The main objective of present study is to possible use of plastic waste materials for reinforcing clayey soils. An experimental study was planned to investigate compressibility and undrained shear behavior of clayey soil mixed with plastic waste. The mixtures were prepared with various amount of plastic waste (i.e. 0%, 0. 5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 3.0% in dry weight) and interactive effect of plastic waste, plastic flexibility, confining pressure and initial density on the behavior of clayey soil was studied by performing compaction, consolidated undrained triaxial and oedometer consolidation test. The results show that plastic wastes do not affect compaction characteristics of clayey soil considerably and adding them to the clay more than a specific value (i.e. 1.0% in this research) causes to change undrained behavior of samples from contractive to dilative. In addition, beyond this specific value, it improves shear strength and reduces compressibility of clay. The rate of increase in shear strength and decrease in compressibility depends on the confining pressure, flexibility of plastic and initial density of samples. It is more noticeable when plastic waste in mixtures is relatively rigid and density and confining pressure are high. Moreover, plastic waste has a negative effect on the free swelling, swelling pressure and swelling index of samples, so that these parameters for plastic waste mixed clay are higher than the associated values of plain clay.

In this study, the relative performance of two soils as a sustainable natural material in retaining the selected heavy metal ions, cadmium (Cd²⁺) and nickel (Ni²⁺), from aqueous solutions has been evaluated. Red earth soil (RS) and black cotton soil (BCS) originating from India, were selected and batch equilibrium tests including sorption kinetics and leaching studies were conducted. The experimental data was used to plot sorption isotherms, Langmuir isotherm was found to be more suitable than Freundlich isotherm for both the soils. Monolayer sorption capacity was calculated from Langmuir isotherm. Kinetic data was fitted on four models namely pseudo first order, second order, Elovich and intraparticle diffusion. Correlation coefficients obtained by all models fitted well in the following ranking: Elovich>Intraparticle diffusion > Pseudo second order> Pseudo first order. Based on extensive experimental data, it is concluded that the ranking on sorption was of the order Cd > Ni for both the soils and BCS exhibited relatively higher retention levels compared to RS.  It is further concluded that, BCS can be used as a substitute to filter material, RS a substitute to main liner material in attenuating Cd²⁺ and Ni²⁺ from an industrial landfill leachate.

Considerable strains appear in the structures during accumulation of the irreversible strains of the subgrade under the effect of the cyclic loads. If the number of cycles is very large, even a small strain after accumulation becomes significant and sometimes harmful. In this study, a simple numerical modeling of the behavior of sand under cyclic loading is proposed. The suggested approach consists, in drained condition, in determining the parameters characterizing the average cyclic path of the soil under the effect of the number of cycles duly characterized and translating the cyclic effect by a volumetric strain cumulated by a variation of the module of the soil. In this study, we are interested in cyclic triaxial compression tests simulated by a finite element calculation. While proposing an analogy between the cyclic pseudo creep and the soft soil creep model (SSCM), on the first hand we propose an equivalence between the cyclic parameters and the parameters of SSCM, and on the other an equivalence time number of cycles will be established. The application of the formulation suggested on a shallow foundation under cyclic loading confirms the good adaptation of the model suggested to this type of problem.

In this study, the usage of the Level of Service (LOS) concept, which was developed specifically for pedestrian satisfaction and safety, was critically analyzed. The focuses of this investigation were the Fruin and Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) LOS values, which were evaluated and compared in terms of their anthropometric dimensions. In this paper, new LOS values are proposed on the basis of the critical evaluation of the HCM and Fruin LOS values revealing the inconsistencies between the LOS values and the analysis. The importance of emptiness area in calculating human comfort and satisfaction in terms of the anthropometric dimensions and LOS value is also discussed. A software program called Laborer Image Analysis Software (LIAS) was developed to evaluate and compare the impacts of different body dimensions on the LOS values and on the space requirements for pedestrians. LIAS is presented as a facilitation tool for calculating more concise and effective emptiness areas and LOS values. The comfort area concept is also presented and discussed. This discussion is used to reveal the contrasts and inconsistencies in the existing usage of the LOS concept and to highlight the importance of the emptiness area approach. The paper presents a different perspective and discussion on the existing utilization of LOS levels, particularly for pedestrians in different structures. The research contributes to the LOS analysis discussion in terms of the anthropometric scale according to changing user profiles and develops facilitator(s) for analyzing and applying amendments to pedestrian needs, which can be used in transportation buildings.

