Document Type

Plan B - Open Access

Award Date

2023

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

First Advisor

Michael Pawlovich

Abstract

This research assessed the impact of precipitation as an adverse weather condition on the transportation construction in South Dakota. A statistical survey of the data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was conducted on 554 original stations, which was reduced to 433 stations of them were in South Dakota, then reduced to 170 stations with 30-year data coverage higher than 70 %. Eventually, the data were reduced further for pilot study purposes to a final 10 stations used for analysis in this study. The objective of this study is to examine potential precipitation thresholds towards determination of related adverse weather days. It was established that moving threshold from 0.15 inches to 0.20 inches, barely increased the number of threshold violation days significantly. Thus, keeping the threshold at either 0.15 inches or 0.20 inches would not be much of a problem; however, with concerns of underestimating the threshold values, the choice was made to go with an accommodating precipitation threshold of 0.20 inches. The outcome of this research will aid in appropriately developing charts for construction works and effectively avoid conflicts between the Department of Transportation and contractors.

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Rights

Copyright © Akosua Ofosua Okyere-Addo

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