INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCED STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Year:2014 | Volume:6 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

The need of strengthening reinforced concrete columns, due to loss of strength and/or stiffness, is an essential requirement due to variation of the loads and environmental conditions applied on these columns. Steel jackets around the reinforced concrete (RC) columns are usually made by means of steel plates covering all over the column surface area. For the value of engineering purposes, another technique was developed using steel angles at the corners of the RC columns connected with discrete steel strips. In this paper, an experimental program is designed to evaluate the improvement in loadcarrying capacity, stiffness and ductility of strengthened RC columns, concomitant with steel angles and strips. Despite of prevailing a substantially increased loading capacity and strength a pronounced enhancement in ductility and stiffness has been reported. A need for experimental test results with low value of concrete strength to mimic the local old-age structures condition that required strengthening in local countries. Seven columns specimens are tested to evaluate the strength improvement provided by steel strengthening of columns. The method of strengthened steel angles with strips is compared with another strengthening technique. This technique includes connected and unconnected steel-casing specimens. The observed experimental results describe load-shortening curves, horizontal strains in stirrups and steel strips, as well as description of failure mode. The extra-confinement pressure, due to existence of steel cage, of the strengthened RC column can be also observed from experimental results. The code provisions that predict the load-carrying capacity of the strengthened RC composite column has a discrepancy in the results. For this reason, an analytical model is developed in this paper to compare the code limit with experimental observed results. The proposed model accounts for the composite action for concrete confinement and enhancement of the local buckling of steel elements. This adopted model is simplified and applicable to practical design field. In this respect, the experimental results and those of the analytical model showed a good agreement.

The objective of this article is to present a new method for identifying the damage location in a multi-story shear building by direct model updating method. In this regard, structural perturbation matrices should be determined that are directly defined as the discrepancy between mass and stiffness matrices of undamaged and damaged structures. As a result of expanding the dynamic orthogonality conditions, mass and stiffness perturbation matrices are formulated by the initial information of undamaged structures as well as the structure’s modal parameters before and after the occurrence of damages. These matrices cannot easily detect the damage site. Therefore, a more explicit determination of damage location is performed dividing the amount of change in these matrices’ diagonals by the physical properties of undamaged structure. This modification facilitates the damage localization process and yields precise and preferable results in comparison with applying classical methods such as natural frequencies, mode shapes and structural properties changes. Subsequently, the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed damage detection method are verified numerically and experimentally. For numerical verification of the proposed methods, a six-story shear building is utilized as a discrete system. Then, the experimental verification of proposed methods is conducted detecting the location of damages in a simple laboratory frame. It can be deduced that the proposed damage localization method can reliably detect and also localize the structural damage.

Behaviour of beam depends on its depth. A beam is considered as deep, if the depth span ratio is 0.5 or more. In the available beam theories, we have to apply correction in case of deep beams. In the present work, method of initial functions (MIF) is used to study the effect of depth on the behaviour of concrete beam. The MIF is an analytical method of elasticity theory. It gives exact solutions of different types of problems without the use of assumptions about the character of stress and strain. In this method, no correction factor is required for beams having larger depth. Results are obtained for three different cases of depth span ratios and compared with available theory and finite element method-based software ANSYS. It is observed that deep beam action starts at depth span ratio equal to 0.25.

This paper describes three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) modeling of a composite steel stinger supported reinforced concrete (RC) deck highway bridge subjected to moving truck loads. FE models were validated using test data that were generated elsewhere for structural health monitoring. The FE models were established using a commercial FE analysis package called ABAQUS/standard. The case study bridge was discretized to a combination of shell and solid elements which represent the deck and piers, respectively. Numerous constrain interactions were defined to make the model suitable to obtain accurate results. Moving loads induced by two standard AASHTO trucks were developed through a specific load-time history, applied on 35 nodes on the superstructure. To study the dynamic behavior of the bridge under a moving load, a modal analysis followed by an implicit dynamic analysis was carried out. Acceptable agreement was found between the field measurements and FE simulation. Most concerned dynamic response was strains at different locations in bridge girders and columns, because it is the only critical parameter that can be measured with confidence during SHM at site. The range of strains determined in analysis was reasonably close to the measured strains at the site of the study bridge. Several parameters including damping, truck weight and speed, and material properties were studied. Truck speed had the highest effect on strain response of both girders and columns.