This paper compares the seismic load of a 5MW wind turbine supported by a 100-m-high prestressed concrete tower calculated via time history analysis and response spectrum analysis using elastic acceleration spectrum provided by the China Aseismic Code for Buildings. With 5% damping ratio, the fixed-based Multi-degree of freedom model and Finite element model considering soil structure interaction are used for response spectrum analysis and time history analysis, respectively. The results indicated that the seismic load calculated by response spectrum analysis is significantly larger than the results associated with the time history analysis method. It implies that the seismic load determined from common building code procedures along with other loads for wind turbine foundation design is too conservative. Within this paper, the effects of damping ratio, horizontal acceleration amplitude, spring stiffness and damping coefficient of foundation on the seismic load of the prestressed concrete wind turbine tower are discussed. It is shown that the seismic load with mode damping ratio for the prestressed concrete wind turbine tower is not significant when compared with traditional tubular steel designs. The maximum moment demand at the base of the tower may be controlled by earthquake loading as the seismic fortification intensity lever is more than seven. The foundation spring stiffness has a immensely impact on the base bending moment and the natural frequency. Finally, seismic load should be considered in more detail when designing wind turbines that are supported by concrete towers, particularly for turbine’s over 100-m tall and located in seismically active zones.

This study is devoted to investigate the effects of mass eccentricity in seismic responses of base-isolated structures subjected to near field ground motions. Superstructures with 3, 6 and 9 stories and aspect ratios equal to 1, 2 and 3 have been idealized as steel special moment frames resting on a reasonable variety of Triple Concave Friction Pendulum (TCFP) bearings considering different period and damping ratios for the isolators. Three-dimensional linear superstructure mounted on nonlinear isolators are subjected to 3 components of near-field ground motions. Under 25 near-field ground motions, effects of mass eccentricity on the main system parameters are studied. These parameters are selected as the main engineering demands including maximum isolator displacement and base shear as well as peak superstructure acceleration. The results indicate that the mass eccentricities has not a remarkable effect on isolator displacement. In contrary to displacement, torsional effect of mass eccentricity raise the base shear up to 1.75 times in a three-story superstructure. Additionally, mass eccentricity can amplify the roof acceleration of a nine-story model approximately 3 times in comparison with a symmetric superstructure. It is also concluded that eccentricity in the direction of the subjected earthquake has the most impact on base shear while the isolator displacement and roof acceleration has mostly influenced by the eccentricity perpendicular to the earthquake path.

Complex nature of diagonal tension accompanied by formation of new cracks as well as closing and propagating preexisting cracks has deterred researchers to achieve an analytical and mathematical procedure for accurate predicting shear behavior of reinforced concrete, and there is the lack of a unique theory accepted universally. Shear behavior of reinforced concrete is studied in this paper based on recently developed constitutive laws for normal strength concrete and mild steel bars using nonlinear finite element method. The salient feature of these stress-strain relations is to account the interactive effects of concrete and embedded bars on each other in a smeared rotating crack approach. Implementing the considered constitutive laws into an efficient secant-stiffness based finite element algorithm, a procedure for nonlinear analysis of reinforced concrete is achieved. The resulted procedure is capable of predicting load-deformation behavior, cracking pattern, and failure mode of reinforced concrete. Corroboration with data from shear-critical beam test specimens with a wide range of properties showed the model to predict responses with a good accuracy. The results were also compared with those from the well-known theory of modified compression field and its extension called disturbed stress field model which revealed the present study to provide more accurate predictions. 

Based on the methodology of “Understanding by Design”, UbD, the course “Design of Hydraulic Structures” was developed and implemented. A series of learning experiences, with emphasis on hydraulics and hydrology, for civil engineering undergraduate students is presented that encourages the development of high technical and scientific competence, communication skills oral and in written, the ability for teamwork and the capability to learn. The experiences were designed, using the above methodology, based on learning that is desired. Once taught the course, the results obtained were compared based on the planned framework (expectations), the characterization of the student population, the course products as well as the activities, according to the students, considered relevant in the learning process.

Abstract The Drawer Bracing System (DBS) is a ductile bracing system that is developed to enhance the seismic performance of braced frames. The system is composed of three parallel plates that are attached together via transfer plates at right angle. Seismic energy is dissipated through the formation of flexural plastic hinges at the two ends of the transfer plates. The parallel plates must have adequate strength and stiffness to prevent global buckling and to remain elastic while transferring forces to transfer plates. Height, width, thickness and the number of the transfer plates may be varied to achieve the desired strength and stiffness of the system. In contrast to common bracing systems, the main advantage of a DBS is the conversion of the axial forces to flexural moments in the dissipating elements. In the present paper, the nonlinear shear response of the DBS is predicted via closed-form formulas for calculation of strength, stiffness and post-yield behavior of the system. These formulations are based on both experimental observations and theoretical analysis. The calculated force-displacement backbone curve is verified to be a very good approximation for predicting the nonlinear shear response of the system.

