A novel demountable shear connector for precast steel-concrete composite bridges is presented. The connector uses high-strength steel bolts, which are fastened to the top flange of the steel beam with the aid of a special locking nut configuration that prevents bolts from slipping within their holes. Moreover, the connector promotes accelerated construction and overcomes the typical construction tolerance issues of precast structures. Most importantly, the connector allows bridge disassembly. Therefore, it can address different bridge deterioration scenarios with minimum disturbance to traffic flow including the following: (1) precast deck panels can be rapidly uplifted and replaced; (2) connectors can be rapidly removed and replaced; and (

This paper investigated the fatigue life behavior of two composite materials subjected to different times of shot peening (2, 4 and 6 min).The first material prepared from unsaturated polyester with E-glass reinforcement by 33% volume fraction. While, the second one was prepared from unsaturated polyester with aluminum powder by2.5% volume fraction. The experimental results showed that the improvement in endurance limit was obtained (for the first material) at 2, 4 and 6 min shot peening times where the percentage of maximum improvement was 25% at shot peening time of 6 min. While, the endurance limit of the second material decreased at shot peening times of 2, 4 and 6 min where the percentage of maximum reduction was 29 % at shot peenin

The construction of highly safe and durable buildings that can bear accident damage risks including fire, earthquake, impact, and more, can be considered to be the most important goal in civil engineering technology. An experimental investigation was prepared to study the influence of adding various percentages 0%, 1.0%, and 1.5% of micro steel fiber volume fraction (Vf) to reactive powder concrete (RPC)—whose properties are compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength, and absorbed energy—after the exposure to fire flame of various burning temperatures 300, 400, and 500 °C using gradual-, foam-, and sudden-cooling methods. The outcomes of this research proved that the maximum reduction in mechanical prop

This research presents an experimental investigation of the rehabilitation efficiency of the damaged hybrid reinforced concrete beams with openings in the shear region. The study investigates the difference in retrofitting ability of hybrid beams compared to traditional beams and the effect of two openings compared with one opening equalized to two holes in the area. Five RC beams classified into two groups, A and B, were primarily tested to full-failure under two-point loads. The first group (A) contained beams with normal weight concrete. The second group (hybrid) included beams with lightweight concrete for web and bottom flange, whereas the top flange was made from normal concrete. Two types of openings were considered in this s

The use of composite materials has vastly increased in recent years. Great interest is therefore developed in the damage detection of composites using non- destructive test methods. Several approaches have been applied to obtain information about the existence and location of the faults. This paper used the vibration response of a composite plate to detect and localize delamination defect based on the modal analysis. Experiments are conducted to validate the developed model. A two-dimensional finite element model for multi-layered composites with internal delamination is established. FEM program are built for plates under different boundary conditions. Natural frequencies and modal displacements of the intact and damaged

In this paper, an exact stiffness matrix and fixed-end load vector for nonprismatic beams having parabolic varying depth are derived. The principle of strain energy is used in the derivation of the stiffness matrix.
The effect of both shear deformation and the coupling between axial force and the bending moment are considered in the derivation of stiffness matrix. The fixed-end load vector for elements under uniformly distributed or concentrated loads is also derived. The correctness of the derived matrices is verified by numerical examples. It is found that the coupling effect between axial force and bending moment is significant for elements having axial end restraint. It was found that the decrease in bending moment was
in the

             The polymeric hydrogels composed of poly vinyl alcohol (m.wt 72000) and glutaraldehyde(5%,8% and 10%) , have been thermally prepared for the purpose of studying their swelling and drug  release behavior .      The swelling ratio was measured for all the hydrogel samples at 37°C, in three different media pH (1.2, 4.7 and 6.8) as a function of time. The results show  that the maximum swelling ratios were arranged as follows :pH =6.8 >  pH =4.7 > pH =1.2 hydrogels cross linked PVA showed a typical pH  responsive behavior such as high pH has maximum swelling while low  pH  shows minimum swelling.