Concrete structures are exposed to aggressive environmental conditions that lead to corrosion of the embedded reinforcement and pre-stressing steel. Consequently, the safety of concrete structures may be compromised, and this requires a significant budgets to repair and maintain critical infrastructure. Prediction of structural safety can lead to significant reductions in maintenance costs by maximizing the impact of investments. The aim of this paper is to establish a framework to assess the reliability of existing post-tensioned concrete bridges. A time-dependent reliability analysis of an existing post-tensioned involving the assessment of Ynys-y-Gwas bridge has been presented in this study. The main cause of failure of this bridge was corrosion of tendons, making it a relevant case study to evaluate the effect of corrosion on bridge safety. Uncertainties associated with material properties, geometry, loads and corrosion parameters are taken into account. The probabilistic models of the uncertainties are combined with a non-linear finite element analysis to study the effect of tendons pitting corrosion on the post-tensioned concrete bridge. The limit state function considered is flexural strength. The Monte-Carlo simulation (MCS) method is used to compute the statistical parameters of the resisting bending moment through a MATLAB code running ABAQUS. It was found that the reliability index for the first year of bridge service life is below the minimum value acceptable for structures. The study confirmed that this bridge was a high risk structure due to its design and location. The proposed framework can be used by engineers and researchers as a tool to support decision for segmental post-tensioned (PT) bridges maintenance since they need for a regular inspection due to their risk to corrosion.
In this paper, we investigate the behavior of the bayes estimators, for the scale parameter of the Gompertz distribution under two different loss functions such as, the squared error loss function, the exponential loss function (proposed), based different double prior distributions represented as erlang with inverse levy prior, erlang with non-informative prior, inverse levy with non-informative prior and erlang with chi-square prior.
The simulation method was fulfilled to obtain the results, including the estimated values and the mean square error (MSE) for the scale parameter of the Gompertz distribution, for different cases for the scale parameter of the Gompertz distr
... Show MoreEntrepreneurial culture has emerged as a powerful means of development in many countries of the world and can be regarded as a source of innovation and as a key to sustainable unemployment.
The national economic outlook, which was established by the High Commission for Planning, predicts economic growth of only 2.6% in 2016, this growth will not provide sufficient employment.
Morocco seeks to foster the entrepreneurial spirit of young Moroccans in order to encourage the creation, development of enterprises and the remuneration of investment in the service of employment through various policies that promote the " innovation.
Students and university graduates (including students from Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University in Fez) ar
The slurry infiltrated fiber concrete (SIFCON) is nowadays considered a special type of high fiber content concrete; it is high strength and high performance material. This paper investigates the effect of spread steel fiber into the slurry mortar on some properties of SIFCON. According to fiber distribution, two sets were used in this investigation. The first set consisted of randomly distributing fibers inside the slurry. The second set was by placing the fibers in an orderly manner inside the slurry. Crimped steel fibers with an aspect ratio of (60) were used. Two different volume fractions percentage of (7% and 9%) by volume of mold were used in both sets for this study. Also, a w/c ratio of (0.35) and superplasticiz
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Abstract
The term public budget defects became nowadays a chronic, economical phenomenon, almost all the countries weather advanced or development country suffered from it, despite the different visions to economic schools of a thought to accept or reject the deficit in public budget but the prevailed opinion that is needed to rule the role of the state by reducing the public spending which led to continuous deficits in public budget and the consequent upon increase in government borrowing, increase taxes on income and wealth, thus weakening the in contrive for private investment which contributed to the increase of in flationary stagnation, it became a duty to state covered by the lack of financial sources
... Show MoreTwo groups of chronic hepatitis B and C virus patients were divided into Pre-treated patients (25 CHB patients with positive HBs Ag for more than 6 months and 40 CHC patients), and post-treated patients [12 CHB patients (4, 6, and 2 were treated with lamivudine, IFN-? and combination of LMV + IFN-? respectively), and 27 patients for CHC (3, 13 and 11 patients were treated with Ribavirin, IFN-? and combination therapy (RBV+ IFN-?) respectively].These patients were followed up for 6 months. By using ELISA technique, levels of IL-6, IL-10, IFN-? and TNF-? were measured in vivo and in vitro (supernatant of PBMCs stimulated with PHA) and compared with healthy control. The mean level of IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-? in CHB patients showed significant dif
... Show MoreThe interplay of predation, competition between species and harvesting is one of the most critical aspects of the environment. This paper involves exploring the dynamics of four species' interactions. The system includes two competitive prey and two predators; the first prey is preyed on by the first predator, with the former representing an additional food source for the latter. While the second prey is not exposed to predation but rather is exposed to the harvest. The existence of possible equilibria is found. Conditions of local and global stability for the equilibria are derived. To corroborate our findings, we constructed time series to illustrate the existence and the stability of equilibria numerically by varying the different values
... Show MoreExperimental work was carried out to investigate the effect of fire flame (high temperature) on specimens of one way slabs using Self Compacted Concrete (SCC). By using furnace manufactured for this purpose, twenty one reinforced concrete slab specimens were exposed to direct fire flame. All of specimens have the same dimensions. The slab specimens were cooled in two types, gradually by left them in the air and suddenly by using water. After that the specimens were tested under two point loads, to study, the effect of
different: temperature levels (300ºC, 500ºC and 700ºC), and cooling rate (gradually and sudden cooling conditions) on the concrete compressive strength, modulus of rupture, flexural strength and the behavior of reinf
The Na-alginate bead is commonly used in biotechnology fields such as adsorption due to ion exchange between Ca and Na with elements. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM-EDX) has proven to be a comparative method in the detections of these adsorbed elements, but the un-flat forming area of beads that can introduce impossible of the detection of element adsorbed. In contrast, X-ray fluorescence (XRF) documents analysis of elements, direct examination, which may analysis the adsorbents of elements. Here, this Study evaluated the possibility by using XRF for the direct analysis for examples of Cd and Ag in a bench stand. This Study compared this to commonly use
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