change have made it more challenging for suitable water resource management practices. This study investigates the historical meteorological drought characteristics across the whole country by employing the Reconnaissance Drought Index for the period 1979-2019 using data from 55 meteorological stations. Trends in precipitation and temperature are also investigated using the Mann-Kendall's and the Sen's slope statistical tests. A four-decadal countrywide drought map is generated. Extreme and severe droughts were observed in 1999 and 2000 across the whole country. Moderate drought events have started to occur with a frequency of 3 to 5 years since 1999. The decadal annual rainfall values in each river basin indicate that rainfall has decreased in the last two decades with a significant decline in 1999-2008. The trends of increase in temperature and decrease in precipitation are indications of rapid climate change in the country, especially in the south, west, and southwest regions. Due to the intensity and frequency of the droughts, river flow rates have decreased; and therefore, there is a need for the upstream and downstream neighboring countries to come to terms with the phenomenon of a new normal in the hydrological cycle and accordingly revise new water sharing treaties.
  • Article
    Citation - Scopus: 1
    Relationship Between Abrasion, Fragmentation and Thermal Weathering Resistance of Aggregates: Regression and Artificial Neural Network Analyses
    (Springer, 2023) Gökalp, İslam; Kaya, Orhan; Uz, Volkan Emre
    For being used in pavement construction, properties of aggregates must satisfy the minimum requirements specified by highway agencies or institutions. The properties of the aggregates are determined by many tests lasting anywhere between a couple of hours to a few weeks depending on the type of the test. If good correlations can be established between the tests taking longer time and the ones taking comparably shorter time, there might be no need to conduct these longer time-taking tests for the sake of time. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between abrasion, fragmentation, and thermal weathering resistances of different aggregate types. To accomplish this aim, aggregates with different origins (natural and slags) were tested and correlative analyses utilizing regression analysis and artificial neural network (ANN) models were performed to establish relationships between the results of these test methods. It was found that good correlations can be established especially with ANN models and significant amount of time and effort can be saved with these developed models. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Chinese Society of Pavement Engineering.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 4
    Citation - Scopus: 5
    3d Modelling of Surface Spreading and Underground Dam Groundwater Recharge: Egri Creek Subbasin, Turkey
    (Springer, 2023) Şahin, Yavuz; Tayfur, Gökmen
    This study investigated surface spreading and underground dam recharge methods to replenish groundwater in Turkey's Egri Creek Sub-basin of the Kucuk Menderes River Basin. A three-dimensional numerical model was employed for this purpose. Field and lab data are provided to the model for realistic simulations. Pumping test results were used to determine the aquifer parameters. The laboratory works involved sieve analysis, permeability tests, and porosity and water content prediction. The numerical model's boundary conditions were determined from the geological and hydrogeological characteristics of the study area. Initial conditions were expressed regarding water content and pressure head in the vadose zone. The numerical model was satisfactorily validated by simulating water levels in three different pumping wells in the study area. Seven different scenarios, each having a different pool size, were investigated for the surface spreading recharge method. The results showed that a pool size of 30 x 30 m with a 6-m depth basin was the most optimal choice, raising the groundwater level to about 29.3 m. On the other hand, it was found that an underground dam could raise the levels by an average of 9.5 m, which might not be significant to warrant the construction.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 4
    Citation - Scopus: 4
    Seismic Vulnerability Assessment of an Unanchored Circular Storage Tank Against Elephant's Foot Buckling
    (Springer, 2022) Bektaş, Nurullah; Aktaş, Engin
