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The unique behaviour of carbonate materials under shear loading has stimulated in investigating of their geological and engineering properties.Carbonate soils composed of calcium or other carbonates and most abundant in tropical marine environments are of interest from geotechnical view, especially for offshore engineers engaged with Fossil-based fuel exploitation. This was initiated in the early 1960's, when the first offshore borings in the Persian Gulf identified layers of calcarenite and thick layers of sand containing visible shell fragments.For the purpose of exploiting gas and oil resources in hot and temperate climates (e.g. Persian Gulf) off-shore structures have been placed on carbonate soils. The carbonate sediments are high crushable compared with low crushable sediments such as quartzic soils.To examine the crushability of these problematic sediments a series of monotonic compression, extension and post-cyclic triaxial tests under different densities and confining pressures was carried out to study the crushing behaviour of "Rock" carbonate sand obtained from Cornwall, England.It was shown that crushing coefficient decreases with increasing in maximum principal effective stress ratio for both loose and dense states. It seems that for skeletal carbonate sand maximum and minimum dry densities will be changed during shearing loading. In other words, even though the sample has experienced an increase in density, it may also have experienced a reduction in relative density.

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This paper presents the results of a series of monotonic and post-cyclic triaxial tests carried out on a clay specimen and three types of clay-sand mixed specimens. The focus of the paper is on the post-cyclic mechanical behavior of the mixed specimens, as compared to their monotonic behavior. Analyses of the tests results show that cyclic loading degrade undrained shear strength and deformation modulus of the specimens during the post-cyclic monotonic loading. The degradation depends on the sand content, the cyclic strain level and to some degrees to the consolidation pressure.

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In a large scale cyclic storage system ,as the number of rule parameters and/or number of operating period increase, general purpose gradient-based NLP solvers and/or genetic algorithms may loose their merits in finding optimally feasible solution to the problem. In these cases hybrid GA which decomposes the main problem into two manageable sub-problems with an iterative scheme between GA and LP solvers may be considered as a sound alternative This research develops a hybrid GA-LP algorithm to optimally design and operate a nonlinear, non-convex, and large scale lumped cyclic storage system. For optimal operation of the system a set of operating rules are derived for joint utilization of surface and groundwater storage capacities to meet a predefined demand with minimal construction and operation cost over a 20 seasonal planning period. Performance of the proposed model is compared with a non-cyclic storage system. The management model minimizes the present value of the design and operation cost of the cyclic and non-cyclic systems under specified and governing constraints, employing the developed GA-LP hybrid model. Results show that cyclic storage dominates non-cyclic storage system both in cost and operation flexibility.

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In the present investigation, the cyclic load deformation behaviour of soil-fly ash layered system is

studied using different intensities of failure load (I = 25%, 50% and 75%) with varying number of cycles (N =

10, 50 and 100). An attempt has been made to establish the use of fly ash as a fill material for embankments of

Highways and Railways and to examine the effect of cyclic loading on the layered samples of soil and fly ash.

The number of cycles, confining pressures and the intensity of loads at which loading unloading has been

performed were varied. The resilient modulus, permanent strain and cyclic strength factor are evaluated from

the test results and compared to show their variation with varying stress levels. The nature of stress-strain

relationship is initially linear for low stress levels and then turns non-linear for high stress levels. The test

results reveal two types of failure mechanisms that demonstrate the dependency of consolidated undrained

shear strength tests of soil-fly ash matrix on the interface characteristics of the layered soils under cyclic

loading conditions. Data trends indicate greater stability of layered samples of soil-fly ash matrix in terms of

failure load (i) at higher number of loading-unloading cycles, performed at lower intensity of deviatoric stress,

and (ii) at lower number of cycles but at higher intensity of deviatoric stress.

