• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.305-309
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• 2019

Pervious concrete pavements are the need of the day to avoid urban flooding and to facilitate ground water recharge. However, the strength of pervious or porous concrete is considerably less compared to conventional concrete. In this experimental investigation, an effort is made to improve the strength of pervious concrete by adopting fibres and a small amount of fine aggregate. A porous concrete with cement to aggregate ratio of 1:5 and a water-powder ratio of 0.4 is adopted. 30% of the cement is replaced by cementitious material ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) for better strength and workability. Recron fibres at a dosage of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5% by weight of cement were included to improve the impact strength. Since concrete pavements are subjected to impact loads, the impact strength was also calculated by "Drop ball method" in addition to compressive strength. The effect of fine aggregate and recron fibres on workability, porosity, compressive and impact strength was studied. The investigations have shown that 20% inclusion of fine aggregate and 1.5% recron fibres by weight of cement give better strength with an acceptable range of porosity.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2016

The construction of a new cavern modifies the state of stresses and displacements in a zone around the existing cavern. For multiple caverns, the size of this influence zone depends on the ground type, the in situ stress, the cavern span and shape, the width of the pillar separating the caverns, and the excavation sequence. Performances of underground twin caverns can be unsatisfactory as a result of either instability (collapse) or excessive displacements. These two distinct failures should be prevented in design. This study simulated the ultimate and serviceability performances of underground twin rock caverns of various sizes and shapes. The global factor of safety is used as the criterion for determining the ultimate limit state and the calculated maximum displacement around the cavern opening is adopted as the serviceability limit state criterion. Based on the results of a series of numerical simulations, simple regression models were developed for estimating the global factor of safety and the maximum displacement, respectively. It was proposed that a proper pillar width can be determined based on the threshold influence factor value. In addition, design charts with regard to the selection of the pillar width for underground twin rock caverns under similar ground conditions were also developed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.677-698
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• 2005

In engineering practice, tubular connections are usually assumed pinned or rigid. Recent research showed that tubular joints may exhibit non-rigid behavior under axial or bending loads. This paper is concerned with establishing a new classification for tubular joints and investigating the effect of joint rigidity on the global behavior of CHS (Circular Hollow Section) lattice girders. Parametric formulae for predicting tubular joint rigidities are proposed, which are based on the finite element analyses through systematic variation of the main geometric parameters. Comparison with test results proves the reliability of these formulae. By considering the deformation patterns of respective parts of Vierendeel lattice girders, the boundary between rigid and semirigid tubular connections is built in terms of joint bending rigidity. In order to include characteristics of joint rigidity in the global structural analysis, a type of semirigid element which can effectively reflect the interaction of two braces in K joints is introduced and validated. The numerical example of a Warren lattice girder with different joint models shows the great effect of tubular joint rigidities on the internal forces, deformation and secondary stresses.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.131-143
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• 2019

Global Solar Radiation (GSR) is the key element for performance estimation of any Solar Power Plant (SPP). Its forecasting may help in estimation of power production from a SPP well in advance, and may also render help in optimal use of this power. Seasonal Auto-Regressive Moving Average (SARMA) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models are combined in order to develop a hybrid model (SARMA-ANN) conceiving the characteristics of both linear and non-linear prediction models. This developed model has been used for prediction of GSR at Gorakhpur, situated in the northern region of India. The proposed model is beneficial for the univariate forecasting. Along with this model, we have also used Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA), SARMA, ANN based models for 1 - 6 day-ahead forecasting of GSR on hourly basis. It has been found that the proposed model presents least RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) and produces best forecasting results among all the models considered in the present study. As an application, the comparison between the forecasted one and the energy produced by the grid connected PV plant installed on the parking stands of the University shows the superiority of the proposed model.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.58 no.4
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• pp.731-743
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• 2016

Plastic behaviors, based on the von Mises yield criterion, of circular discs containing a purely elastic, circular inclusion under uniform temperature loading are studied with the finite element analysis. Temperature-dependent mechanical properties are considered for the matrix material only. In addition to analyzing the plane stress and plane strain disc, a 3D thin disc and cylinder are also analyzed to compare the plane problems. We determined the elastic irreversible temperature and global plastic collapse temperature by the finite element calculations for the plane and 3D problem. In addition to the global plastic collapse, for the elastically hard case, the plane stress problem and 3D thin disc may exhibit a local plastic collapse, i.e. significant pile up along the thickness direction, near the inclusion-matrix interface. The pileup cannot be correctly modeled by the plane stress analysis. Furthermore, due to numerical difficulties originated from large deformation, only the lower bound of global plastic collapse temperature of the plane stress problem can be identified. Without considerations of temperature-dependent mechanical properties, the von Mises stress in the matrix would be largely overestimated.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.409-423
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• 2017

