DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

negative impacts on the two. Environmental disaster of varying origin from man-made to natural is one of the most negative effects of the built environment on man. An assessment of the magnitude of these disasters and an evaluation of the existing capacities to prevent, mitigate or prepare for them are necessary tools to provide future safe living for man in his built environment. Building collapse established to be caused by many factors is one of such disasters wielding its great impact of loss of lives and properties on man. This study evaluated the causes of building collapse in Edo State by identifying the major causes of collapse, assessing its effect, and also assessing the roles of government and construction professionals in mitigating the occurrence of building collapse in Edo State. The method use to carry out this study involves laboratory analysis of the materials harvested from the different building collapse sites, structural analysis of the collapse building and distribution of questionnaires to gather information relevant to the study. The study indicated that the causes of building failure and collapse stem principally from poor structural designs of buildings, low compressive strength of blocks, poor supervision, inexperience (use of incompetent hands), ignorance, evasion/non-compliance with building regulations and non-enforcement of building quality, standard and control on construction site/market. After identifying the major causes of collapse, this study concludes with necessary recommendations to prevent and stop further occurrence of building collapse in Edo State.

This project is conducted to carry out a comparative study of the deflection characteristics of Prestressed geopolymer concrete and Prestressed Portland cement concrete. The objectives are to conduct tests on the materials utilized, to carry out flexural tests and other supporting tests and to analyze the results obtained from all the tests performed.

The aim of the research is to compare the deflection characteristics of Portland Cement beams and Metakaolin based Geopolymer concrete beams. The tests performed on the materials utilized were the sieve analysis test on aggregates,
specific gravity test on the kaolin, metakaolin, cement and aggregates, and the tensile test on cables, tendons and wires. The other supporting tests done were the compressive strength test of Portland Cement concrete and geopolymer concrete, and workability test on concrete. The preliminary test proved that the calcined metakaolin samples were reactive when exposed to alkaline activators and metakaolin based geopolymer concrete exceeded the strength of ordinary Portland cement concrete in short time.

The compressive strength of the 8 molarity metakaolin based geopolymer concrete was gotten as 38.267 N/mm2 after 1 day; after 5 days, it was gotten as 51.510 N/mm2; after 7 days, it was gotten as 52.651 N/mm2, and after 28 days, it was gotten as 57.950 N/mm2. The compressive strength of the 10 molarity metakaolin based geopolymer concrete was gotten as 29.262 N/mm2 after 1 day, and after 7 days, it was gotten as 38.730 N/mm2. The average moment capacity of the geopolymer concrete beams prepared from 8 molarity of NaOH was gotten 482.36 Nm. The moment capacity range of the geopolymer concrete beams prepared from 10 molarity of NaOH was gotten as 338.0 – 349.5 N/mm2.

The occurrence of natural catastrophes has significantly increased in recent times due to various factors such as environmental degradation, climatic change, rapid population growth, and intensified and improper land uses (Dev.Econ. 2017). Some of the impacts of natural disasters on human settlements include severe injuries and fatalities, damage to properties and infrastructure, economic losses as well as social disruptions (Adeagbo. et al., 2016). Among natural disasters, flood deserves special attention because it is one of the most frequent and costliest in terms of human and economic losses: it constitutes 31% of the total
economic damages resulting from natural disasters globally (Yalcin and Akyurek 2004). Impacts, may persist for months or years, and secondary impact, include health-related problem, may emerge

This research project studied on how organic waste generated domestically can be converted into compost. Organic wastes are wastes which are generated from plants, animals or micro organisms, which can be broken down. The aim of this research project was to produce compost by utilizing domestic wastes collected from selected households in BDPA, Benin City within a duration of 4 weeks by determining the average waste generated from the respective householdsand how much compost can be generatedfrom the organic wastes, by studying the biology of the composting process and identifying the impacts of composting in the environment.There are many approaches to studying compost. During this research study, the aerobic composting method was adopted and in so doing, the organic wastes were sorted from the domestic wastes collected from the various households and decomposed using microorganisms that require oxygen. These organic wastes generated consisted of spoiled/perishable foods, bones, vegetables/leaves and woods. The results from this research showed that after four weeks of composting, the total wastes obtained were 30.02kg, 27.56kg, 35.25kg and 31.63kg while the total compost obtained from the respective houses were 8.6kg, 8.8kg, 12.6kg and 8.6kg. These results revealed that the compost generated were about one-third of the total domestic waste collected originally. The percentages of organic waste produced per week were determined to be 63.29%, 68.21%, 72.05% and 69.55%. Domestic wastes could cause problems in the environment if not well managed and utilized for good. Composting is the best low-cost alternative to solve this problem simply because composting can degrade all types of organic wastes, such as fruits, vegetables, herbs, plants, yard wastes and others. The product from the decayed organic waste in the form of compost could be used as nutrients for crops, soil additives and for environmental management. However, factors such as pH of the pile, temperature of the pile, moisture content off the compost pile and concentration of carbon and nitrogen in the organic material and aeration are some of the main parameters which contribute to the efficiency of the composting process. The study of composting is an important part of theglobal strategy for the collection, treatment and disposal of domestic waste as it also identifies the benefits of composting and the positive effect it would have in the environment.