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In this paper, the effect of cyclic loading on punching strength of flat slabs strengthened with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) sheets is studied. Experimental results of ten slab specimens under monotonic and cyclic loading are analyzed. Eight specimens were strengthened with CFRP sheets on the tensile face of the slabs and the two other specimens were kept un-strengthened as control specimens. The width of CFRP sheets varied in different specimens. After the tests, the punching shear strength of specimens under cyclic loading was compared with those with monotonic loading. The comparison of results shows that cyclic loading decreases the effect of CFRP sheets on punching shear strengthening. This decrease was more for the specimens with a larger value of reinforcing steel ratio. Therefore, it can be concluded that for specimens with large reinforcing steel ratios, cyclic loading may completely eliminate the effect of CFRP sheets on shear strengthening of slabs.

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Concentric bracing is one of the most common lateral load resistant systems in building frames, and are

applied to many structures due to their manufacturing simplicity and economics. An important deficiency in the

bracing members is their irregular hysteretic loops under cyclic loading. In order to overcome this problem, it is

advised to restrain braces against buckling under compression, since buckling restrained frames dissipate a large

amount of energy. One method to restrain braces against buckling is to cover them with concrete. A proper covering

can prevent the core from buckling and provide similar capacities whether in tension or compression which would

produce regular hysteric curves. In this study, the behavior of buckling restrained braces (BRB) has been investigated

by considering different types of surrounding covers. The steel core is encased in concrete with different coverings. The

covering types include steel tubes, PVC pipes, and FRP rolled sheets. Experimental and numerical analyses were

implemented. According to the results, PVC pipes and FRP sheets are suitable alternatives to steel pipes. Furthermore,

the behavior of several types of steel cores was assessed since, applying steel with high ductility promotes the energy

dissipation of the brace. Finally, the effect of the separating layer between the steel core and the concrete on the

performance of bracing was evaluated.

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Abstract: This paper presents the results of pullout tests on uniaxial geogrid embedded in silica sand under monotonic and cyclic pullout forces. The new testing device as a recently developed automated pullout test device for soil-geogrid strength and deformation behavior investigation is capable of applying load/displacement controlled monotonic/cyclic forces at different rates/frequencies and wave shapes, through a computer closed-loop system. Two grades of extruded HDPE uniaxial geogrids and uniform silica sand are used throughout the experiments. The effects of vertical surcharge, sand relative density, extensibility of reinforcement and cyclic pullout loads are investigated on the pullout resistance, nodal displacement distributions, post-cyclic pullout resistance and cyclic accumulated displacement of the geogrid. Tell-tale type transducers are implemented along the geogrid at several points to measure the relative displacements along the geogrid embedded length. In monotonic tests, decrease in relative displacement between soil and geogrid by increase of vertical stress and sand relative density are the main conclusions structural stiffness of geogrid has a direct effect on pullout resistance in different surcharges. In cyclic tests it is observed that the variation of post-cyclic strength ranges from minus 10% to plus 20% of monotonic strength values and cyclic accumulated displacements are increased as normal pressure increase, but no practical specific comment can be made at this stage on the post-cyclic strength of geogrids embedded in silica sand. It is also observed that in loose sand condition, the cyclic accumulated displacements are considerably smaller as compared to dense sand condition.

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Mixed clayey soils occur as mixtures of sand (or gravel) and clay in widely varying proportions. Their

engineering behavior has not been comprehensively studied yet. An experimental program, comprising monotonic,

cyclic, and post-cyclic triaxial tests was undertaken on compacted clay-granular material mixtures, having different

proportions of clay and sand or gravel. This paper presents the results of cyclic triaxial tests and explains the behavior

of the mixtures based on number of loading cycles, cyclic strain amplitude, granular material content, grain size, and

effective confining pressure. The results indicate an increase in degree of degradation and cyclic loading-induced pore

water pressure as the number of loading cycles, cyclic strain and granular material content increase. Also the results

show that the grain size has no significant effect on the degree of degradation and cyclic loading-induced pore water

pressure in the specimens. The effect of granular material content on pore water pressure during cyclic loading in

equal-stress-level was also examined. The pore water pressure increases with the increase of granular material

content.