In this paper, self-consolidating concrete (SCC) mixtures are considered for airfield concrete pavements. A series of rheological, mechanical, transport and frost action durability tests were conducted on the prepared SCC mixtures with and without chemical air entraining agents (AEA). Mineral admixtures including slag, fly ash, silica fume and metakaolin were included in SCC mixtures. The results showed that application of mineral admixture led to significant improvements on the performance of airfield concrete pavement mixtures. Moreover, the performance of mixtures against frost action upgraded when AEA included in companion with the mineral admixtures.

Steel bridges play a very important role in every country’s transportation system. To ensure that bridges perform reliably, engineers monitor their performance which is referred to as Structural Health Monitoring (SHM). An important element of SHM includes the prediction of service life. There is ample historical evidence that bridge damage is pervasive and their life time is decreasing. To manage costs and safety, service life prediction of bridges is necessary. We present a statistical method to predict service life for steel bridges. A nonparametric statistical model based on the bootstrap method for stress analysis for fatigue life prediction of steel girder bridges is proposed. The bootstrap provides a simple approach for reproduction of the probability distribution of measured strain data. The bootstrap is sensitive to the number of events in the verification sample (data), thus we introduce a stable survival distribution function (SDF). An index is presented in this paper for inferring the service life of steel bridges, which can be known as the Life Index (µ). The life index function shows variation of the age of steel bridges under daily traffic loads. A regression model is developed which relates the service life of steel bridges using a bridge life index based on measured operational strain time histories. The predicted remaining service life derived from the model can contribute to effective management of steel bridges. The proposed method assists bridge engineers, bridge owners, and state officials in objective assessment of deteriorated bridges for retrofit or replacement of deteriorated bridges. Timely repair and retrofit increase the safety levels in bridges and decrease costs.

A least squares based meshfree method is used in the numerical simulation of a turbulent flow. The proposed approach is integral free, vectorized and enjoying sparse positive definite matrices. Here the standard k-ε model is employed to model the turbulent flow. A matrix formulation is illustrated that simply can be extended for other turbulence models. Two bench mark problems are solved and results are compared with the literature.

To fully explain hydropower unit operational problems, an optimal multi-objective dynamic scheduling model is presented which seeks to improve the efficiency of reservation regulation management. To reflect the actual hydropower engineering project environment, fuzzy random uncertainty and an integrated consideration of the natural resource constraints, such as load balance, system power balance, generation limits, turbine capacity, water head, discharge capacities, reservoir storage volumes, and water spillages, were included in the model. The aim of this research was to concurrently minimize discharges and maximize economic benefit. Subsequently, a new hybrid dynamic-programming based multi-start multi-objective simulated annealing algorithm was developed to solve the hydro unit operational problem. The proposed model and intelligent algorithm were then applied to the Xiaolongmen Hydraulic and Hydropower Station in China. The computational unit commitment schedule results demonstrated the practicality and efficiency of this optimization method.

The seismic performance levels are discrete damage states selected from among the infinite spectrum of possible damage states that buildings could experience as a result of earthquake response. The observation of building damage during strong motion earthquakes showed that correlation of structural damage with a single parameter such as peak ground acceleration or the total seismic duration is low while peak ground acceleration is often used as a main seismic parameter to evaluate seismic performance of structures. Main objective of this study is to determine the relationship between several seismic acceleration parameters and the Target Displacement (TD) of steel frame structures, which is an important parameter to identify performance levels. For this purpose, first, nonlinear analysis is performed on the SAC 3- and 9-story frames subjected to several far-field earthquakes and then target displacements and seismic parameters are calculated for each structure.The relationship between the target displacement and seismic parameters is evaluated in the form of correlation coefficient. It is shown that PGA has poor correlation with the target displacement. On the other hand, HOUSNER intensity, spectral pseudo-acceleration, spectral pseudo-velocity and peak ground velocity exhibit strong correlation with TD.

A numerical meshless method is proposed to investigate shallow water equations. Because of The numerical solution of the pure convection equations represents a very important issue in many problems, an Element Free Galerkin (EFG) method is used for solving these equations, and its implementation is described. In this method there is no need to nodal connectivity and just uses nodal data which may be the same as those used in the Finite Element Methods (FEMs) and a description of the domain boundary geometry are necessary. The essential boundary condition is enforced by the penalty method, and the Moving Least Squares (MLS) approximation is used for the interpolation scheme. The numerical efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by solving several benchmark examples. Sensitivity analysis on parameters of the EFG method is carried out and results are presented.

