• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.551-568
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• 2023

In this research, a new two-dimensional (2D) and quasi three-dimensional (quasi-3D) higher order shear deformation theory is devised to address the bending problem of functionally graded plates resting on an elastic foundation. The displacement field of the suggested theories takes into account a parabolic transverse shear deformation shape function and satisfies shear stress free boundary conditions on the plate surfaces. It is expressed as a combination of trigonometric and exponential shear shape functions. The Pasternak mathematical model is considered for the elastic foundation. The material properties vary constantly across the FG plate thickness using different distributions as power-law, exponential and Mori-Tanaka model. By using the virtual works principle and Navier's technique, the governing equations of FG plates exposed to sinusoidal and evenly distributed loads are developed. The effects of material composition, geometrical parameters, stretching effect and foundation parameters on deflection, axial displacements and stresses are discussed in detail in this work. The obtained results are compared with those reported in earlier works to show the precision and simplicity of the current formulations. A very good agreement is found between the predicted results and the available solutions of other higher order theories. Future mechanical analyses of three-dimensionally FG plate structures can use the study's findings as benchmarks.

• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2016

In Algeria, wastes are often stored in such conditions that do not meet standards. Today and more than ever, we really must implement an environmentally management of wastes. Recovery of waste in Algeria has a considerable delay due to the absence of a policy favorable to the development of waste management. But many researchers have shown the possibility to reuse dredged sediments in road construction. Through Europe, recent research works have been already performed on dam sediments. Present study fits into the context of the valorization of dredged sediments from Fergoug dam. They are found in considerable quantities and mainly composed of mineral phases, organic matters and water. The reservoir sedimentation poses problems for the environment and water storage, dredging becomes necessary. Civil engineering is a common way of recycling for such materials. Dredged sediments have not the required mechanical characteristics recommended by the standards as GTR guide (LCPC-SETRA 1992). So as to obtain mechanical performance, dredged sediment can be treated with cement, lime, or replaced materials like quarry sand. An experimental study has been conducted to determine physical and mechanical characteristics of sediments dredged from dam. Then different mixtures of sediment and/or quarry sand with hydraulic binders are proposed for improving the grain size distribution of the mixes. Finally, according these mixtures, different formulations have been tested as alternative materials with dredged sediments.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.641-659
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• 2010

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) gradually becomes a technique for ensuring the health and safety of civil infrastructures and is also an important approach for the research of the damage accumulation and disaster evolving characteristics of civil infrastructures. It is attracting prodigious research interests and the active development interests of scientists and engineers because a great number of civil infrastructures are planned and built every year in mainland China. In a SHM system the sheer number of accompanying wires, fiber optic cables, and other physical transmission medium is usually prohibitive, particularly for such structures as offshore platforms and long-span structures. Fortunately, with recent advances in technologies in sensing, wireless communication, and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), wireless sensor technique has been developing rapidly and is being used gradually in the SHM of civil engineering structures. In this paper, some recent advances in the research, development, and implementation of wireless sensors for the SHM of civil infrastructures in mainland China, especially in Dalian University of Technology (DUT) and Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), are introduced. Firstly, a kind of wireless digital acceleration sensors for structural global monitoring is designed and validated in an offshore structure model. Secondly, wireless inclination sensor systems based on Frequency-hopping techniques are developed and applied successfully to swing monitoring of large-scale hook structures. Thirdly, wireless acquisition systems integrating with different sensing materials, such as Polyvinylidene Fluoride(PVDF), strain gauge, piezoresistive stress/strain sensors fabricated by using the nickel powder-filled cement-based composite, are proposed for structural local monitoring, and validating the characteristics of the above materials. Finally, solutions to the key problem of finite energy for wireless sensors networks are discussed, with future works also being introduced, for example, the wireless sensor networks powered by corrosion signal for corrosion monitoring and rapid diagnosis for large structures.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.285-299
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• 2020

Long term structural health monitoring has gained wide attention among civil engineers in recent years due to the scale and severity of infrastructure deterioration. Establishing effective damage indicators and proposing enhanced monitoring methods are of great interests to the engineering practices. In the case of bridge health monitoring, long term structural vibration measurement has been acknowledged to be quite useful and utilized in the planning of maintenance works. Previous researches are majorly concentrated on linear time series models for the measurement, whereas nonlinear dependences among the measurement are not carefully considered. In this paper, a new bridge health monitoring method is proposed based on the use of long term vibration measurement. A combination of the fundamental ARMA model and copula theory is investigated for the first time in detecting bridge structural damages. The concept is applied to a real engineering practice in Japan. The efficiency and accuracy of the copula based damage indicator is analyzed and compared in different window sizes. The performance of the copula based indicator is discussed based on the damage detection rate between the intact structural condition and the damaged structural condition.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.207-220
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• 2023

The safety of bridges are critical in our transportation infrastructure. Bridge design and analysis require complex structural analysis procedures to ensure their safety and stability. One common method is to calculate the maximum moment in the girders to determine the appropriate bridge section. Girder distribution factors (GDFs) provide a simpler approach for performing this analysis. A GDF is a ratio between the response of a single girder and the total response of all girders in the bridge. This paper explores the significance of GDFs in bridge analysis and design, including their importance in the evaluation of existing bridges. We utilized Bridge Weigh-in-motion (B-WIM) measurements of five simple supported girder bridge in Indonesia to develop a simple GDF provisions for the Indonesia's bridge design code. The B-WIM measurements enable us to know each girder strain as a response due to vehicle loading as the vehicle passes the bridge. The calculated GDF obtained from the B-WIM measurements were compared with the code-specified GDF and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) bridge design specification. Our study found that the code specified GDF was adequate or conservative compared to the GDF obtained from the B-WIM measurements. The proposed GDF equation correlates well with the AASHTO LRFD bridge design specification. Developing appropriate provisions for GDFs in Indonesian bridge design codes can provides a practical solution for designing girder bridges in Indonesia, ensuring safety while allowing for easier calculations and assessments based on B-WIM measurements.