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 Neither damage mechanics model nor elastoplastic constitutive law can solely describe the behavior of concrete satisfactorily. In fact, they both fail to represent proper unloading slopes during cyclic loading. To overcome the disadvantages of pure plastic models and pure damage approaches, the combined effects need to be considered. In this regard, various classes of plastic-damage models have been recently proposed. Here, the theoretical basics of the plastic-damage model originally proposed by Lubliner et al. and later on modified by Lee and Fenves is initially presented and its numerical aspects in three-dimensional space are subsequently emphasized. It should be mentioned that a part of the implementation in 3-D space needs to be reformulated due to employing a hyperbolic potential function to treat the singularity of the original linear form of plastic flow proposed by Lee and Fenves. The consistent algorithmic tangent stiffness, which is utilized to accelerate the convergence rate in solving the nonlinear global equations, is also derived. The validation and evaluation of the model to capture the desired behavior under monotonic and cyclic loadings are shown with several simple one-element tests. These basic simulations confirm the robustness, accuracy, and efficiency of the algorithm at the local and global levels. At the end, a four-point bending test is examined to demonstrate the capabilities of the model in real 3-D applications.

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Laboratory data, which relate the liquefaction resistance of Firoozkooh sand and non-plastic silt mixtures to shear wave velocity are

presented and compared to liquefaction criteria derived from seismic field measurements by Andrus and Stokoe [1]. In the work

described herein, cyclic triaxial and resonant column tests were conducted on specimens of clean sand and sand-silt mixtures with silt

content up to 60%, prepared at different densities. Cyclic undrained strength and small strain shear wave velocity were determined

for identical specimens formed by undercompaction method. It was found that silt content affects cyclic resistance and shear wave

velocity. In addition, the laboratory results indicated that using the existing field-based correlations will overestimate the cyclic

resistance of the Firoozkooh sand-silt mixtures when silt content is 60%. For clean sand and the specimens containing up to 30% fines,

results of this study on cyclic resistance are fairly consistent with Andrus and Stokoe correlations. These findings suggest the need for

further evaluation of the effects of non-plastic fines content upon liquefaction criteria derived from seismic field measurements.

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This paper discusses the applicability of a simple model to predict pore water pressure generation in non-plastic silty soil during

cyclic loading. Several Stress-controlled cyclic hollow torsional tests were conducted to directly measure excess pore water pressure

generation at different levels of cyclic stress ratios (CSR) for the specimens prepared with different silt contents (SC=0% to 100%).

The soil specimens were tested under three different confining pressures (&sigmaƉ= 60, 120, 240 kPa) at a constant relative density

(Dr=60%), with different silt contents. Results of these tests were used to investigate the behavior of silty sands under undrained

cyclic hollow torsional loading conditions. In general, beneficial effects of the silt were observed in the form of a decrease in excess

pore water pressure and an increase in the volumetric strain. Modified model for pore water pressure generation model based on

the test results are also presented in this paper. Comparison of the proposed pore pressure build up model with seed’s model

indicates the advantage of proposed model for soil with large amount of silt.

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An energy based damage index based on a new nonlinear Finite element (FE) approach applicable to RC structures subjected to cyclic, earthquake or monotonic loading is proposed. The proposed method is based on the evaluation of nonlinear local degradation of materials and taking into account of the pseudo-plastic hinge produced in the critical sections of the structure. A computer program is developed, considering local behavior of confined and unconfined concretes and steel elements and also global behavior and damage of reinforced concrete structures under cyclic loading. The segments located between the pseudoplastic hinges at critical sections and the inflection points are selected as base-models through simulation by the proposed FE method. The proposed damage index is based on an energy analysis method considering the primary half-cycles energy absorbed by the structure during loading. The total primary half-cycles absorbed energy to failure is used as normalizing factor. By using the proposed nonlinear analytical approach, the structure's force-displacement data are determined. The damage index is then calculated and is compared with the allowable value. This damage index is an efficient means for deciding whether to repair or demolish structures after an earthquake. It is also useful in the design of new structures as a design parameter for an acceptable limit of damage defined by building codes.  The proposed approach and damage index are validated by results of tests carried out on reinforced concrete columns subjected to cyclic biaxial bending with axial force.