In this study, the potential of Ikpoba river dam being used as a multipurpose dam was evaluated. Before the evaluation, the flow regime behaviour of the river was modelled and predicted using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and artificial neural network (ANN) in MATLAB software. The river daily discharge, temperature and precipitation data sets from 1991 to 1995 were used for the prediction. In applying ANFIS using hybrid algorithm, five different models: model-1, model-2, model-3, model-4 and model-5 were created using 1995 data sets as the target outputs in all the five models. Only discharge data sets for 1994; 1994 and 1993; 1994, 1993 and 1992; 1994, 1993, 1992 and 19991 were used as the input data sets for model-1 to model-4 respectively. Model-5 was created by indexing monthly temperature and precipitation into model-4 to see the effect of climate change on the models. ANN was also applied to the same models as created with ANFIS. In ANN, three training algorithms; Levenberg-Marquardt (LM), Scaled Conjugate Gradient (SCG) and Bayesian Regularization (BR) were used. Five performance evaluation criteria namely coefficient of correlation (R), coefficient of determination (R2), mean square error (MSE), modelling efficiency (E) and index of agreement (IOA) were used for comparative analysis.The results of both ANFIS and ANN using the five performance evaluation criteria (R, R2, MSE, E and IOA) showed that model-5 (when the effect of climate change was incorporated) performed better than the other four models. The training phase in model-5 of ANFIS showed an over-estimation of 0.043% of the observed target output sets while an over-estimation of 0.044% was observed in the testing phase. The training phase in model-5 of ANN (LM) showed an over-estimation of 0.11% of the observed target output sets while an over-estimation of 0.14% was observed in the testing phase. The training phase in model-5 of ANN (SCG) showed an over-estimation of 0.21% of the observed target output sets while an over-estimation of 0.31% was observed in the testing phase. The training phase in model-5 of ANN (BR) showed an over-estimation of 0.17% of the observed target output sets while an over-estimation of 0.19% was observed in the testing phase. It was therefore concluded that ANFIS performed better than ANN in all the five models and that ANN (LM) performed best followed by ANN (BR) and ANN (SCG) in the ANN models. When the potential of Ikpoba dam being used as a multipurpose dam was evaluated, it was discovered that the dam with ultimate water pumping capacity of 160 x 106 liters/day could also be utilized to produce 5.26MW of power monthly (with discharge of 31.9m3/s) using a hydropower plant. The annual volume of water in the reservoir available for this hydropower scheme is 0.523 x 106m3

Driving in urban centers and neighborhoods at high speed without regard to safety of the inhabitants brought about the emergence of the use of speed bumps and other traffic devices. Road bumps play a crucial goal in enforcing speed limits, thereby
preventing over speeding of vehicles. The use of this device overtime had resulted in series of debate worldwide. While some
are complaining of the inconvenience caused by this device, others are calling for more of this device. This study therefore seek to investigate the use of speed bumps on Nigeria highway with specific reference to Warri-Sapele road, Warri, Delta State.
Using quantitative research method, 50 units of questionnaires were designed and administered to drivers, motorist and residents at various reference points on the road section to sought information about the effectiveness of the devices. measurement of the height, width, length and spacing of the device were carried out with the aid of equipment in Geomatics engineering and this data were compared to the city of Bakersfield, California standard for speed bump parameter. The result shows that 84.4% of the existing speed bumps were of spacing below the LATM standard of 60-90(m), 26.7% had width less than the accepted value of 300mm and 100% had height exceeding the standard of 60mm. The result of the speed bumps parameters shows that the bumps were built with no recourse to specification as the height, width, length and spacing keeps changing from one bump to the other due to its instantaneous demand.

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to assess and compare the quality of six different brands of sachet water that are being marketed in Benin City, ascertain the authenticity of these sachet water collected by verifying the NAFDAC registration numbers, estimate the standard of each sachet water over a period of thirty days and analyze the physical, chemical and biological parameters of each sachet water compared to WHO and NAFDAC standards.
The samples were collected and analyzed in the Benin Owena River Basin laboratory in the University of Benin (UNIBEN) for various physical, chemical and biological parameters such as Hardness, color, pH, conductivity, total coliform etc. The samples were analyzed in thirty days interval to ascertain the quality of each sachet water after a month. This study was carried out through sample collection and data acquisition from textbooks, journals and articles.
The results gotten were compared to the standard set of each parameters by National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). From the test result, the physical parameters tested for were in accordance to WHO and NAFDAC standards. The chemical parameters tested for were also in accordance to WHO and NAFDAC range of values in both analysis. For the biological analysis, four out of six samples tested contained coliform during the first analysis and all the sachet water analyzed contained some amount of coliform after the water samples were tested after thirty days. Therefore none of the sachet water is completely recommended for drinking after thirty days. From this study there is need for improvement of the biological treatments of sachet water by production companies.