D. M. Griffin, Jr., PhD., P.E., D.WRE
"The Wizard"




                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Why...nobody gets in to see the Wizard, not nobody, not no how !

  Professor of Civil Engineering
Louisiana Tech University

Course Materials
and
MathCad File Distribution Page(s)

 

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   7/1/07 - Its been a while since I spent any time sprucing up this site. I am in the process of going through the
  files and fixing the ones that don't work or have mistakes as a result of changes in Mathcad versions.
  Let me know what needs to be fixed.

   7/25/07 - I've been adding problems to the dynamics section

.site visitors so far in 2007, page last modified 8/19/2007, 3:40 pm

Current attractions

2/22/07  - Chemistry problems can often exhibit convergence problems, depending on how the equations are writtem, in the CVEN 314 section

2/11/06  - Are minor losses really minor ?  In the fluids section

2/21/06 - The potential effect on clarifier size when laminar flow around a settling particle is assumed....but isn't occurring 

3/11/06  -  Determining the operating point, brake hp and efficiency of a cetrifugal pump. 

3/19/06 -  The concept of Net Positive Suction Head, NPSH, and how to determine it

5/18/06 - Sensitivity analysis of Green Ampt infiltration procedure - in the student section

5/29/06 - A discussion of the vector product as a tool in dynamics, in the dynamics section

6/4/06 - An application of the vector cross product with explanation and several schematics.

8/2/06 - A neat little chemistry problem exploring calcite solubility, excellent application of a solve block

8/6/06 - File demonstrating use of a "parameterized" solve block for solving a chemistry problem

8/13/06 - An interesting file for a nonchemist showing what happens when the salt of a weak acid is added to water

8/13/06 -  The strong acid in water problem

8/15/06 -  Species distribution in a CO2/water system open to the atmosphere

8/15/06 -  Water containing soluble calcium and solid calcite, subject to partial pressure of CO2

                    You can access various problem topics by clicking on the following targets :

Course Materials for Contaminant Transport 
Notes, Derivations, Discussions for Contaminant Transport
Materials for undergraduate environmental engineering (314) class
Air Pollution
Chemistry
Probability and Statistics
Civil Engineering
Misc. Problems
Numerical Methods
Fluid Mechanics
Dynamics
Water Resources I and II -  CE 310 and 411
Mathcad Procedures
Files developed by former students

Site Hits in Past Years

2001 4450
2002 16449
2003 13260
2004 16117
2005 21273
2006 24908

                                                                                                         



 

 
                                           Domains Accessing Dr Griffin's Mathcad so far in 2007


































                                                                     



                                                                                    A couple of Ruston, Louisiana's finest - The 2005 Mardi Gras Ball

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  FILES DEVELOPED BY CURRENT AND FORMER STUDENTS

FILE  FILE DESCRIPTION AND DEVELOPER    
A File from Katrina Developed by Rel Gray, currently with Hunt-Guillot and Associates, Ruston, La This was done in response to a contract from development of temporary living quarters for victims of hurricane Katrina, posted Nov. 1, 2005
Drainage and Detention Basin Design This file is several years old.  It was done by Michael Foster.  "Foster" did not like hydraulics/hydrology or Mathcad and said he wasn't going to work in the hydraulics area or with Mathcad after he left school, "he was going to do structures".   He went to work for a firm that does structural work in the electrical power industry.  Unknown to Foster, the firm also has responsibilty for drainage around their structures.  This was Foster's first assignment.  Moral of the story "In private industry you do what comes through the door"
Sizing of Culverts - Minimum Performance Approach This file was produced by Lance Tyson in CVEN 411 (Fall 2005).  It uses the minimum performance approach (FHWA) to size culverts.  Posted Nov. 5, 2005.  Nice use of conditional statements with text strings as output.
Sensitivity Analysis of the Green Ampt Infiltration Procedure This file was produced by Joseph Bramande.  He uses an "iterative input" into an Excel component to do a sensitivity analysis of the Green- Ampt infiltration procedure. Posted May 18, 2006, 9 am

