• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.183-196
• /
• 2022

Reduced beam section (RBS) moment connections used in special moment resisting frames are currently limited to beam sections that are not larger than nominal depths of 920 mm, weight of 447 kg/m and flange thickness of 44 mm. Due to the higher demand for structural components with jumbo sections, which can potentially be applied in the transfer girders in long-span building structures, the newly available steel heavy members are promising. To address this issue, advanced numerical models are developed to fully evaluate the distribution of stresses and concentrations of plastic strains for such jumbo RBS connections. This paper first presents a brief overview of an experimental study on four specimens with large beam and column sections. Then, a numerical model that includes initial imperfections, residual stresses, geometric nonlinearity, and explicitly modeled welds is presented. The model is used to further explore the behavior of the test specimens, including distribution of stresses, distribution of plastic strains, stress triaxiality and potential for fracture. The results reveal that the stresses are highly non-uniform across the beam flange and, similarly, the plastic strains concentrate at the extreme fiber of the bottom flange. However, neither of these phenomena, which are primarily a function of beam flange thickness, is reflected in current design procedures.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2001.10a
• /
• pp.655-658
• /
• 2001

The generation of fly ash tends to increase yearly so that this is currently considered a big environmental concern, which requires appropriate treatment approaches. In this research the consolidation of incineration fly ash by the hot-press solvothermal reaction was investigated to provide an alternative process for the treatment and utilization of this waste material. Results showed that at reaction conditions of 52 K treatment, 20 ㎫ pressure and 60 minutes treatment time, the resulting consolidate exhibited a compressive ness strengths of 37-40 ㎫, a tensile strength of 6.5-7.0 ㎫ and a Rockwell hardness of 20-23 RH15W. These properties are comparable to the compressive ness strength of Portland cement which ranges from 30-40 ㎫ as well as with the tensile strengths of mortar, ganite, artificial lightweight aggregate and solidified high connote whose values are 2-2.5 ㎫, 5-9 ㎫, 5-10 ㎫ and 3-5 ㎫ respectively- Furthermore, by mixing fly ash with glass at 50% ratio and then subjecting to similar treatment conditions, a consolidate with even higher tensile strength of 12.5-13.3 ㎫ and hardness of 77-80 RH15W may be achieved.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
• /
• v.24 no.6
• /
• pp.411-417
• /
• 2015

The piston engine is an essential component in automobiles. Since the piston is used in a high temperature and high pressure environment, the piston needs to be manufactured to achieve high strength and high durability. In addition, cost reduction is also an important consideration. In conventional forging, an additional heat treatment after hot forging is necessary to ensure proper mechanical properties for heavy-duty engine pistons. The newly developed manufacturing method lowers production costs by saving manufacturing time and reduces energy consumption. The current paper describes the hot forging of an engine piston made from 38MnSiVS5 micro-alloyed steel using controlled cooling. The finite element analysis was used to check for possible problems and suitable press capacity. Hot forging experiments were then conducted on a 2500tons crank press to evaluate feasibility of the proposed material and process. To check the mechanical properties after hot forging, the forged specimens were tensile tested, and the microstructures were examined in order to compare the results with the conventionally forged material. The skirt region of the as-forged 38MnSiVS5 piston showed better material properties compared to the conventional material. In addition, the total production time was reduced by about 80% as compared to conventional forging.

• Smart Structures and Systems
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.287-301
• /
• 2012

It is well known that overloaded vehicles may cause severe damages to bridges, and how to estimate and evaluate the status of the overloaded vehicles passing through bridges become a challenging problem. Therefore, based on the monitored strain data from a structural health monitoring system (SHM) installed on a bridge, a method is recommended to identify and analyze the probability of overloaded vehicles. Overloaded vehicle loads can cause abnormity in the monitored strains, though the abnormal strains may be small in a concrete continuous rigid frame bridge. Firstly, the abnormal strains are identified from the abundant strains in time sequence by taking the advantage of wavelet transform in abnormal signal identification; secondly, the abnormal strains induced by heavy vehicles are picked up by the comparison between the identified abnormal strains and the strain threshold gotten by finite element analysis of the normal heavy vehicle; finally, according to the determined abnormal strains induced by overloaded vehicles, the statistics of the overloaded vehicles passing through the bridge are summarized and the whole probability of the overloaded vehicles is analyzed. The research shows the feasibility of using the monitored strains from a long-term SHM to identify the information of overloaded vehicles passing through a bridge, which can help the traffic department to master the heavy truck information and do the damage analysis of bridges further.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.62 no.5
• /
• pp.567-576
• /
• 2017