This paper proposes a quick and simplified method to describe masonry vaults in global seismic analyses of buildings. An equivalent macro-element constituted by a set of six trusses, two for each transverse, longitudinal and diagonal direction, is introduced. The equivalent trusses, whose stiffness is calculated by fully modeled vaults of different geometry, mechanical properties and boundary conditions, simulate the vault in both global analysis and local analysis, such as kinematic or rocking approaches. A parametric study was carried out to investigate the influence of geometrical characteristics and mechanical features on the equivalent stiffness values. The method was numerically validated by performing modal and transient analysis on a three naves-church in the elastic range. Vibration modes and displacement time-histories were compared showing satisfying agreement between the complete and the simplified models. This procedure is particularly useful in engineering practice because it allows to assess, in a simplified way, the effectiveness of strengthening interventions for reducing horizontal relative displacements between vault supports.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.4
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• pp.505-512
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• 2020

This paper presents an error estimation technique for 2-D crack analysis by an enriched natural element (more exactly, enriched Petrov-Galerkin NEM). A bare solution was approximated by PG-NEM using Laplace interpolation functions. Meanwhile, an accurate quasi-exact solution was obtained by a combined use of enriched PG-NEM and the global patch recovery. The Laplace interpolation functions are enriched with the near-tip singular fields, and the approximate solution obtained by enriched PG-NEM was enhanced by the global patch recovery. The quantitative error amount is measured in terms of the energy norm, and the accuracy (i.e., the effective index) of the proposed method was evaluated using the errors which obtained by FEM using a very fine mesh. The error distribution was investigated by calculating the local element-wise errors, from which it has been found that the relative high errors occurs in the vicinity of crack tip. The differences between the enriched and non-enriched PG-NEMs have been investigated from the effective index, the error distribution, and the convergence rate. From the comparison, it has been justified that the enriched PG-NEM provides much more accurate error information than the non-enriched PG-NEM.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.259-274
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• 1998

The test results from non-destructive and destructive field testing of a three-span deteriorated reinforced concrete slab bridge are used as a vehicle to examine the reliability of available tools for finite-element analysis of in-situ structures. Issues related to geometric modeling of members and connections, material models, and failure criteria are discussed. The results indicate that current material models and failure criteria are adequate, although lack of inelastic out-of-plane shear response in most nonlinear shell elements is a major shortcoming that needs to be resolved. With proper geometric modeling, it is possible to adequately correlate the measured global, regional, and local responses at all limit states. However, modeling of less understood mechanisms, such as slab-abutment connections, may need to be finalized through a system identification technique. In absence of the experimental data necessary for this purpose, upper and lower bounds of only global responses can be computed reliably. The studies reaffirm that success of finite-element models has to be assessed collectively with reference to all responses and not just a few global measurements.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.47-65
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• 2015

A novel finite element (FE) model updating method based on multi-resolution analysis (MRA) is proposed. The true stiffness of the FE model is considered as the superposition of two pieces of stiffness information of different resolutions: the pre-defined stiffness information and updating stiffness information. While the resolution of former is solely decided by the meshing density of the FE model, the resolution of latter is decided by the limited information obtained from the experiment. The latter resolution is considerably lower than the former. Second generation wavelet is adopted to describe the updating stiffness information in the framework of MRA. This updating stiffness in MRA is realized at low level of resolution, therefore, needs less number of updating parameters. The efficiency of the optimization process is thus enhanced. The proposed method is suitable for the identification of multiple irregular cracks and performs well in capturing the global features of the structural damage. After the global features are identified, a refinement process proposed in the paper can be carried out to improve the performance of the MRA of the updating information. The effectiveness of the method is verified by numerical simulations of a box girder and the experiment of a three-span continues pre-stressed concrete bridge. It is shown that the proposed method corresponds well to the global features of the structural damage and is stable against the perturbation of modal parameters and small variations of the damage.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.5_6
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• pp.711-730
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• 2010

This study presents the design of autonomous smart sensor nodes for damage monitoring of tendons and girders in prestressed concrete (PSC) bridges. To achieve the objective, the following approaches are implemented. Firstly, acceleration-based and impedance-based smart sensor nodes are designed for global and local structural health monitoring (SHM). Secondly, global and local SHM methods which are suitable for damage monitoring of tendons and girders in PSC bridges are selected to alarm damage occurrence, to locate damage and to estimate severity of damage. Thirdly, an autonomous SHM scheme is designed for PSC bridges by implementing the selected SHM methods. Operation logics of the SHM methods are programmed based on the concept of the decentralized sensor network. Finally, the performance of the proposed system is experimentally evaluated for a lab-scaled PSC girder model for which a set of damage scenarios are experimentally monitored by the developed smart sensor nodes.