May 2018, Volume 12 Issue 3
    

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  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Said CHOUCHA, Amar BENYAHIA, Mohamed GHRICI, Mohamed Said MANSOUR

    In order to determine the effect of Natural Pozzolan (NP) content on the mechanical properties and durability characteristics on Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) as repair material. This study focused on the evaluation of the most factors influencing compatibility between the repair material and the base concrete including mechanicals properties such as, compressive and flexural strengths, elastic modulus, capillary absorption and drying shrinkage. The experimental results showed that natural pozzolan reduces the compressive strength and the flexural strength of ECC at all ages. The elastic modulus of ECC was remarkably lower than that of normal-strength concrete. This lower Young’s modulus is desirable for repair concrete, because it prevents the stresses induced by restrained shrinkage. In addition, the incorporation of high-volume natural pozzolan decreases significantly the coefficient of capillary absorption at long term and increases the drying shrinkage. Generally, based on the results obtained in the present experimental investigation, ECC can be used effectively as an overlay material over existing parent concrete.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Fillitsa KARANTONI, Stavroula PANTAZOPOULOU, Athanasios GANAS

    During August 1953 three strong earthquakes of magnitude ranging from 6.3 to 7.2 shook the Ionian Island of Cephalonia (Kefalonia), Greece, and destroyed almost the entire building stock of the Island which consisted primarily of traditional unreinforced masonry (URM) houses. The authorities went on to restructuring of the building stock, using a structural system that is most like what is known today as confined masonry. They designed about 14 types of one- to two-storey buildings providing the engineers with detailed construction plans. These buildings are known as “Arogi” buildings (Arogi in Greek meaning Aid). On the 24th of January and 3rd of February 2014, two earthquakes of magnitude 6.1 and 6.0 struck the island, causing significant soil damages, developing excessively high ground accelerations. Surprisingly, no damage was reported in the “Arogi” buildings. The seismic behavior of the buildings is examined by FEM linear analysis and it is compared to that of URM structures. Computed results illustrate that the displacements of identical URM buildings would be about twice the magnitudes observed in the corresponding “Arogi” ones, with the implication that the earthquake sequence of 2014 would have caused critical damage should the type of structure be of the URM type. Furthermore, it is illustrated that this low cost alternative method of construction is a very effective means of producing earthquake resilient structures, whereas further reduction of seismic displacement may be achieved in the order of 50% with commensurate effects on damage potential, when reinforced slabs are used to replace the timber roofs.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Mbakisya ONYANGO, Saliha Ammour MERABTI, Joseph OWINO, Ignatius FOMUNUNG, Weidong WU

    Many transportation agencies lack sufficient funds to maintain and repair roads, which results into increased pavement maintenance cost. Pavement Management System (PMS) has demonstrated to be an essential tool for proper management of infrastructure and proper utilization of available funds. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga utilized Micropaver software as PMS tool to conduct a pavement management analysis of principal arterials in the City of Chattanooga. The study used the City of Chattanooga pavement database to create the current and future pavement conditions. Maintenance and repair (M&R) planning analysis was also performed in order to determine the most cost-effective treatment and suggest the optimum utilization of funds for the city. An analysis of five budget scenarios was conducted for a five-year plan using the critical pavement condition index (PCI) method (ASTM D6433). Results show that the backlog elimination budget would be the best scenario because it increases the pavement condition and eliminates the backlog of major maintenance and repairs over the five-year period. The unlimited budget seems though ideal, it does not improve pavement condition. Maintaining current condition and limited budget scenarios would increase both the backlog and the total cost of maintenance and repairs over the analysis period.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Peng HUANG, Ling TAO, Ming GU, Yong QUAN

    Gable roofs with overhangs (eaves) are the common constructions of low-rise buildings on the southeastern coast of China, and they were vulnerable to typhoons from experience. The wind pressure distributions on gable roofs of low-rise buildings are investigated by a series of wind tunnel tests which consist of 99 test cases with various roof pitches, height-depth ratios and width-depth ratios. The block pressure coefficients and worst negative (block) pressure coefficients on different roof regions of low-rise buildings are proposed for the main structure and building envelope, respectively. The effects of roof pitch, height-depth ratio, and width-depth ratio on the pressure coefficients of each region are analyzed in detail. In addition, the pressure coefficients on the roofs for the main structure and building envelope are fitted according to roof pitch, height-depth ratio and width-depth ratio of the low-rise building. Meanwhile, the rationality of the fitting formulas is verified by comparing the fitting results with the codes of different countries. Lastly, the block pressure coefficients and worst negative pressure coefficients are recommended to guide the design of low-rise buildings in typhoon area and act as references for the future’s modification of wind load codes.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Amar KAHIL, Aghiles NEKMOUCHE, Said BOUKAIS, Mohand HAMIZI, Naceur Eddine HANNACHI

