Exposure of reinforced concrete buildings to an accidental fire may result in cracking and loss in the bearing capacity of their major components, columns, beams, and slabs. It is a challenge for structural engineers to develop efficient retrofitting techniques that enable RC slabs to restore their structural integrity, after being exposed to intense fires for a long period of time. Experimental
investigation was carried out on twenty one slab specimens made of self compacting concrete, eighteen of them are retrofitted with CFRP sheets after burning and loading till failure while three of them (which represent control specimens) are retrofitted with CFRP sheet after loading till failure without burning. All slabs had been tested in a simply supported span and subjected to two-point loading. The main variables were the effect of different temperature levels (300ºC, 500ºC and 700ºC),different concrete compressive strength (20MPa, 30MPa and 40MPa) and cooling rate (gradually and sudden cooling conditions) on the behavior of retrofitted one way slabs .The structural response of each slab specimen was investigated in terms of load-deflection behavior, ultimate load carrying
capacity and mode of failure. The experimental results, generally, indicate that slabs retrofitted using CFRP sheets restored flexural strength values nearly equal to or lower than those of the reference slabs, the retrofitted slabs exhibited larger deflection than the control slabs at ultimate loads. Retrofitted control slabs after loading regained about 93.95% to 97.92% of their original load capacity
(before retrofitting) while the other slabs regained from 42.% to 84% of the load capacity of the original control specimens. Most of the tested slabs failed by concrete crushing at mid span and partial debonding of certain retrofitting systems was also observed for a few cases
The use of blended cement in concrete provides economic, energy savings, and ecological benefits, and also provides. Improvement in the properties of materials incorporating blended cements. The major aim of this investigation is to develop blended cement technology using grinded local rocks . The research includes information on constituent materials, manufacturing processes and performance characteristics of blended cements made with replacement (10 and 20) % of grinded local rocks (limestone, quartzite and porcelinite) from cement.
The main conclusion of this study was that all ty
... Show MoreReactive Powder Concrete (RPC) could be considered as the furthermost significant modern high compressive strength concrete. In this study, an experimental investigation on the impact of micro steel fiber volume fraction ratio and gamma ray irradiation duration influence upon the compressive strength of RPC is presented. Three volume fraction ratios (0.0, 1.0 and 1.5) % was implemented. For each percentage of the adopted fiber ratios, six different irradiation duration was considered; these are (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6) days. Gamma source (Cs-137) of energy (0.662) MeV and activity (6) mci was used. In a case of zero volume fraction ratio, the experimental results showed that gamma ray had a significant influence on the reducing of the
... Show MoreThis paper is devoted to investigate the effect of internal curing technique on the properties of self-compacting concrete. In this study, self-compacting concrete is produced by using limestone powder as partial replacement by weight of cement with percentage of (5%), sand is partially replaced by volume with saturated fine lightweight aggregate which is thermostone aggregate as internal curing material in three percentages of (5%, 10%, 15%) for self-compacting concrete, and the use of two external curing conditions which are water and air. The experimental work was divided into three parts: in the first part, the workability tests of fresh self-compacting concrete were conducted. The second part included conducting compressive str
... Show MoreThe objective of this research work is to evaluate the quality of central concrete plant of Al-Rasheed Company by using Six Sigma approach which is a measure of quality that strives for near elimination of defects using the statistical methods to improve outputs that are critical to customers. The fundamental objective of Six Sigma methodology is the implementation of a measurement-based strategy that focuses on process improvement and variation reduction to reach delighting customers, and then suggesting an improvement system to improve the production of concrete in Al-Rasheed State Contracting Construction Company.
A field survey includes two parts (open and close questionnaire) that aimed to get the data and information required f
his study aimed to investigate the usability of Recycled Concrete Aggregate (RCA) in warm mix asphalt (WMA) as the implementation of sustainable construction technology. Five replacement rates (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%) were tested for the coarse fraction of virgin aggregate (VA) with 3 types of RCA: untreated RCA, HL-treated RCA, and HCL-treated RCA. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses were performed to investigate the surface morphology for both treated and untreated RCA. The optimum asphalt cement content for every substitution rate was determined using Marshall mix design method. Thereafter, asphalt concrete specimens were prepared using the optimum asphalt cement content, followed by the evaluation of their performance prope
... Show MoreStraight tendons in pretensioned members can cause high-tensile stresses in the concrete extreme fibers at end sections because of the absence of the bending stresses due to self-weight and superimposed loads and the dominance of the moment due to prestressing force alone. Accordingly, the concrete tensile stresses at the ends of a member prestressed with straight tendons may limit the service load capacity of the member. It is therefore important to establish limiting zone in the concrete section within which the prestressing force can be applied without causing tension in the extreme concrete fibers. Two practical methods are available to reduce the stresses at the end sections due to the prestressing force. The first method based
... Show MoreThe durability of asphalt concrete is highly dependent on the geometry and mineralogy of coarse aggregates, yet their combined influence on mechanical and moisture resistance properties is still not fully understood. This study evaluates the effects of coarse aggregate geometry, specifically flat and elongated particle ratios and angularity, as well as mineral composition (quartz versus calcite), on asphalt mixture durability. The durability of mixtures was evaluated through Marshall properties as well as moisture susceptibility indicators, including the tensile strength ratio (TSR) and index of retained strength (IRS). Statistical analyses (ANOVA and t-tests) were also conducted to confirm the significance of the observed effects.
... Show MoreOver the last few decades, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) has been increasingly used in strengthening different structural concrete members. The main objective of this research is to study the influence of curvature on the performance of curved soffit reinforced concrete (RC) bridge girders that have been strengthened with carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRP). This experimental program was designed to evaluate the effect of concavity and soffit curvature on the CFRP laminate utilization and load capacity, compared to flat soffit RC beams strengthened with the same CFRP system. