• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.72 no.4
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• pp.479-489
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• 2019

The corrosion of reinforcement leads to a gradual decay of structural strength and durability. Several models for crack occurrence prediction and crack width propagation are investigated in this paper. Analytical and experimental models were used to predict the bond strength in the period of corrosion propagation. The manner of flexural strength loss is calculated by application of these models for different scenarios. As a new approach, the variation of the concrete beam neutral axis height has been evaluated, which shows a reduction in the neutral axis height for the scenarios without loss of bond. Alternatively, an increase of the neutral axis height was observed for the scenarios including bond and concrete section loss. The statistical properties of the parameters influencing the strength have been deliberated associated with obtaining the time-dependent bending strength during corrosion propagation, using Monte Carlo (MC) random sampling method. Results showed that the ultimate strain in concrete decreases significantly as a consequence of the bond strength reduction during the corrosion process, when the section reaches to its final limit. Therefore, such sections are likely to show brittle behavior.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.1391-1402
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• 2021

The aim of this work is to prepare a neutron noise calculator based on the second order of average current nodal expansion method (ACNEM). Generally, nodal methods have the ability to fulfill the neutronic analysis with adequate precision using coarse meshes as large as a fuel assembly size. But, for the zeroth order of ACNEM, the accuracy of neutronic simulations may not be sufficient when coarse meshes are employed in the reactor core modeling. In this work, the capability of second order ACNEM is extended for solving the neutron diffusion equation in the frequency domain using coarse meshes. For this purpose, two problems are modeled and checked including a slab reactor and 2D BIBLIS PWR. For validating of results, a semi-analytical solution is utilized for 1D test case, and for 2D problem, the results of both forward and adjoint neutron noise calculations are exploited. Numerical results indicate that by increasing the order of method, the errors of frequency dependent coarse mesh solutions are considerably decreased in comparison to the reference. Accordingly, the accuracy of second order ACNEM can be acceptable for the neutron noise calculations by using coarse meshes in the nuclear reactor core.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.3
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• pp.317-333
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• 2022

Visco-Plastic Damper (VPD) as a passive energy dissipation device with dual behavior has been recently numerically studied. It consists of two bent steel plates and segments with a viscoelastic solid material in between, combining and improving characteristics of both displacement-dependent and velocity-dependent devices. In order to trust the performance of VPD, for the 1st time this paper experimentally investigates prototype damper behavior under a wide range of frequency and amplitude of dynamic loading. A high-axial damping rubber is innovatively proposed as the viscoelastic layer designed to withstand large axial strains and dissipate energy accordingly. Test results confirmed all assumptions about VPD. The behavior of VPD subjected to low levels of excitation is elastic while with increasing levels of excitation, a significant source of energy dissipation is provided through the yielding of the steel elements in addition to the viscoelastic energy dissipation. The results showed energy dissipation of 99.35 kN.m under a dynamic displacement with 14.095 mm amplitude and 0.333 Hz frequency. Lateral displacement at the middle of the device was created with an amplification factor obtained ranging from 2.108 to 3.242 in the rubber block. Therefore, the energy dissipation of viscoelastic material of VPD was calculated 18.6 times that of the ordinary viscoelastic damper.

• Advances in nano research
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.489-499
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• 2022

Nanofluids have recently triggered a substantial scientific interest as cooling media. However, their stability is challenging for successful engagement in industrial applications. Different factors, including temperature, nanoparticles and base fluids characteristics, pH, ultrasonic power and frequency, agitation time, and surfactant type and concentration, determine the nanofluid stability regime. Indeed, it is often too complicated and even impossible to accurately find the conditions resulting in a stabilized nanofluid. Furthermore, there are no empirical, semi-empirical, and even intelligent scenarios for anticipating the stability of nanofluids. Therefore, this study introduces a straightforward and reliable intelligent classifier for discriminating among the stability regimes of alumina-water nanofluids based on the Zeta potential margins. In this regard, various intelligent classifiers (i.e., deep learning and multilayer perceptron neural network, decision tree, GoogleNet, and multi-output least squares support vector regression) have been designed, and their classification accuracy was compared. This comparison approved that the multilayer perceptron neural network (MLPNN) with the SoftMax activation function trained by the Bayesian regularization algorithm is the best classifier for the considered task. This intelligent classifier accurately detects the stability regimes of more than 90% of 345 different nanofluid samples. The overall classification accuracy and misclassification percent of 90.1% and 9.9% have been achieved by this model. This research is the first try toward anticipting the stability of water-alumin nanofluids from some easily measured independent variables.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.257-265
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• 2023

This paper investigates the determinants of credit accessibility and the effect of credit on the income of farm households borrowing from Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Giong Rieng District Branch, Kien Giang Province. Based on the primary data of 200 farming households who are the customer of the bank, the study applied the Probit regression model to examine determinant factors of credit accessibility of farm households and employed the Propensity score matching method to investigate the impact of credit on households' income. The findings of the Probit regression shown that three independent variables that significantly influence the access to credit of households are household size, income source, and farm size. Besides that, the Propensity score matching method results showed a difference of 23.799 million VND/year between the income of borrowing households and that of non-borrowing households at the significance level of 1%. The difference in the imcome from the interval and central matching methods are VND 24.700 million VND/year and VND 24.633 million VND/year, respectively. Given empirical findings suggetsted that several recommendations to increase the credit accessibility of farm households, thereby creating favorable conditions for improving their income.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.84 no.6
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• pp.733-741
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• 2022