    The objective of this study is, to interpret the influence of reinforced concrete walls addition in reinforced concrete frame structures considering behavior laws that reflects the actual behavior of such structures, by means of Castem2000computer code (pushover analysis). A finite element model is proposed in this study, using the TAKEDA modified behavior model with Timoshenko beams elements. This model is validated initially on experimental model. Then the work has focused on the behavior of a RC frame with 3 levels and three bays to better visualize the behavior of plastic hinges. Once the plastic hinge control parameters are identified (plastic rotation, ultimate curvature), a strengthening by introduction of reinforced concrete walls (RC/wall) at the ends of the reinforced concrete frame (RC/frame) has been performed. The results show that these RC walls significantly improve the behavior, by a relocation of efforts towards the central part of the beams.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Rongrong YIN, Chenchen ZHANG, Qing WU, Baocheng LI, He XIE

    The combined effect from sulfate and chloride is one of the important reasons to cause the damage of lining concrete in highway tunnels. To investigate the effect of chloride ions on the corrosion of lining concretes under sulfate attack, ultrasonic detecting, compression test and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) were performed on the concretes to obtain the ultrasonic velocity, corrosion thickness, compression strength and corrosion products. The ultrasonic results, compression strength and XRD patterns confirmed that the existence of chloride certainly depressed the corrosion damage on the lining concretes under sulfate attack, and the depressing effect increased with the content of chloride in the composite solution. The corrosion damage on the concretes experienced three stages independent of the composition of corrosive solution: initial slower enhancement on the strength, stabilization period and linear degradation period. The existence of chloride mainly affected the final degradation stage and obviously decreased the corrosion thickness.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Saleh YAGHOOBI, Ahmad SHOOSHTARI

    Slippage corresponds to the relative displacement of a bolted joint subjected to shear loads since the construction clearance between the bolt shank and the bolthole at assembly can cause joint slip. Deflections of towers with joint slippage effects is up to 1.9 times greater than the displacements obtained by linear analytical methods. In this study, 8 different types of joints are modelled and studied in the finite element program, and the results are verified by the experimental results which have been done in the laboratory. Moreover, several types of joints have been modelled and studied and load-deformation curves have also been presented. Finally, joint slip data for different types of angles, bolt diameter and bolt arrangements are generated. Thereupon, damping ratios (z) for different types of connections are reported. The study can be useful to help in designing of wind turbine towers with a higher level of accuracy and safety.

  • Research Article
    Mohammed FARUQI, Oved I. MATA, Francisco AGUINIGA

    Concrete members historically have used either pre-stressed steel or steel bars. In recent years there has been an increased interest in the use of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) materials. However, the flexure behavior of a hybrid system reinforced by the combination of pre-stressed steel and glass fiber reinforced (GFRP) is still relatively unknown. The purpose of this work is to study this. Two slabs of 100 and 150-millimeter thickness, with a span of 2.1 m reinforced with both pre-stressing steel and GFRP were constructed and tested to failure using ACI 318-11 and ACI 440.1R-15. The concrete had strength of 31 MPa and the slabs were respectively reinforced with 5#4 bars and 3#5 bars. Each slab had 37.41 mm2 prestressing wire with a failure stress of 1722.5 MPa. The experimental flexural strength and deflection of slabs were compared with their respective sizes theoretical slabs. The theoretical slabs were either reinforced with pre-stressed steel or GFRP rebars, or a hybrid system. It was found that the hybrid system produces better results.

  • Research Article
    Amit K. BERA, Tanmoy MUKHOPADHYAY, Ponnada J. MOHAN, Tushar K. DEY

    The clay mineral composition is one of the major factors that governs the physical properties of silty sand subgrade. Therefore, a thorough knowledge of mineral composition is essential to predict the optimum engineering properties of the soil, which is generally characterized by different indices like maximum dry density (MDD), California bearing ratio (CBR), unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and free swelling index (FSI). In this article, a novel multi-attribute decision making (MADM) based approach of mix design has been proposed for silty sand – artificial clay mix to improve the characteristic strength of a soil subgrade. Experimental investigation has been carried out in this study to illustrate the proposed approach of selecting appropriate proportion for the soil mix to optimize all the above mentioned engineering properties simultaneously. The results show that a mix proportion containing approximately 90% silty sand plus 10% bentonite soil is the optimal combination in context to the present study. The proposed methodology for optimal decision making to choose appropriate combination of bentonite and silty sand is general in nature and therefore, it can be extended to other problems of selecting mineral compositions.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Zhong WU, Chris ABADIE

    Pavement surface friction is a significant factor for driving safety and plays a critical role in reducing wet-pavement crashes. However, the current asphalt mixture design procedure does not directly consider friction as a requirement. The objective of this study was to develop a surface friction prediction model that can be used during a wearing course mixture design. To achieve the objective, an experimental study was conducted on the frictional characteristics of typical wearing course mixtures in Louisiana. Twelve wearing course mixtures including dense-graded and open-graded mixes with different combinations of aggregate sources were evaluated in laboratory using an accelerated polishing and testing procedure considering both micro- and macro texture properties. In addition, the surface frictional properties of asphalt mixtures were measured on twenty-two selected asphalt pavement sections using different in situ devices including Dynamic Friction Tester (DFT), Circular Texture Meter (CTM), and Lock-Wheel Skid Trailer (LWST). The results have led to develop a procedure for predicting pavement end-of-life skid resistance based on the aggregate blend polish stone value, gradation parameters, and traffic, which is suited in checking whether the selected aggregates in a wearing course mix design would meet field friction requirements under a certain design traffic polishing.