Structural failures are undesirable events that devastate the construction industry resulting in loss of life, injury, huge property loss, and also affect the economy of the region. Roof truss failures occur mainly due to excessive loading, improper fabrication, deterioration, inadequate repair, etc. Although very rare, a roof truss may even fail due to inappropriate location of supports. One such case was reported from the recent failure of a steel roof truss used in an indoor stadium at Kargil in India. Kargil region, being mountainous in nature, receives heavy snowfall and hence the steel roof trusses are designed for heavy snow loads. Due to inappropriate support location, the indoor stadium's steel roof truss had failed under heavy snow load for which it was designed and became an interesting structural engineering problem. The failure observed was primarily in terms of yielding of the bottom chord under the supports, leading to partial collapse of the roof truss. This paper summarizes the results of laboratory tests and analytical studies that focused on the validation of the proposed remedial measure for rehabilitating this distressed steel roof truss. The study presents the evaluation of (i) significant reduction in strength and stiffness of the distressed truss resulting in its failure, (ii) desired recovery in both strength and stiffness of the rectified truss contributed by the proposed remedial measure. Three types of models i.e., ideal truss model, as build truss model and rectified truss model were fabricated and tested under monotonic loading. The structural configuration and support condition varied in all the three models to represent the ideal truss, distressed truss and the rectified truss. To verify the accuracy of the experimental results, an analytical study was carried out and the results of this analytical study are compared with the experimental ones.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.11 no.4
• /
• pp.283-294
• /
• 2020

This work aims at studying the feasibility of continuous removal of mixed heavy metal ions from simulated zinc plating wastewaters by coupling a microbial fuel cell and a microbial electrolysis cell in batch and continuous modes. The discharging voltage of MFC increased initially from 0.4621 ± 0.0005 V to 0.4864 ± 0.0006 V as the initial concentration of Cr⁶⁺ increased from 10 ppm to 60 ppm. Almost complete removal of Cr⁶⁺ and low removal of Cu²⁺ occurred in MFC of the MFC-MEC-coupled system after 8 hours under the batch mode; removal efficiencies (REs) of Cr⁶⁺ and Cu²⁺ were 99.76% and 30.49%. After the same reaction time, REs of nickel and zinc ions were 55.15% and 76.21% in its MEC. Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺, and Zn²⁺ removal efficiencies of 54.98%, 30.63%, 55.04%, and 75.35% were achieved in the effluent within optimum HRT of 2 hours under the continuous mode. The incomplete removal of Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Zn²⁺ ions in the effluent was due to the fact that the Cr⁶⁺ was almost completely consumed at the end of MFC reaction. After HRT of 12 hours, at the different sampling locations, Cr⁶⁺ and Cu²⁺ removal efficiencies in the cathodic chamber of MFC were 89.95% and 34.69%, respectively. 94.58%, 33.95%, 56.57%, and 75.76% were achieved for Cr⁶⁺, Cu²⁺, Ni²⁺ and Zn²⁺ in the cathodic chamber of MEC. It can be concluded that those metal ions can be removed completely by repeatedly passing high concentration of Cr⁶⁺ through the cathode chamber of MFC of the MFC-MEC-coupled system.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.123-143
• /
• 2016

Use of heavy fuel fly ash (HFFA) (diesel and cracked fuel) for power generation in Saudi Arabia has generated and accumulated large quantities of HFFA as a byproduct. In this research, HFFA is studied with the emphasis on the utilization of this waste material in concrete blocks and asphalt concrete mixes. Two types of mixes, one with low and other with high cement content, were studied for concrete blocks. Different mixes having varying percentages of HFFA (0% to 25%), as cement/sand replacement or as an additive, were studied. The performance of concrete blocks is evaluated in terms of compressive strength, water absorption, durability and environmental concerns. The results showed that blocks cannot be cast if more than 15% HFFA is used; also there is a marginal reduction in the strength of all the mixes before and after being exposed to the sulfate solution for a period of ten months. HFFA is studied in asphalt concrete mixes in two ways, as an asphalt modifier (3&5%) and as a filler (50%) replacement, the results showed an improvement in stiffness and fatigue life of mixes. However, the stability and indirect tensile strength loss were found to be high as compared to the control mix due to moisture damage, indicating a need of using antistripping agents. On environmental concerns, it was found that most of the concerned elements are within acceptable limits also it is observed that lower concentration of barium is leached out with the higher HFFA concentrations, which indicates that HFFA may work as an adsorbent for this leaching element.