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A series of tests and also numerical analyses were conducted to explore the mechanical behavior of a mixture of coarse gravelsize
particles floating in a matrix of silt, sand or clay. The research is a step forward in an ongoing investigation on behavior of
composite clay, which is used as the core material of some large embankment dams all over the world. After providing the reader
with an overall image about behavior of such materials through the literature, the paper focuses on a predominant feature of the
composite soil behavior: increase of non-deformable solid inclusions in a mixture leads to formation of heterogeneity of stress
field, excess pore water pressure and strain distribution along the specimens. This paper mainly probes formation of such
heterogeneity by the aid of special experiments and also numerical analyses. In addition to loading details, it is clarified through
the paper that position of inclusions relative to loading direction also affects heterogeneity of stress/strain and excess pore water
pressure distribution through the mixture. Despite the former, the latter redistributes with a rate proportional to material
hydraulic conductivity.

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One important application of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) is to confine concrete as FRP jackets in seismic retrofit process

of reinforced concrete structures. Confinement can improve concrete properties such as compressive strength and ultimate axial

strain. For the safe and economic design of FRP jackets, the stress-strain behavior of FRP-confined concrete under monotonic

and cyclic compression needs to be properly understood and modeled. According to literature review, it has been realized that

although there are many studies on the monotonic compressive loading of FRP-confined concrete, only a few studies have been

conducted on the cyclic compressive loading. Therefore, this study is aimed at investigating the behavior of FRP-confined

concrete under cyclic compressive loading. A total of 18 cylindrical specimens of FRP-confined concretewere tested in uniaxial

compressive loading with different wrap thickness, and loading patterns. The results obtained from the tests are presented and

examined based on analysis of test results predictive equations for plastic strain and stress deterioration were derived. The

results are also compared with those from two current models,comparison revealed the lack of sufficient accuracy of the current

models to predict stress-strain behavior and accordingly some provisions should be incorporated.

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The present study focuses on the performance of precast concrete beam-column dowel connections subjected to cyclic loading by conducting experiments. In this study, one-third scale model of two types of precast and a monolithic beam-column connection were cast and tested under reverse cyclic loading. The precast connections considered for this study is a beam-column connection where beam is connected to column with corbel using (i) dowel bar and (ii) dowel bar with cleat angle. The experimental results of the precast specimens have been compared with that of the reference monolithic connection. The sub-assemblage specimens have been subjected to reverse cyclic displacement-controlled lateral loading applied at the end of the beam. The performance of the precast connections in terms of the ultimate load carrying capacity, post- elastic strength enhancement factor, load-displacement hysteresis behaviour, moment-rotation hysteresis behaviour, energy dissipation capacity, equivalent viscous damping ratio and ductility factor were compared with that of the monolithic beam-column connection. The monolithic specimen was found to perform better when compared to the precast specimens in terms of strength and energy dissipation. In terms of ductility, the precast specimen using dowel bar and cleat angle showed better behaviour when compared to the reference monolithic specimen.

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Piles or drilled shafts used in bridge foundation, waterfronts, and high rise buildings are generally subjected to lateral loads. In order to study the effect of concrete pile geometry on the structural behavior in layered soils, several models with different shapes and dimensions for piles and different properties for two soil layers with variable thickness were selected and analyzed using the finite difference method. The performance of piles situated in layered granular soil with different compaction and thicknesses were studied in two cycles of lateral loading and unloading. The applied finite difference procedure is also validated based on experimental and published results. The pile head displacement of different models due to their overall deformation and rotation were calculated under maximum loading. For a comparison of pile head displacement due to their overall deformation and rotation in different models, the "performance index” is defined as the ratio of “displacement due to deformation” to the “total displacement”.

