This study investigated the shear performance of concrete beams with GFRP stirrups vs. traditional steel stirrups. Longitudinal glass fiber‐reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars were used to doubly reinforce the tested beams at both the top and bottom of their cross sections. To accomplish this, several stirrup spacings were provided. Eight beam specimens, measuring 300 × 250 × 2400 mm, were used in an experimental program to test under a two‐point concentrated load with an equal span‐to‐depth ratio until failure. Four beams in Group I have standard mild steel stirrups of 8 mm diameter, while four beams in Group II have GFRP stirrups with the same adopted diameter. The difference between the beams in each group was mainly due to the spacing between the reinforcing stirrups in the constant shear and pure bending spans. The test matrix consists of two beams with shear reinforcement equally distributed at 100 mm and 200 mm in constant shear and pure bending spans, respectively. Stirrups were placed uniformly over the whole effective span of the other six beams. In two beams, stirrups were placed 100 mm apart; in the other two, 75 mm; and in the last two, 50 mm. Test outcomes showed that GFRP stirrups, as opposed to steel stirrups, decreased the ultimate load by around 8%–27% based on stirrup spacing, while reducing the stirrup spacing increased the shear capacity. Also, the presence of compression GFRP bars and GFRP stirrups in the pure bending span led to an increase in the flexural stiffness of the tested beams. Consequently, this increase contributed to a higher ductility index. Accordingly, it is essential to prioritize adequate shear strength above flexural strength when designing GFRP‐reinforced concrete beams, as evidenced by the continuous observation of flexure‐shear cracking as the primary mode of failure in almost all tested beams.
This study reports testing results of the transient response of T-shape concrete deep beams with large openings due to impact loading. Seven concrete deep beams with openings including two ordinary reinforced, four partially prestressed, and one solid ordinary reinforced as a reference beam were fabricated and tested. The effects of prestressing strand position and the intensity of the impact force were investigated. Two values for the opening’s depth relative to the beam cross-section dimensions were inspected under the effect of an impacting mass repeatedly dropped from different heights. The study revealed that the beam’s transient deflection was increased by about 50% with gre
Thermal performance of closed wet cooling tower has been investigated experimentally and theoretically
in this work. The theoretical model based on heat and mass transfer equations and heat and mass transfer balance equations which are established for steady state case. A new small indirect cooling tower was used for conducting experiments. The cooling capacity of cooling tower is 1 kW for an inlet water temperature of 38oC, a water mass velocity 2.3 kg/m2.s and an air wet bulb temperature of 26oC. This study investigates the relationship between saturation efficiency, cooling capacity and coefficient of performance of closed wet cooling tower versus different operating parameters such wet-bulb temperature, variable air-spray water fl
There have been many advances in the solar chimney power plant since 1930 and the first pilot work was built in Spain (Manzanares) that produced 50 KW. The solar chimney power plant is considered of a clean power generation that needs to be investigated to enhance the performance by studying the effect of changing the area of passage of air to enhance the velocity towards the chimney to maximize design velocity. In this experimental and numerical study, the reduction area of solar collector was investigated. The reduction area that mean changing the height of glass cover from the absorbing plate (h1=3.8cm, h2=2.6cm and h3=1.28cm). The numerical study was performed using ANSYS Fluent software package (version 14.0) to solve go
... Show MoreThis research is devoted to study the strengthening technique for the existing reinforced concrete beams using external post-tensioning. An analytical methodology is proposed to predict the value of the effective prestress force for the external tendons required to close cracks in existing beams. The external prestressing force required to close cracks in existing members is only a part from the total strengthening force.
A computer program created by Oukaili (1997) and developed by Alhawwassi (2008) to evaluate curvature and deflection for reinforced concrete beams or internally prestressed concrete beams is modified to evaluate the deflection and the stress of the external tendons for the externally strengthened beams using Matlab
Pushover analysis is an efficient method for the seismic evaluation of buildings under severe earthquakes. This paper aims to develop and verify the pushover analysis methodology for reinforced concrete frames. This technique depends on a nonlinear representation of the structure by using SAP2000 software. The properties of plastic hinges will be defined by generating the moment-curvature analysis for all the frame sections (beams and columns). The verification of the technique above was compared with the previous study for two-dimensional frames (4-and 7-story frames). The former study leaned on automatic identification of positive and negative moments, where the concrete sections and steel reinforcement quantities the
... Show MoreBackground: The repair of bone defects remains a major clinical orthopaedic challenge. Bone is a highly vascularised tissue reliant on the close spatial and temporal connection between blood vessels and bone cells to maintain skeletal integrity. Angiogenesis thus plays a pivotal role in skeletal development and bone fracture repair. The role of angiogenic and osteogenic factors in the adaptive response and interaction of osteoblasts and endothelial cells during the multi step process of bone development and repair will be highlighted in this study. This study aimed to identify the role of local exogenous vascular endothelial growth factor in bone healing and to analyze the expression of VEGF by immunohistochemistry in created bone defect af
... Show MoreObjectives: This study aimed to evaluate and compare the effect of plasma treatment versus conventional treatment on the micro shear bond strength (μSBS), surface roughness, and wettability of three different CAD/CAM materials. Materials and methods: Sixty cylindrical specimens (5 mm diameter ×3 mm height) were prepared from three different CAD/CAM materials: Group A: Zirconia, Group B: Lithium disilicate, and Group C: Resin nano-ceramic. Each group was subdivided into two subgroups according to surface treatment used: Subgroup I: Conventional treatment, zirconia was sandblasted with Al2O3, while lithium disilicate and resin nano-ceramic were etched with hydrofluoric acid. Subgroup II: Plasma treatment, the surface of each material was tr
... Show MoreIn this paper, chip and powder copper are used as reinforcing phase in polyester matrix to form composites. Mechanical properties such as flexural strength and impact test of polymer reinforcement copper (powder and chip) were done, the maximum flexural strength for the polymer reinforcement with copper (powder and chip) are (85.13 Mpa) and (50.08 Mpa) respectively was obtained, while the maximum observation energy of the impact test for the polymer reinforcement with copper (powder and chip) are (0.85 J) and (0.4 J) respectively
In this research, geopolymer mortar had to be designed with 50% to 50% slag and fly ash with and without 1% micro steel fiber at curing temperature of 240℃. The molarity of alkaline solution adjusted with 12 molar sodium hydroxid to sodium silicate was 2 to 1, reaspectivly. The heat of curing increased the geopolymerization proceses of geoplymer mortar, which led to increasing strength, giving the best result and early curing age. The heat was applied for two days by four hours each day. It was discovered in the impact test that the value first crack of each mix was somewhat similar, but the failure increased 72% for the mixture that did not contain fiber. For the energy observation results it was shown that the mixt
... Show MoreThe study presents the test results of Completely Decomposed Granite (CDG) soil tested under drained triaxial compression, direct shear and simple shear tests. Special attention was focused on the modification of the upper halve of conventional Direct Shear Test (DST) to behave as free
head in movement along with vertical strain control during shear stage by using Geotechnical Digital System (GDS). The results show that Free Direct Shear Test (FDST) has clear effect on the measured shear stress and vertical strain during the test. It has been found that shear strength
parameters measured from FDST were closer to those measured from simple shear and drained triaxial compression test. This study also provides an independent check on