Frontiers of Architecture and Civil Engineering in China

Bridge girders exposed to aggressive environmental conditions are subject to time-variant changes in resistance. There is therefore a need for evaluation procedures that produce accurate predictions of the load-carrying capacity and reliability of bridge structures to allow rational decisions to be made about repair, rehabilitation and expected life-cycle costs. This study deals with the stability of damaged steel I-beams with web opening subjected to bending loads. A three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) model using ABAQUS for the elastic flexural torsional analysis of I-beams has been used to assess the effect of web opening on the lateral buckling moment capacity. Artificial neural network (ANN) approach has been also employed to derive empirical formulae for predicting the lateral-torsional buckling moment capacity of deteriorated steel I-beams with different sizes of rectangular web opening using obtained FE results. It is found out that the proposed formulae can accurately predict residual lateral buckling capacities of doubly-symmetric steel I-beams with rectangular web opening. Hence, the results of this study can be used for better prediction of buckling life of web opening of steel beams by practice engineers.

Structural safety of building particularly that are intended for exposure to strong earthquake loads are designed and equipped with high technologies of control to ensure as possible as its protection against this brutal load. One of these technologies used in the protection of structures is the semi-active control using a Magneto Rheological Damper device. But this device need an adequate controller with a robust algorithm of current or tension adjustment to operate which is further discussed in the following of this paper. In this study, a neural network controller is proposed to control the MR damper to eliminate vibrations of 3-story scaled structure exposed to Tōhoku 2011 and Boumerdès 2003 earthquakes. The proposed controller is derived from a linear quadratic controller designed to control an MR damper installed in the first floor of the structure. Equipped with a feedback law the proposed control is coupled to a clipped optimal algorithm to adapt the current tension required to the MR damper adjustment. To evaluate the performance control of the proposed design controller, two numerical simulations of the controlled structure and uncontrolled structure are illustrated and compared.

Các dầm bê tông gia cường bao gồm cả thanh thép và thanh polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh cho thấy sức mạnh, khả năng phục vụ và độ bền tuyệt vời. Tuy nhiên, hiệu suất chịu cắt mỏi của những dầm này vẫn chưa rõ ràng. Do đó, các dầm với các thanh dọc và kích thước cắt hỗn hợp đã được thiết kế và thực hiện các thử nghiệm chịu cắt mỏi. Đối với các mẫu nghiệm thất bại do chịu cắt mỏi, tất cả các kích thước cắt bằng polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh và một số kích thước cắt bằng thép đã bị gãy tại vết nứt chéo quan trọng. Đối với mẫu nghiệm thất bại qua thử nghiệm tĩnh sau 8 triệu chu kỳ mỏi, khả năng tĩnh sau mỏi không giảm đáng kể so với giá trị tính toán. Mức độ mỏi ban đầu có ảnh hưởng lớn hơn đến sự phát triển vết nứt và tuổi thọ mỏi hơn là mức độ mỏi trong giai đoạn sau. Sức chịu cắt mỏi của các kích thước cắt bằng polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh trong các mẫu nghiệm có phần thấp hơn so với các thử nghiệm căng trục dọc trên thanh polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh ở không khí và các thử nghiệm hàn nối trên thanh polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh, và các chế độ thất bại là khác nhau. Các kích thước cắt bằng polymer gia cường sợi thủy tinh đã chịu tải mỏi và cắt, và thất bại do cắt.

Considering failures during machinery processes such as drilling, a precautionary analysis involving delamination and the corresponding dissipated energy is required, especially for composite structures. In this context, because of the complexity of both the analysis procedure and experimental test setup, most studies prefer to represent mode I and III interlaminar crack propagation instead of that involving mode II. Therefore, in this study, the effect of mode II delamination and corresponding interlaminar crack propagation was considered during the drilling process of multilayered glass/polyester composites using both numerical and experimental approaches. In the experimental procedure, the mechanical properties of the glass/polyester specimens were obtained according to ASTM D3039. In addition, the interlaminar mixed-mode (I/II) loadings were determined using an ARCAN test fixture so that the fracture toughness of glass/polyester could then be identified. The mode II critical strain energy release rate (CSERR) was then obtained using an experimental test performed using an ARCAN fixture and the virtual crack closure technique (VCCT). It was determined that the numerical approach was in accordance with the experiments, and more than 95% of crack propagation could be attributed to mode II compared to the two other modes.

The aging structure as well as the considerable increase of heavy-traffic load on Germany’s motorways and trunk roads encourages the use of innovative, sound and reliable methods for the structural assessment on network level as well as on project level. Essential elements for this are data, which allow a reliable assessment. For a holistic approach to structural pavement assessment performance orientated measurements will be necessary. In combination with functional parameters as well as write-down models, strategically motivated decision making processes will be useful combined with technically motivated decision processes. For the application at the network level, the available methods for performance orientated measurements are still challenging, as they are based either on testing drill-cores or on nontraffic speed methods. In recent years significant innovation steps have been made to bring traffic speed bearing capacity measurements and methods for evaluating pavement structures on the road. The paper summarizes the actual assessment procedures in Germany as well as the ongoing work on the development and implementation of new methods and techniques.

Prefabricated internal structures of road tunnels, consisting of precast elements and the connections between them, provide advantages in terms of quality control and manufacturing costs. However, the limited construction space in tunnels creates challenges for on-site assembly. To identify feasible connecting joints, flexural tests of precast straight beams connected by welding-spliced or lap-spliced reinforcements embedded in normal concrete or ultra-high-performance fiber-reinforced concrete (UHPFRC) are first performed and analyzed. With an improvement in the strength grade of the closure concrete for the lap-spliced joint, the failure of the beam transforms from a brittle splitting mode to a ductile flexural mode. The beam connected by UHPFRC100 with short lap-spliced reinforcements can achieve almost equivalent mechanical performance in terms of the bearing capacity, ductility, and stiffness as the beam connected by normal concrete with welding-spliced reinforcements. This favorable solution is then applied to the connection of neighboring updeck slabs resting on columns in a double-deck tunnel. The applicability is validated by flexural tests of T-shaped joints, which, fail in a ductile fashion dominated by the ultimate bearing capacity of the precast elements, similar to the corresponding straight beam. The utilization of UHPFRC significantly reduces the required lap-splice length of reinforcements owing to its strong bonding strength.

A theoretical solution is aimed to be developed in this research for predicting the failure in internally pressurized composite pressure vessels exposed to low-velocity impact. Both in-plane and out-of-plane failure modes are taken into account simultaneously and thus all components of the stress and strain fields are derived. For this purpose, layer-wise theory is employed in a composite cylinder under internal pressure and low-velocity impact. Obtained stress/strain components are fed into appropriate failure criteria for investigating the occurrence of failure. In case of experiencing any in-plane failure mode, the evolution of damage is modeled using progressive damage modeling in the context of continuum damage mechanics. Namely, mechanical properties of failed ply are degraded and stress analysis is performed on the updated status of the model. In the event of delamination occurrence, the solution is terminated. The obtained results are validated with available experimental observations in open literature. It is observed that the sequence of in-plane failure and delamination varies by increasing the impact energy.