The amount of natural gas that is used on a worldwide scale is continuously going up. Natural gas and acidic components, such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide, cause significant corrosion damage to transmission lines and equipment in various quantities. One of the fundamental processes in natural gas processing is the separation of acid gases, among which the safety and environmental needs due to the high toxicity of hydrogen sulfide and also to prevent wear and corrosion of pipelines and gas transmission and distribution equipment, the necessity of sulfide separation Hydrogen is more essential than carbon dioxide and other compounds. Given this problem's significance, this endeavor aims to extend the lifespan of the transmission lines' pipes for gas and oil. Zinc oxide nanoparticles made from the environmentally friendly source of Allium scabriscapum have been employed to accomplish this crucial purpose. This is a simple, safe and cheap synthesis method compared to other methods, especially chemical methods. The formation of zinc oxide nanoparticles was shown by forming an absorption peak at a wavelength of about 355 nm using a spectrophotometric device and an X-ray diffraction pattern. The size and morphology of synthesized nanoparticles were determined by scanning and transmission electron microscope, and the range of size changes of nanoparticles was determined by dynamic light scattering device.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.12
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• pp.4751-4758
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• 2022

Two-phase flow may almost exist in every branch of the energy industry. For the corresponding engineering design, it is very essential and crucial to monitor flow patterns and their transitions accurately. With the high-speed development and success of deep learning based on convolutional neural network (CNN), the study of flow pattern identification recently almost focused on this methodology. Additionally, the photographing technique has attractive implementation features as well, since it is normally considerably less expensive than other techniques. The development of such a two-phase flow pattern online monitoring system is the objective of this work, which seldom studied before. The ongoing preliminary engineering design (including hardware and software) of the system are introduced. The flow pattern identification method based on CNNs and transfer learning was discussed in detail. Several potential CNN candidates such as ALexNet, VggNet16 and ResNets were introduced and compared with each other based on a flow pattern dataset. According to the results, ResNet50 is the most promising CNN network for the system owing to its high precision, fast classification and strong robustness. This work can be a reference for the online monitoring system design in the energy system.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.451-454
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• 2023

Landslides are one of the natural disasters that cause a lot of financial and human losses every year It will be all over the world. China, especially. The Mainland China can be divided into 12 zones, including 4 high susceptibility zones, 7 medium susceptibility zones and 1 low susceptibility zone, according to landslide proneness. Climate and physiography are always at risk of landslides. The purpose of this research is to prepare a landslide hazard map using the Hierarchical Analysis Process method. In the GIS environment, it is in a part of China watershed. In order to prepare a landslide hazard map, first with Field studies, a distribution map of landslides in the area and then a map of factors affecting landslides were prepared. In the next stage, the factors are prioritized using expert opinion and hierarchical analysis process and nine factors including height, slope, slope direction, geological units, land use, distance from Waterway, distance from the road, distance from the fault and rainfall map were selected as effective factors. Then Landslide risk zoning in the region was done using the hierarchical analysis process model. The results showed that the three factors of geological units, distance from the road and slope are the most important have had an effect on the occurrence of landslides in the region, while the two factors of fault and rainfall have the least effect The landslide occurred in the region.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.445-452
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• 2023

Temperature is one of the important factors affecting the permeability of water in the soil. In the present study, the impact of water temperature on hydraulic conductivity (k) with and without coarse aggregations by considering six types of soils was analyzed. Moreover, the effect of sand and gravel presence in the soil was investigated through the infiltration based on constant and inconstant water head experiments. Results indicated that by increasing the water temperature, adding gravel to sandy soil caused the hydraulic conductivity to raise. It is supposed that the gravel decreased the contact surface between the water and the soil aggregates. It is deduced that due to decreasing kinetic energy, k tends to have lower values. Furthermore, adding the sand to sandy silt-clay soil showed that the sand did not have a marginal effect on the variation of k since the added sand cannot increase the contact surface like gravel. Finally, increasing the main diameter of the soil will increase the effect of the water temperature on hydraulic conductivity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.453-462
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• 2023

Designing pile foundations subjected to the uplift forces such as buildings, oil platforms, and anchors is becoming increasingly concerned. In this paper, the conceptual design of a new type of driven piles called expanding pile is presented and assessed. Some grooves have been created in the shaft of the novel pile, and some moveable arms have been designed at the pile tip. At first, static analyses using the finite element method were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the innovative pile on the axial bearing capacity. Then its effect on seismic behavior of moment frame is considered. Results show that the expanding arms were provided an ideal anchorage system because of the soil's noticeable locking-up effect increasing uplift bearing capacity. For example at the end of the static tensile loading procedure, displacement decrement up to 55 percent is observed. In addition, comparing the uplift bearing capacity of the usual and new pile with different lengths in sand and clay layers shows noticeable effect and sharp increase up to about two times especially in longer piles. Besides, a sensible reduction in the seismic response and the stresses in the beam-column connection between 23-36 percent are achieved that ensures better seismic behavior of the structures.