Geometric shape function, f(a/W), is a correction factor that accounts for finite specimen size in calculation of stress intensity factor (SIF). Pin-loading tension method is suitable for fracture toughness testing of axially cracked thin-walled tubular specimens. But unique expression for f(a/W) of such specimens does not exist as it is sensitive to tube geometry. In this work, a generalized form of geometric shape function has been derived through a detailed finite element analysis and the outcome is validated with actual experimental results. Using the general shape function, SIF for any axially cracked thin-walled tube having dimensions within the range can be predicted.

In order to determine the overall safety of a tunnel support lining, a reliability-based approach is presented in this paper. Support elements in jointed rock tunnels are provided to control the ground movement caused by stress redistribution during the tunnel drive. Main support elements contribute to stability of the tunnel structure are recognized owing to identify various aspects of reliability and sustainability in the system. The selection of efficient support methods for rock tunneling is a key factor in order to reduce the number of problems during construction and maintain the project cost and time within the limited budget and planned schedule. This paper introduces a smart approach by which decision-makers will be able to find the overall reliability of tunnel support system before selecting the final scheme of the lining system. Due to this research focus, engineering reliability which is a branch of statistics and probability is being appropriately applied to the field and much effort has been made to use it in tunneling while investigating the reliability of the lining support system for the tunnel structure. Therefore, reliability analysis for evaluating the tunnel support performance is the main idea used in this research. Decomposition approaches are used for producing system block diagram and determining the failure probability of the whole system. Effectiveness of the proposed reliability model of tunnel lining together with the recommended approaches is examined using several case studies and the final value of reliability obtained for different designing scenarios. Considering the idea of linear correlation between safety factors and reliability parameters, the values of isolated reliabilities determined for different structural components of tunnel support system. In order to determine individual safety factors, finite element modeling is employed for different structural subsystems and the results of numerical analyses are obtained in different design scenarios. Finally, the reliability index values are obtained for the entire support structure in different design scenarios. The results of the work demonstrates that proposed reliability evaluation method of tunnel support system is effective not only for investigating the reliability of individual elements in the structure, but also for building an overall estimation about reliability performance of the entire tunnel structure.

A displacement-based, higher order shear and normal deformations theory (HOSNT) is used to analyse the thick functionally graded (FG) plates in which mechanical properties are changing smoothly with the plate’s thickness coordinate. A more realistic parabolic distribution of transverse shear strains through thickness of plate is ensured in the presented formulation. The influence of transverse normal strain on bending responses of FG plates is examined in this study. Functionally graded materials (FGMs), although heterogeneous, are idealized as continua with their mechanical properties changing smoothly with respect to spatial coordinates. The material properties of FG plates are assumed to be varying through thickness of plate in a continuous manner. Poisson’s ratio of FG plates is assumed to be constant, but their Young’s modulii are considered to vary continuously in thickness direction according to the volume fraction of its constituents which is mathematically modelled as an exponential function. The governing equations of equilibrium for static analysis of FG plates are obtained using principle of minimisation of potential energy (PMPE) employing HOSNT. Navier solution method is used to solve the governing differential equations of equilibrium. It is thought that the presented results would be a reference for other researchers to compare their results. Higher order shear and normal deformation theory Functionally graded plates Material grading index Navier solution Introduction Functionally graded materials (FGMs) are the advanced materials of the family of engineering composites made of two or more constituent phases with a continuous and smoothly varying composition (Koizumi 1997). These advanced materials with engineered gradients of composition, structure and/or specific properties in the preferred direction/orientation are superior to homogeneous material composed of similar constituents. These materials possess numerous advantages that make them appropriate in potential applications including the potential reduction of in-plane and through-the thickness transverse stresses, improved equilibrium. It is thought that the presented results would be a reference for other researchers to compare their results.