• International Journal of Concrete Structures and Materials
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.97-104
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• 2010

The crushed limestone sand is an abundant material in Tunisia, which induces many environmental problems. Indeed, available stocks of siliceous sand drastically decrease because of its massive use in hydraulic concrete. Some recent research works, carried out in Tunisia, concluded that crushed limestone sand may be used in concrete manufacture instead of siliceous sand traditionally used. In this context, an experimental study was achieved in order to quantify the influence of a partial or total substitution of siliceous sand by crushed limestone sand on hydraulic concrete performances. Preliminary chemical and physical tests on crushed sand indicated that it presented the minimum requirement for its use as aggregate in hydraulic concrete. 79 concretes were then prepared with siliceous sand, crushed limestone sand and a mix of the two sands. Their slump value and compressive strengths were measured on plain concretes. Complementary structural tests on reinforced concrete beam were also performed. The results proved that crushed limestone sand concretes showed workability and mechanical performances closed to those of siliceous sand concretes.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.51-65
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• 2018

A number of sensing techniques have been implemented for detecting defects in civil infrastructures instead of onsite human inspections in structural health monitoring. However, the issue of faults in sensors has not received much attention. This issue may lead to incorrect interpretation of data and false alarms. To overcome these challenges, this article presents a deep learning-based method with a new architecture of Stateful Long Short Term Memory Neural Networks (S-LSTM NN) for detecting sensor fault without going into details of the fault features. As LSTMs are capable of learning data features automatically, and the proposed method works without an accurate mathematical model. The detection of four types of sensor faults are studied in this paper. Non-stationary acceleration responses of a three-span continuous bridge when under operational conditions are studied. A deep network model is applied to the measured bridge data with estimation to detect the sensor fault. Another set of sensor output data is used to supervise the network parameters and backpropagation algorithm to fine tune the parameters to establish a deep self-coding network model. The response residuals between the true value and the predicted value of the deep S-LSTM network was statistically analyzed to determine the fault threshold of sensor. Experimental study with a cable-stayed bridge further indicated that the proposed method is robust in the detection of the sensor fault.

• Structural Monitoring and Maintenance
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.33-49
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• 2016

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) has been attracting numerous research efforts around the world because it targets at monitoring structural conditions and performance to prevent catastrophic failure, and to provide quantitative data for engineers and infrastructure owners to design a reliable and economical asset management strategy. In the past decade, with supports from Australian Research Council (ARC), Cooperative Research Center for Infrastructure and Engineering Asset Management (CIEAM), CSIRO and industry partners, intensive research works have been conducted in the School of Civil, Environmental and Mining Engineering, University of Western Australia and Centre for Infrastructural Monitoring and Protection, Curtin University on various techniques of SHM. The researches include the development of hardware, software and various algorithms, such as various signal processing techniques for operational modal analysis, modal analysis toolbox, non-model based methods for assessing the shear connection in composite bridges and identifying the free spanning and supports conditions of pipelines, vibration based structural damage identification and model updating approaches considering uncertainty and noise effects, structural identification under moving loads, guided wave propagation technique for detecting debonding damage, and relative displacement sensors for SHM in composite and steel truss bridges. This paper aims at summarizing and reviewing the recent research advances on SHM of civil infrastructure in Western Australia.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.237-252
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• 2014

The use of composite structures is increasingly present in civil building works. Composite Box Girder Bridges (CBGB), particularly, are study of effect of shear connector's numbers and distribution on the behavior of CBGBs is submitted. A Predicti structures consisting of two materials, both connected by metal devices known as shear connectors. The main functions of these connectors are to allow for the joint behavior of the girder-deck, to restrict longitudinal slipping and uplifting at the element's interface and to take shear forces. This paper presents 3D numerical models of CBGBs to simulate their actual structural behavior, with emphasis on the girder-deck interface. Additionally, a Prediction of several FE models is assessed against the results acquired from a field test. A number of factors are considered, and confirmed through experiments, especially full shear connections, which are obviously essential in composite box girder. A good representation for shear connectors by suitable element type is considered. Numerical predictions of vertical displacements at critical sections fit fairly well with those evaluated experimentally. The agreement between the FE models and the experimental models show that the FE model can aid engineers in design practices of box girder bridges. Preliminary results indicate that number of shear studs can be significantly reduced to facilitate adoption of a new arrangement in modeling CBGBs with full composition. However, a further feasibility study to investigate the practical and economic aspects of such a remedy is recommended, and it may represent partial composition in such modeling.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.177-190
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• 2008

Material failure behavior is generally dependent on loading rate. Especially in brittle and quasi-brittle materials, rate dependent material behavior can be significant. Empirical formulations are often used to predict the rate dependency, but such methods depend on extensive experimental works and are limited by practical constraints of physical testing. Numerical simulation can be an effective means for extracting knowledge about rate dependent behavior and for complementing the results obtained by testing. In this paper, the failure behavior of a brittle material under different loading rates is simulated by molecular dynamics analysis. A notched specimen is modeled by sub-million particles with a normalization scheme. Lennard-Jones potential is used to describe the interparticle force. Numerical simulations are performed with six different loading rates in a direct tensile test, where the loading velocity is normalized to the ratio of the pseudo-sonic speed. As a consequence, dynamic features are achieved from the numerical experiments. Remarkable failure characteristics, such as crack surface interaction/crack arrest, branching, and void nucleation, vary in case of the six loading cases. These characteristics are interpreted by the energy concept approach. This study provides insight into the change in dynamic failure mechanism under different loading rates.