In the present study, an attempt has been made to experimentally investigate the flexural performance of ten simply supported reinforced concrete gable roof beams, including solid control specimen (i.e., without openings) and nine beams with web openings of different dimensions and configurations. The nine beams with openings have identical reinforcement details. All beams were monotonically loaded to failure under mid-span loading. The main variables were the number of the created openings, the total area of the created openings, and the inclination angle of the posts between openings. Of interest is the load-carrying capacity, cracking resistance and propagation, deformability, failure mode, and strain development that represent the behavior of reinforced concrete gable beams. Test results showed that the total concrete weight consumed for the tested gable beams with openings was lower than the solid gable beam by (14.9–26%). This reduction in weight led to a reduction in the flexural stiffness and, in turn. in the load-carrying capacity by (6.2–17.9%). The percentage of the decrease in the concrete consumption to the reduction in the load-carrying capacity for the tested beams with openings attained (140–240%). It was recorded that the maximum crack width depended on the total area of the created openings rather than the number of these openings.
Rutting has a significant impact on the pavements' performance. Rutting depth is often used as a parameter to assess the quality of pavements. The Asphalt Institute (AI) design method prescribes a maximum allowable rutting depth of 13mm, whereas the AASHTO design method stipulates a critical serviceability index of 2.5 which is equivalent to an average rutting depth of 15mm. In this research, static and repeated compression tests were performed to evaluate the permanent strain based on (1) the relationship between mix properties (asphalt content and type), and (2) testing temperature. The results indicated that the accumulated plastic strain was higher during the repeated load test than that during the static load tests. Notably, temperatur
... Show MoreA composite section is made up of a concrete slab attached to a steel beam by means of shear connectors. Under positive and negative bending moment, part of the slab will act as a flange of the beam, resisting the longitudinal compression or tension force. When the spacing between girders becomes large, it is evident that the simple beam theory does not strictly apply because the longitudinal stress in the flange will vary with distance from the girder web, the flange being more highly stressed over the web than in the extremities. This phenomenon is termed "shear lag". In this paper, a nonlinear three-dimensional finite element analysis is employed to evaluate and determine the actual effective slab width of the composite steel-concrete
... Show MoreThe objective of the current research is to find an optimum design of hybrid laminated moderate thick composite plates with static constraint. The stacking sequence and ply angle is required for optimization to achieve minimum deflection for hybrid laminated composite plates consist of glass and carbon long fibers reinforcements that impeded in epoxy matrix with known plates dimension and loading. The analysis of plate is by adopting the first-order shear deformation theory and using Navier's solution with Genetic Algorithm to approach the current objective. A program written with MATLAB to find best stacking sequence and ply angles that give minimum deflection, and the results comparing with ANSYS.
In this paper, a new equivalent lumped parameter model is proposed for describing the vibration of beams under the moving load effect. Also, an analytical formula for calculating such vibration for low-speed loads is presented. Furthermore, a MATLAB/Simulink model is introduced to give a simple and accurate solution that can be used to design beams subjected to any moving loads, i.e., loads of any magnitude and speed. In general, the proposed Simulink model can be used much easier than the alternative FEM software, which is usually used in designing such beams. The obtained results from the analytical formula and the proposed Simulink model were compared with those obtained from Ansys R19.0, and very good agreement has been shown. I
... Show MoreThis study was prepared to investigate the performance and behavior of concrete thrust blocks supporting pipe fittings. In the water distribution networks, it is always necessary to change the path of the pipes at different degrees or to create new branches. In these regions, an unbalanced force called the thrust force is generated. In order to counter this force, these regions are supported with concrete blocks. In this article, the system components (soil, pipe with its bend and thrust blocks) have been numerically modeled and simulated by the ABAQUS CAE/2019 software program in order to study the behavior and stability of the thrust block with different burial conditions (several b
Experimental research was carried out to investigate the performance of CFRP wrapping jackets used for retrofitting twelve square reinforced concrete (CR) column specimens damaged by exposure to fire flame, at different temperatures of 300, 500 and 700ºC, except for two specimens that were not burned. The specimens were then loaded axially till failure after gradual or sudden cooling. The specimens were divided into two groups containing two main reinforcement ratios, ρ= 0.0314 and ρ= 0.0542. This was followed by the retrofitting procedure that included wrapping all the specimens with two layers of CFRP fabric sheets. The test results of the retrofitted specimens showed that the fire damaged RC
... Show MoreThis paper demonstrates an experimental and numerical study on the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) columns with longitudinal steel embedded tubes positioned at the center of the column cross-section. A total of 12 pin-ended square sectional columns of 150 × 150 mm having a total height of 1400 mm were investigated. The considered variables were the steel tube diameters of 29, 58, and 76 mm and the load eccentricity (0, 50, and 150) mm. Accordingly, these columns were divided into three groups (four columns in each group) depending on the load eccentricity (e) to column depth (h) ratio (e/h = 0, 1/3, and 1). For each group, one column was solid (reference), and the other three columns contained steel tubes with hollow rat
... Show MoreThis paper studies the combination of fluid viscous dampers in the outrigger system to add supplementary damping into the structure, which purpose to remove the dependability of the structure to lower variable intrinsic damping. This optimizes the accuracy of the dynamic response and by providing higher level of damping, basically minimizes the wanted stiffness of the structure while at the same time optimizing the achievement.
The modal considered is a 36 storey square high rise reinforced concrete building. By constructing a discrete lumped mass model and using frequency-based response function, two systems of dampers, parallel and series systems are studied. The maximu
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