    Purpose Seismic vulnerability assessment of liquid containing storage tanks is the most vital relevance for industrial plants and society safety to endure damage during impending earthquakes. Because such systems also play an essential role in the public lifeline and also ensure continued use in emergencies. Furthermore, considering that the material contained in individual plants could be hazardous, requisite precautions have paramount importance against undesired leakage. The high internal pressure and axial forces exerted by the liquid in the steel tanks near the tank wall bottom produce elastic-plastic buckling, also known as Elephant's Foot Buckling (EFB). As far as the authors are aware, no study has been carried out that involves a critical assessment and comparison of IDA and truncated IDA-based EFB failure criterion. This study provides insight into incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) and truncated IDA-based seismic evaluation of cylindrical unanchored steel storage tanks by employing a developed pressure-based surrogate modeling approach. For this purpose, probability-based seismic assessment of a representative sample is considered based on IDA and truncated IDA approaches to identify the potential of the EFB failure and to explore potential enhancements in the sophisticated structural analysis model to prevent the hazardous effects of impending earthquakes. Methods Due to the significance of industrial plants for public safety and benefit, the structural response evaluation methods for different types of storage tanks have been widely reported. In the literature, the most comprehensive analytical assessment methodology is the IDA approach, in which nonlinear time-history analyses are considered in the finite element analysis model to assess the structural model's seismic performance. Results To generate fragility curves, both IDA approaches are employed, taking into consideration and ignoring uncertainty of material properties. The values of the two methods-based fragility curves approach each other as the magnitude of dispersion increases. Conclusion The two fragility curves give the probability of failures close to each other as the dispersion amount increases while considering the uncertainty of the material properties. In addition, fragility curves generated based on the truncated IDA have been found to give a higher probability of failure, up to 32.5 percent. When compared to the IDA-based fragility curves, the truncated IDA-based fragility curves were found to be on the conservative side.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 24
    Citation - Scopus: 27
    Drought Assessment in the Aegean Region of Turkey
    (Springer, 2022) Mersin, Denizhan; Gülmez, Ayşe; Safari, Mir Jafar Sadegh; Vaheddoost, Babak; Tayfur, Gökmen
    Drought indices are commonly used to monitor the duration and severity of droughts. In this regard, the continuously changing climate regardless of its cause or effect pushes the limit of the water deficit through time and space. Izmir is a raising city in Turkey, which owns various water resources including but not limited to seashores, lakes, river streams, and groundwater aquifers. In this study, the long-term precipitation and temperature records from 14 meteorological stations between 1973 and 2020 (for 47 years) are used to investigate the drought characteristics in Buyuk Menderes, Kucuk Menderes, and Gediz basins located in the Aegean region of Turkey. For this, the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), Percent of Normal (PNI), and the so-called Discrepancy Precipitation Index (DPI) are used with consideration to 1-, 3-, 6-, and 12-month moving averages to investigate the drought patterns. Results showed that the monthly indices depict very similar results for the entire region. However, in the 1980s and 2010s droughts were more severe than the rest of the historical records. When the moving average operator is implemented in the analysis (3-, 6- and 12-month periods), neither SPI nor the SPEI showed the same results at any stations. It is illustrated that the periods of severe and normal drought have occurred in the past, yet the indices that are obtained using average values are generally within the normal limits, but extreme values (extremely arid or extremely wet) occurred occasionally. It is also concluded that although there is a similarity between the implemented indices, the DPI and PNI depict the highest resemblance.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 1
    Citation - Scopus: 1
    A Magnetically Driven Elastic Rod Type Bi-Directional Swimmer at Stokes Flow
    (Springer, 2022) Özdemir, İzzet
    In this paper, a flexible rod type micro-swimmer is proposed which achieves swimming direction reversal on the fly by forming a chiral helix-like geometry through external magnetic excitation. Furthermore an accompanying low Reynolds number flow-structure interaction analysis framework is developed which effectively combines a geometrically non-linear shear deformable beam model with regularized Stokeslet method in a monolithic implicit solution algorithm. This framework is used to investigate the basic characteristics of the proposed micro-swimmer in terms of dimensionless groups reflecting the interplay between different forces involved.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 4