Tuned mass dampers are common solutions for passive control of bridge responses against dynamic loads. The present work concerns non-uniform support excitation of earthquakes as the dynamic loading source and studies TMD performance in controlling consequent vertical response of simply supported steel bridges. Charged system search as a recent meta-heuristic is successfully utilized to optimize TMD parameters whereas the dynamic response is evaluated via rigorous step-by-step time-history finite element analysis. As another issue, superiority of multiple TMD’s over single TMD is investigated for the present problem after unifying their parameters via optimization. Treating a bridge model as the case study under a number of real-world recorded earthquakes, the error of uniform support excitation under such a non-uniform case is evaluated. Superior efficiency of the utilized charged system search over popular genetic algorithm is observed for this problem. The results also revealed that how advantageous is the application of optimally designed multiple TMD in controlling dynamic vibration modes of such a distributed mass structure

Air-water flow is a complex and challenging subject in many engineering fields as well as hydraulic engineering and discovery of its characteristics can help the engineers to predict and analyze a probable phenomenon. In the present paper, development of a device capable of measuring the flow velocity, air concentration, diameter and counts of bubbles in air-water flows is described. The heart of the present device is two resistive probes with a novel configuration. Being pressure and corrosion resistant and also having negligible resistivity in the flow are some of the unique features of the employed needles. Moreover, sampling frequency and time can be set for the intended application by the user. In the present electronic board, maximum available sampling frequency is in the order of KHz, while the time of sampling is not limited. The circuit is designed with ability for avoiding the polarization of the probe tip. Increasing the number of probes up to four which can operate together and suitable for more complex flows with no change in the electronic board is another advantage of the proposed device. Different tests for verification of the device accuracy have been performed and good results were reported for measurements.

In this study, the effects of high temperatures on the mechanical and microstructural properties of high strength concretes (HSCs) made with metakaolin (MK) are investigated. For this purpose, the concrete mixtures made with MK were produced with water-binder ratio of 0.2. The mechanical properties of these concretes at 25, 250, 500 and 750 oC temperatures were determined. Besides, the effect of high temperature on the microstructural changes of cementitious matrix, interfaces between aggregate particles-cementitious materials and aggregates of these concretes were inspected by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope and plane polarized transmitted light (PPTL) analyses. The results indicate that the ultrasound pulse velocity, compressive strength, flexural strength and splitting tensile strength values of these concretes decrease especially depending on the increase of the high temperature after 250 oC. The heated concrete specimens were also examined at both macro and micro scales to determine the discoloration, alteration and cracks of HSC at different temperatures. PPTL analyses show that increasing temperature cause impairing of interfaces between aggregate particles and cementitious materials. The results also show that the partial replacement of MK with cement has the best performance on the mechanical properties of HSC.

Microtremor measurement is a precise and applicable technique for evaluating structural dynamic characteristics and vulnerability index of historical buildings. In this research a historical citadel in Iran has been considered. Karim Khan Citadel (Arg-e Karim Khan) is a huge masonry structure which has been built in the 17th century in Shiraz, Iran. The plan of this building has a rectangular shape and has a circular tower in each corner. The height of each three story circular tower is 14 m and the height of walls between each two towers is 12 m. One of these towers has been swerved and for preventing its collapse, concrete was injected to the foundation of this tower. To study seismic behavior and vulnerability of the swerved tower and compare it with other straight tower, microtremor measurements were performed. Measurements were done on the center of each tower and its basement simultaneously. For determining natural frequency and damping ratio of each tower, Floor Spectral Ratio (FSR) and Random Decrement Method (RDM) were used, respectively. Results show that the natural frequency and damping ratio of the swerved tower are 1.9 Hz and 1.55 % while dynamic parameters of the straight tower are 2.12 Hz and 3.86 %, respectively. Also the towers frequencies are very different to the site frequency (4.18 Hz), therefore the resonance phenomenon isn’t probable. In addition, the vulnerability indexes of the swerved and straight towers were calculated 131.31 and 76.9, respectively, which shows that the swerved tower is more vulnerable.

This article presents a new approach to obtain a complete map-type plot of the precisions of TLS equipment based on the direct measurement of time of flight method at midrange distances. Tests were developed in field-like conditions, similar to dam monitoring and other civil engineering works. Taking advantage of graphic semiological techniques, a map in “distance - angle of incidence” coordinates was designed and evaluated for field-like conditions. A map-type plot was designed combining isolines and sized and colored points, proportional to precision values. Precisions under different field conditions were compared with specifications. For this purpose, processed point clouds were evaluated under two approaches: classical "plane-of-best-fit" and proposed "simulated deformation”, that showed improved performance. These results lead to a discussion and recommendations about optimal TLS operation in civil engineering works.