• Advances in environmental research
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.155-166
• /
• 2013

A preliminary investigation to establish the status of contamination of trace metals in the Western coast of Ghana was conducted prior to the commercial production of crude oil in the area. The study revealed the presence of heavy metals such as Pb (4.00-79.64 mg/kg), As (8.81-236 mg/kg), Cu (12.86-108.06 mg/kg), V (28.07-953.32 mg/kg), Zn (7.08-264.25 mg/kg), Cr (101.69-1366.62 mg/kg), Ni (42.41-451.43 mg/kg), Mn (16.77-1890.45mg/kg), Br (7.66-142.78 mg/kg), Ti (542.03-19960 mg/kg) and Fe (7472.88-97120 mg/kg) at six sites sampled along the coast. With the exception of Ti and Fe which showed no variation in metal concentration, the rest of the metals varied significantly among the sampled locations. Potential ecological risk of metals particularly of Co, As and Br which exhibited extreme enrichment of the sediments indicates considerable metal pollution in the studied areas. The degree of contamination is of particular concern especially to benthic biota that inhabit this environment for survival.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.95-104
• /
• 2018

Copper pollution around the world has caused serious public health problems recently. The heavy metal adsorption on traditional membranes from wastewater is limited by material properties. Different adsorptive materials are embedded in the membrane matrix and act as the adsorbent for the heavy metal. The carbonized leaf powder has been proven as an effective adsorbent material in removing aqueous Cu(II) because of its relative high specific surface area and inherent beneficial groups such as amine, carboxyl and phosphate after carbonization process. Factors affecting the adsorption of Cu(II) include: adsorbent dosage, initial Cu(II) concentration, solution pH, temperature and duration. The kinetics data fit well with the pseudo-first order kinetics and the pseudo-second order kinetics model. The thermodynamic behavior reveals the endothermic and spontaneous nature of the adsorption. The adsorption isotherm curve fits Sips model well, and the adsorption capacity was determined at 61.77 mg/g. Based on D-R model, the adsorption was predominated by the form of physical adsorption under lower temperatures, while the increased temperature motivated the form of chemical adsorption such as ion-exchange reaction. According to the analysis towards the mechanism, the chemical adsorption process occurs mainly among amine, carbonate, phosphate and copper ions or other surface adsorption. This hypothesis is confirmed by FT-IR test and XRD spectra as well as the predicted parameters calculated based on D-R model.

• Advances in environmental research
• /
• v.5 no.1
• /
• pp.19-35
• /
• 2016

The phytoextraction of some toxic heavy metals from municipal waste dump soil by castor plant (Ricinus communis) was tested under natural and single or mixed chelant-assisted scenarios in pot microcosms. A sandy loam with total metal contents (mg/kg): Cd (84.5), Cu (114.5), Ni (70.3), Pb (57.8), and Zn (117.5), was sampled from an active dumpsite in Calabar, Nigeria and used for the study. Castor (small seed variety) was grown under natural phytoextraction or single/binary chelant (citric acid, oxalic acid, and EDTA) applications (5-20 mmol/kg soil) for 63 days. Castor exhibited no visual phytotoxic symptoms with typically sigmoid growth profiles at the applied chelant doses. Growth rates, however, decelerated with increase in chelant dose. Post-harvest biomass yields were higher under chelant application than for natural phytoextraction. Both root and shoot metal concentrations (mg/kg) increased quasilinearly and significantly ($p{\leq}0.05$) with increase in chelant dose, furnishing maximum levels as: Cd (55.6 and 20.9), Cu (89.5 and 58.4), Ni (49.8 and 19.6), Pb (32.1 and 12.1), and Zn (99.5 and 46.6). Ranges of translocation factors, root and shoot bioaccumulation factors were 0.21-3.49, 0.01-0.89 and 0.01-0.51, respectively. Overall, the binary chelant treatments were less toxic for R. communis growth and enhanced metal accumulation in shoots to a greater extent than the single chelant scenarios, but more so when EDTA was present in the binary combination. This suggests that the mixed chelants could be considered as alternative treatments for enhanced phytoextraction and revegetation of degraded waste dump soils.