    Citation - Scopus: 12
    Carbon Dioxide Emissions Mitigation Strategy Through Enhanced Geothermal Systems: Western Anatolia, Turkey
    (Springer, 2022) Chandrasekharam, Dornadula; Baba, Alper
    Although Turkey is not the biggest GHG polluter, its emissions have increased by 110.4% since 1990. Currently, its CO2 emissions alone have crossed 400 Mt. Within the scope of 2 °C targets (2D scenario), the country can easily surpass this target test by increasing its renewable energy sources as a primary energy source mix, by developing its Enhanced Geothermal Sources (EGS) locked up in the radiogenic granites of western Anatolia. The radiogenic heat generated by these granites, spread over an area of 4221 sq. km, varies from 5.3 to 16.34 µW/m3. Based on the electricity generation capacity of granites from Soultz-sous-Forets and Cooper Basin EGS sites, the combined electricity generation capacity of Kestanbol and Kozak granite plutons is about 830 billion kWh. For the period extending from 2019 to 2023, Turkey is aiming at reducing the usage of gas for electricity generation from 29.9 to 20.7%, increasing the share of renewable energy sources from 32.5 to 38.8%, increasing the electricity production from local energy sources from 150 to 219 TWh and increasing the electricity usage per-capita from 3.7 to 4.3 MWh. These energy targets can be achieved by major contributions from hydrothermal and EGS energy sources. This review demonstrates that besides electricity and heat, EGS energy can be utilized, together with other renewable energy sources, such as hydrothermal, wind, and concentrated solar for providing fresh water through the desalination process. These energy sources would provide food, energy, and water security to the country for several decades.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 10
    Citation - Scopus: 12
    Impacts of Construction of Dam on the Flow Regimes and Water Quality: a Case Study From Turkey
    (Springer, 2022) Bor, Aslı; Elçi, Şebnem
    Dam construction has important positive and negative effects on the environment, including physical changes of the riverbed morphology, changes in sediment transport patterns and water quality, and the river ecosystem in general. The primary objective of this study is to present a methodology to assess the impacts of construction and operation of Çine Dam, in Aydin, Turkey, on the river flow regimes, sedimentation, and water quality of the downstream reach of Büyük Menderes River. Construction of the dam significantly reduced the sediment load from the Çine tributary to the main reach, as expected. To evaluate changes in the water quality of the Çine River, five different water quality index methods are compared before and after the dam operation: Weighted Arithmetic Index (WAI-WQI), Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment Water Quality Index (CCME-WQI), Universal Water Quality Index (UWQI), Oregon Water Quality Index (OWQI) and Aquatic Toxicity Index (ATI). ATI and CCME-WQI methods are found to be more appropriate for the 10-year water quality assessment of the river.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 1
    Citation - Scopus: 1
    Groundwater Recharge Estiaton in the Alaşehir Sub-Basin Using Hydro-Geochemical Data; Alaşehir Case Study
    (Springer, 2021) Tonkul, Serhat; Baba, Alper; Şimşek, Celalettin; Demirkesen, Ali Can
    The issue of groundwater recharge has gained importance in countries where there is not enough water supply to the aquifer. However, groundwater recharge is a difficult parameter to determine. This difficulty stems from factors such as the location of the area to be studied, time, cost, and hydrological data. Numerical, isotope, and chemical approaches are used in groundwater recharge investigations. Numerical and chemical approaches are more costly and time-consuming than chemical approaches. This study aims to ascertain alluvial aquifer recharge in Alaehir (Manisa) sub-basin using chemical approaches (Chloride Mass Balance Method) and its applicability. For this purpose, research wells were drilled at 25 different points in the alluvial aquifer, water sampling was done in wet and dry periods, and rainwater water samples were collected. Groundwater recharge was calculated by using chemical approaches from the chloride concentrations of the water samples collected. An annual average of 74.84 mm of recharge was found in the Alaehir sub-basin. This value corresponds to 16.38% of annual rainfall. At the same time, it was examined the groundwater and geothermal mixing mechanism to demonstrate the applicability of the Chloride Mass Balance Method. It was concluded that geothermal fluid in Alaehir sub-basin mixed with groundwater at a rate of 17%.