About the Online Final Assessment

Where Do I Find It?

• Click on the “Quizzes and Exams” menu item in the course website in BbLearn

When It’s Available – LAST WEEK OF CLASSES – NOT EXAM PERIOD

• Opens – Midnight Thursday Morning  6/4 
• Closes – 11:59PM Sunday Evening 6/7
• There is NO exam during exam week.
• There is NO class meeting on Monday of exam week.

How Much Does It Count?

• 18% of the total grade

What is on it?

• 75% Multiple Choice + True/False + Multiple Answers (more than one answer per question possible)
  • These are drawn from the lectures and the labs in the course.
  • A few require you to be careful in your thinking, but most are straightforward.
• 15% – Calculation Questions based on the labs
  • The description and logic for calculating the answer are the same, but each student will see different numbers
• 10% – 200 words or more on the Best or Worst (or Both) Aspects of CAEE-201 – graded on being specific, not on your opinions.

May I take It More than Once?

• Yes, you may take it up to three times – each time you have 3 hours
• You will not receive your score after taking the assessment– not until I have graded the essays after the assessment closes
• You may not save and resume during one instance of the test.
• Each time you take it the numbers for the calculations and the order of the questions will probably be different.
• We will use the highest score you achieve from multiple attempts.

Update on Class DIscussions

Hey Folks,

As we enter the last week of class, you have one discussion post left to complete.  I hope that you have all learned something from these discussions.  Please remember that the more you put into your education, the more you will get out of it.  These posts are not meant to be difficult, they are meant to give you the opportunity to learn something you otherwise wouldn't.  Overall, I am very pleased with the way they are going,  Please just remember that part of your grade for these discussions is to read and review 3 of your classmate's posts.  Good job, and good luck with the rest of this term!

-Brad

Tacony-Palmyra Bridge Visit–Thursday 5/28

This Thursday we’ll visit the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge. 

• The visit will take the entire lab period for each lab section
• We’ll be traveling by Drexel bus, walking across the bridge making observations and then returning to Drexel, all within the two hour lab period. 
• Below are the key facts for this visit.

Timing

• We will leave PMOMPTLY on the hour at the start of each lab - 9:00 and 11:00.  We really will leave on time.
• To ensure that the bus has sufficient capacity stick with your assigned lab section.
• We expect to be back by 10:50 and 12:50 respectively.  If there’s a traffic problem we could be delayed, but at that time of day it should be OK.

Location

• The bus will leave from in front of the main building on Chestnut street, probably on the south side of the street.
  • Sometimes for traffic reasons the bus goes to Market street.  If that’s the case we’ll alert you by having someone on Chestnut to direct you.  That person will leave Chestnut at 9:00 or 11:00
• If you’re a commuter you can meet us at the Tacony Palmyra bridge.
  • The easiest parking lot is on the NJ side
  • We’ll be starting our walk from the PA side so you’ll want to walk across the bridge to meet us.
  • We’ll probably start walking from the PA side about 10:25 or 12:25

Wearing Apparel

• Wear a windbreaker (raingear if the weather threatens)
  • The bridge is always markedly cooler and windier than on the ground
• Wear flat shoes – heels will be a problem on some of the sidewalks.

Safety

• The bridge is a dangerous place, particularly if you lean into the traffic lanes – it’s extraordinarily tight.
• LISTEN TO THE SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS WHEN WE’RE THERE

Tanker Collision with Bridge Lab–Question

Question

• Could you explain to me how to do question 14 on this week's lab? …. I know I have to work backwards to find the mass, but I am not sure how to do this. Could you please guide me in the right direction for how to complete this problem?

Response

Prof. Dasaro set this question to challenge you to think about the physics of what’s happening.  As he noted, in most respects it’s a matter of working backwards through the same steps that you followed in Q1-13.  Below are some hints that may assist.

• A key thing to note is that in calculating the bending moment we’re pushing on the pier with the maximum the DRPA allows.  In essence, we’re ignoring what happens in the “plastic” region when addressing bending.
• To work backwards to the allowable tanker mass/weight you need to check whether the maximum stress specified in the question occurs in the elastic range, which includes the DRPA maximum.  You can do this by comparing the moment that occurs with this stress in each pier leg to the maximum moment.  If that moment is less then you can proceed assuming that you’re working exclusively in the elastic range – which simplifies the calculations.

Geothech Q3 graph

You need to show a profile of stress vs. depth (see Q3). In other words, pls show the stress as a function of depth.

In Q1 & 2 you probably worked with each layer independently and only needed to show the stress beneath the whole ‘sandwich’, while in Q3 you need to show the stress in every point of depth – would it be -65 ft or -12.345 ft. I expect to see a piece-wise linear function with 3 or 4 (which, btw, would be correct according to Q3) pieces with a domain [-2; -65] ft.

Geotech - depth and 'thickness'

In Q1 and Q2 you work with 'thickness', in Q3 you work with absolute depths.

More on the LCA Lab

Those steps should gradually help you to get the lab done:
1. Use the greenhouse, climatic, SG and oil parameters and burner efficiency to find how much actual oil and SG you need to burn. Find GHG emission of combusting OIL.
2. Even if we burn SG in Dec, we release C captured in Jun, thus burning SG is C-neutral.
3. Find how much 'virtual' oil you use to get the actual oil. Find GHG footprint of that 'virtual' oil. Several gases contribute to this footprint, account for it. In what units will you account this oil?
4. Find GHG footprint of agricultural part of SG fuel. How many various GHG's it emits?
5. Find how much GHG briquetting contributes.
6. There is more info in the tables than you will use, but we discussed it in the class very well.
7. Sum you oil emissions, and then separately sum SG emissions and compare. Do not over-complicate!
8. Once you go through the lab carefully you will see the lab is straightforward, and involves simple additions and multiplications across rows and columns.
9. If you start doing the Lab on Wed then there will be a fair chance you won't get it done.

ASHRAE Table of Conversion Factors

The 2-pages table we were discussing today is available here.

Lab-5 River Pollution Questions

Question

“For our lab 5, one of the questions asks to choose the best fit chart type. I was wonder what does that exactly mean? Should we choose it based on the data or which ever graph looks best? Also how are we suppose to know or come up with an idea of the treatment?”

Response

“Best fit chart type” would be the chart that best displays the information for humans to examine and interpret.  There is no “right” answer to the chart type.  You might consider:

• Bar charts
• Pie charts
• Scatter charts

You might also consider what are the appropriate scales:

• Linear
• Log
• Other?

Treatment

We’re not asking you to develop a chemical treatment, but what would you recommend to PWD in terms of actions they might take?

Learned from the HVAC Lab and applied to the Water Quality Lab

Hi all,

I have graded a few HVAC Labs, and from what I have seen the most errors came from units conversion, units sloppiness, and misusing intermediate parameters (e.g., using a hypothetical parameter in the cell G17 instead of one in the cell G18). Thus, WATCH UNITS! Units may "annoy" you but they also give you best support in such Labs. Working with units in Excel is not obvious because they do not accompany your formulas. So take a piece of paper and solve manually all units along the equation chain, from the units given in the PDF to what units are required in the answer.

I learned from Prof. Mitchell to establish a column where you actually list your named variable. It gives you more visual control over your Excel formulas when you construct them and check for bugs. See the pic below.

May the Force be with you, always.

Walter