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An analytical nonlinear stress-strain model and a microscopic damage index for confined and unconfined concretes together with a macroscopic damage index for reinforced concrete (RC) structures under cyclic loading are proposed. In order to eliminate the problem of scale effect, an adjustable finite element computer program was generated to simulate RC structures subjected to cyclic loading. By comparing the simulated and experimental results of tests on the full-scale structural members and concrete cylindrical samples, the proposed stress-strain model for confined and unconfined concretes under cyclic loading was accordingly modified and then validated. The proposed model has a strong mathematical structure and can readily be adapted to achieve a higher degree of precision by modifying the relevant coefficients based on more precise tests. To apply the proposed damage indices at the microscopic and macroscopic levels, respectively, stress-strain data of finite elements (confined and unconfined concrete elements) and moment-curvature data of critical section are employed. The proposed microscopic damage index can easily be calculated by using the proposed simple analytic nonlinear stress-strain model for confined and unconfined concretes. The proposed macroscopic damage index is based on the evaluation of nonlinear local degradation of materials and taking into account the pseudo-plastic hinge produced in the critical section of the structural element. One of the advantages of the macroscopic damage index is that the moment-curvature data of the critical section is sufficient in itself and there is no need to obtain the force-displacement data of the structural member.

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In this study, a researching program is conducted by cyclic triaxial test to determine the post-cyclic behavior of Bushehr carbonate sand retrieved from the north of the Persian Gulf, under anisotropic consolidation at 200 kPa confining pressure. The article compares the post-cyclic monotonic strength and excess pore water pressures generated after the test with the pre-cyclic monotonic results. The results attest to the existence of a relationship between CSR (Cyclic Stress Ratio) and the frequency of failure cycles. The article also investigates the relationship between the amount of excess pore pressures generated during both the cyclic and post-cyclic loading, revealing an increase in the post-cyclic strength and stiffness of sand retrieved from Bushehr. Also the effect of multi stages cyclic loading, density, pore pressure and stain history in post cyclic strength and stiffness is evaluated. The increasing in post cyclic strength and stiffness depends on excess pore pressure generated during cyclic loading and stain history. This article also reveals that a distinct trend in the relation between post cyclic behavior and crushing value does not exist at lower confining pressure.

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Experimental study of the cyclic behavior of unsaturated materials is more complex than that of the saturated materials due to the required equipment, experience and time. Furthering investigations in the field of unsaturated materials is necessary to better understand its complexity and sensitivity of unsaturated cyclic parameters to different determinants such as suction path, stress path, loading speed, deviatoric stress amplitude, physical specifications, and etc. To this end, the main focus of this study has been to analyze the effects of factors such as mean net stress and deviatoric stress levels in fast cyclic loading on the cyclic behavior of a normally consolidated unsaturated fine-grained trade soil, namely the Zenoz kaolin. Various unsaturated tests were performed in three mean net stress levels and three amplitudes of cyclic deviatoric stress levels. Results showed that increase of suction in the same strain level leads to increase in stiffness in normally consolidated samples (i.e. increase in elastic modulus and shear modulus and decrease in damping ratio). Also, in the same suction value and strain level, increase of the mean net stress during the isotropic consolidation causes to the denser normally consolidated samples and results to increase of elastic modulus and shear modulus, and decrease of damping ratio.

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In this study a series of cyclic triaxial tests were performed to examine the undrained dynamic resistance of silty sand reinforced with various arrangements of geotextile layers. The silt content of samples varies in percentage from 0, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50%. A total of 32 laboratory cyclic triaxial tests have been performed on silty sand samples reinforced with geotextile layers in different depths. All tests were performed with 100 kPa confining pressure, subjected to an isotropic consolidated undrained (CIU) condition. The tests were conducted at a frequency of 2 Hz. Results indicate that both the geotextile arrangement and the silt content were most essential in the liquefaction potential of reinforced sands. An increase in the number of geotextile layers enhanced the cyclic resistance of reinforced samples against the liquefaction potential. It was also found that when the geotextile layer was posited near the top of the specimen (load application part) the liquefaction resistance would increase (e.g. for clean sands, the improvement of liquefaction resistance caused by the geotextile layer had a 0.2 depth, and the sample height was 5.5 times greater than the geotextile layer inserted in mid height of sample H). Based on the obtained results, effects of geotextile on liquefaction resistance decreased as fines content increased to about 33%. Further increase in the fines content however, would lead to higher in reinforcement advantages. The liquefaction improvement is more effective with a higher number of geotextile layers. The results also revealed that the reinforcement effect in FC≈33 % is at its lowest amount.