 



 
CHEMISTRY
(some are annotated better than others)
File
 

Description of File

  Strong acid strong base titration
version 1 - solve block
Numerical solution of a strong acid strong base titration with associated plots 
This file details the development of the titration curve for a strong acid/strong base system.   This file uses the "root function" rather than a solve block and results in a very general template .
chemistry problem
  Total dissolved carbon in a solution in contact with solid calcite
  PDF version of file above
PDF file of file above
  Chemistry Problem
    pH of rain water from an acid atmosphere
Chemistry Problem
partial pressure of CO 2 in solution
  Chemistry
  A discussion of alkalinity in natural waters 
  Sodium bicarbonate addition for pH control and buffering
This problem arose as a result of the need to predict the pH and alkalinity resulting from the addition of sodium bicarbonate to a low alkalinity well water.  We defined a function,  fct(Na), which calls a solve block for each dosage. Resulting pH and alkalinity plotted vs dosage. 
  Master Variable Diagram for H2S Species
Species concentrations as function of pH
Ammonia Speciation
Problem deals with computing the ammonia/ammonium distribution in water
  H2S concentration in a section of Sewer
  Calculations to determine the speciation of H 2 S in section of sewer. Comments on the practical use of such calculations
  Solvent Spill
  Calculations relating to evaparation of solvents after a spill
  Fog
calculations dealing with pollutants in fog vapor 
  Alkalinity Equations
  Numerical and analytical calculations for computing alkalinity
  Development of alkalinity equations
Development of concepts and equations used to quantify alkalinity in natural waters
  pH of weak acid solution - 2 weak acids
Numerical solution of the salts of 2 weak acids in water
  Chemistry
  Alkalinity of a sodium bicarbonate-sodium carbonate solution - solve block used
  Examination of alkalinity variation in solution
Carbon at varying pH-alkalinity levels
  System with constant carbon concentration
Find the partial pressure of an acidified system where the aqueous C concentration remains constant
  NaOH added to CO 2 /water system
  NaOH is added to a CO 2 /water system to produce NaHCO 3
  Sodium hypochlorite added to water
  The effect on pH of the addition of the salt of a weak acid to water
  Magnesium precipitation
Effect of buffer on requirements for precipitation. Based on problem from Snoeyink and Jenkins text
How much Freon in the bottle ? 
A neat applied problem using a little chemistry and a little thermodynamics. From the Environmental Organic Chemistry text by Schwarzenbach et al.
Another neat problem from Environmental Organic Chemistry by Schwartzenbach, et.al , posted 5/1/03, 4:40 p.m.
  Methyl Bromide on lettuce leaves
A very practical little problem from Schwartzenbach et al. but I'm not sure if my solution is correct. Anyone seeing a mistake is asked to email me. Posted 2/25/00 8:30 am
  Stumm&Morgan/7-1_solubility_of_FeCO3.mcd Solving for the soluble Fe +2 concentration when the system contains a buffer system. Posted 12/15/01, 8:41 am.
  9-6_iron_oxidation_kinetics.mcd
Problem illustrates that equilibrium calculations don't tell the whole story, posted 12/20/01, 7:15 am
        8_1_biochemical_calculations_M@E.mc
A neat little problem from Metcalf and Eddy which draws together material from different areas to compute the oxygen requirement for metabolism of casein, posted 1/18/02, 1:45pm
Engineers are not chemists - this is a very simple little problem where I examine an often used approximation in acid-base chemistry.  The use of Mathcad solve blocks does not require many of the assumptions made when solving chemistry problems manually or graphically.
Open system with solid phase
Here I solve an "open system" in contact with a solid phase for a range of the independent variable.  I used a "solve block function" .  This is an iterative form of a solve block not documented in Mathcad literature, at least not very well.  Posted 4/6/03, 11:05 am
A problem from Stumm and Morgan's Text, posted 4/14/03, 12 noon
  Shows how to determine if CaCO3 precipitation will occur and how much , posted 4/29/03, 3:30 pm
Scotch and Soda - the Hard Way
A neat Gibbs Free energy problem showing the location of the equilibrium point graphically. Posted 5/12/03 , 8:35 am
  A kinetics problem dealing with chlorine residuals.
Posted 5/14/03, 10:24 am