  • REVIEW
    Guowei MA, Li WANG

    In recent few years, significant improvement has been made in developing largescale 3D printers to accommodate the need of industrial-scale 3D printing. It is of great feasibility to construct structural components and buildings by means of 3D concrete printing. The major issues of this innovative technique focus on the preparation and optimization of concrete materials which possess favourable printable properties as well as the measurement and evaluation methods of their workability. This paper firstly introduces three largescale 3D printing systems that have been successfully applied in construction industry. It then summarizes the commonly used raw materials in concrete manufacturing. Critical factors that should be particularly controlled in material preparation are specified. Easy-extrusive, easy-flowing, well-buildable, proper setting time and low shrinkage are significant for concrete mixture to meet the critical requirements of a freeform construction process. Thereafter, measuring methods that can be employed to assess the fresh and hardened properties of concrete at early stages are suggested. Finally, a few of evaluation methods are presented which may offer certain assistance for optimizing material preparation. The objective of this work is to review current design methodologies and experimental measurement and evaluation methods for 3D printable concrete materials and promote its responsible use with largescale 3D printing technology.

  • RESEARCH ARTICLE
    Yan XU, Shijie ZENG, Xinzhi DUAN, Dongbing JI

    According to the current seismic design codes of bridges in China, cable-stayed bridges have been usually required to remain elastic even subjected to strong earthquakes. However, the possibilities of pylon plastic behavior were revealed in recent earthquake damages. The lack of due diligence in the nonlinear seismic behavior of the pylon has caused a blurry understanding about the seismic performance of such widely built though less strong earthquake experienced structures. In light of this point, a 1/20 scaled concrete pylon model which from a typical medium span cable-stayed bridge was designed and tested on the shaking table longitudinally. The dynamic response and seismic behavior of the pylon were measured, evaluated and compared to reveal its vulnerable parts and nonlinear seismic performance. The results show that most parts of the concrete pylon remain elastic even under very strong excitations, which means a sufficient safety margin for current pylon longitudinal design. The most vulnerable parts of the pylon appeared first at the pylon bottom region, cracks opening and closing at the pylon bottom were observed during the test, and then extended to the lower column and middle column around the lower strut.

  • Research Article
    Rasoul MEMARZADEH, Gholamabbas BARANI, Mahnaz GHAEINI-HESSAROEYEH

    The subject of present study is the application of mesh free Lagrangian two-dimensional non-cohesive sediment transport model applied to a two-phase flow over an initially trapezoidal-shaped sediment embankment. The governing equations of the present model are the Navier-Stocks equations solved using Weakly Compressible Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (WCSPH) method. To simulate the movement of sediment particles, the model considers a powerful two-part technique; when the sediment phase has rigid behavior, only the force term due to shear stress in the Navier-Stokes equations is used for simulation of sediment particles’ movement. Otherwise, all the Navier-Stokes force terms are used for transport simulation of sediment particles. In the present model, the interactions between different phases are calculated automatically, even with considerable difference between the density and viscosity of phases. Validation of the model is performed using simulation of available laboratory experiments, and the comparison between computational results and experimental data shows that the model generally predicts well the flow propagation over movable beds, the induced sediment transport and bed changes, and temporal evolution of embankment breaching.

  • Research Article
    Gholamreza ABDOLLAHZADEH, Hadi FAGHIHMALEKI

    In recent decades, many public buildings, located in seismic-prone residential areas, had to grapple with abnormal loads against which the structures were unguarded. In this piece of research, an ordinary three dimensional reinforced concrete building is selected as case study. The building is located in an earthquake-prone region; however, it is designed according to seismic building codes. Yet, it is not shielded against abnormal loads, such as blasts. It is assumed that the building suffers a blast load, due to mechanical/thermal installation failure during or after intense seismic oscillations. These two critical incidents are regarded codependent and compatible. So the researchers developed scenarios and tried to assess different probabilities for each scenario and carried out an analysis to ensure if progressive collapse had set in or not. In the first step, two analysis models were used for each scenario; a non-linear dynamic time history analysis and a blast local dynamic analysis. In the second step, having the structural destructions of the first step in view, a pushdown analysis was carried out to determine the severity of progressive collapse and assess building robustness. Finally, the annual probability of structural collapse under simultaneous earthquake and blast loads was estimated and offered.