Reverse Osmosis Fouling Calculations

A Problem from "Water Treatment" 2nd edition by MWH Global  (GREAT BOOK).  I tried to add a little chemistry explanation as well as a drawing, posted 7/25/05, 3:30 pm
CaCO3 Solubility  A neat little problem exploring the solubility of calcite in an open system with the presence of a solid phase.  Much written explanation.  These types of problems are an excellent application of solve blocks, posted 8/2/06, 7:15 am
Use of a parameterized solve block for weak base addition This is a slick little problem showing how to use a solve block as a function with 2 independent variables that has ranges.  The equations defined in the solve block are solved for each value of the independent variable(s), posted 8/6/06,  10:20 am
Adding strong acid to salt of weak base File illustrates the effect a small amount of weak base has on pH reduction when a strong acid is added.  Nice use of a solve block function, posted 8/6/06, 4 pm
Solubility of Silver Acetate in Water and the resulting pH Interesting file for a non-chemist.  I was surprised that adding AgAc changed the pH of water.  It's because Ac- is the anion of the weak acid HAc.  Posted 8/13/06, 9:05 am
Numerical Solution of the strong acid - water problem with explanation Here I "beat to death" the strong acid in water problem.  Both a numerical and analytical solution are provided as well as chemistry and Mathcad explanations, posted 8/13/06, 2:45 pm
CO2 - water open system - alkalinity zero Species distribution in a CO2 water system open to the atmosphere - key point is that in such a system the alkalinity is zero, posted 8/15/06, 7:05 am
 water containing solid calcite subject to p.p. of CO2 What effect does the soluble Ca concentration on partial pressure of CO2 (or vice versa), posted 8/15/06, 4:30 pm




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                                                                                                               A classic ....... Mardi Gras 2005














                                                                                                                     

 
AIR POLLUTION
Air Pollution Problem
Air  flow at non-standard temperature and pressure. Notice that this problem is basically a fluids and gas law application
  Air Pollution Emissions
Particulate emission calculations
  Air Pollution - Puff Model 
A simple steady-state air pollution model - uses a Mathcad surface plot for illustration
  Air Pollution
  Flue gas flow calculations
  Coal combustion analysis
  Stoichiometric analysis of coal combustion
  Unit conversion for concentration unit in air pollution
  converting ppm to micrograms per cubic meter- a discussion and some examples posted 11 am, 6/20/00
  PDF version of previous file
  PDF version of unit conversion file with discussion and explanation, posted 11 am, 6/20/00
   

 

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                                      PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS
  probability problem
A probability problem which computes the odds of winning a lottery
An interesting probability problem
A cool probability problem from the best seller "Innumeracy" by John A. Paulos
Statistics-Chemistry Problem
A statistics problems using pH data. Uses many of Mathcad's statistical functions
Linear Regression
A simple but insightful problem using linear regression
Linear and non linear parameter estimation
  parameter estimation in an environmental problem
  Statistics using pH and DO lab data
  Shows what can be done with even simple data sets - A PDF file
  Kruskal_Wallis.pdf
Based on a file from a Mathsoft E-book on statistics. Illustrates the Kruskal-Wallis procedure and explains some of the more esoteric Mathcad statements used. The test is a nonparametric version of ANOVA.  A PDF file, reads external data sets. Posted 6/21/00 7:05 am
  Mann_Whitney.pdf
Based on file from Mathcad ebook. Nonparametric version of the t test. A PDF file. Posted 6/21/00 7:40 am
  Monte Carlo Methods using a normal distribution
Based on a file taken from the Mathcad Treasury. I tried to dress it up a little and add some explanation and a possible application so that the user can learn a little statistics as well as Mathcad. posted 11/24/00, 12:55 pm
This illustrates the fact that sample means are normally distributed even when the underlying population is not. However you must collect alot of samples with a few observations per sample or fewer samples with many observations per sample. Posted 11/28/03, 10:30 am.  This is repost of a (hopefully) better version of an earlier file.
A hydrologic example of the use of the binomial distribution, posted 3/5/01, 5:10 pm
A problem illustrating the value of a bivariate normal distribution in making predictions, even when data sets are only minimally correlated , posted 7:35 am, 8/30/02
Type III extreme value distribution
  Comparing a Type III EV distribution to a reference distribution created directly from data, posted 6/27/03, 2:40 pm
The Gamma Distribution
This file steps through an example problem using the Gamma Distribution.  I try to show how the 1 parameter, (s), version in Mathcad is related to the normal 2 parameter version,(l, k) cited in most texts. Posted 8/2/03, 8:35 am
Binomial Distribution Problem - Benjamin and Cornell
A nice hydrology application problem from a very good text - Benjamin and Cornell, posted 8/4/03, 9:35 am
Bayes Theorem - C.T. Haan
A nice little problem from Haan's text illustrating the use of Bayes theorem.  I extended it a bit and tried to add explanation, posted 9/15/03, 5:10 pm
Basic Probability Concepts - Kottegoda and Rosso
 Basic probability concepts (union, intersection, conditional probability, independence) applied to dam failure .  I added a little to the basic problem from Kottegoda and Rosso.  Don't let the minor notation change between 2-14 and 2-19 confuse you. Posted 9/28/03, 9:35 am. 

The Normal Distribution and Mathcad

Just a refresher on the normal distribution and Mathcad functions used in connection with it, posted 10/24/03, 11:45 am

TYPE III extreme value distribution

Fitting an empirical distribution of low flows to a type III extreme value distribution, posted 10/30/03 8:10 a.m.
Data file for Type III extreme value
distribution problem above

This is the data for the problem above, posted 11/1/03, 7:25 am


Pearson Type III distribution

I have never seen this done for either a Pearson Type III or an LP III distribution.  Most texts use the frequency factor approach where magic K values are selected from mysterious tables.  This needs to be done in hydrology classes.  Posted 11/13/03, 4:10 pm.


LP III distribution using data from Bulletin 17 B

Here I fit the data used in Example 1 in Bulletin 17B using the actual distribution, not frequency factors.  I get the same answer.  This procedure is not illustrated in any hydrology reference I have.  Posted 11/14/03, 12:05 pm

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                                    CIVIL ENGINEERING
  Specific Energy plot and calculations for pipe
  From V. T. Chow's book, a simple specific energy problem with some bells and whistles added
BOD problem
Problem uses real data collected from a malt plant in Moorhead Minn.
Uniform open channel flow
A simple problem computing normal depth in a channel
  Clear water transfer capacity of aerator ANSI/ASCE 2-91
Shows both linear and nonlinear regression procedures
  PDF version of the file above
Here it is - let me know if you want assistance 
interpreting it. The second part of the document is the ASCE standard procedure.
  Normal depth in a triangular channel
A discussion of 2 methods for dealing with Manning's equation when looking for flow depth, posted for Water resources II class, 8/16/00, 10 am
  Hydrogeology - groundwater plume
  2 dimensional solution - long time frame. Uses a surface plot to present results
Model of an Ant colony
Mathematical Model of an ant colony using data from
an American Scientist article
Must reading for municipal engineers
  PDF file for the problem above
Same file as above but in PDF format 
  A PDF file for the Ant colony problem
PDF File
A neat little problem from Henderson's classic open channels text. Enlightening computations regarding the conditions for hydraulic jump formation.
An optimization problem - Sewer pipe
 Based on a problem from the text by Ozzenbrugen
  PDF version of sewer optimization problem above
PDF FILE
  Acrobat version of reservoir computations file
PDF File
  hydrology/land use problem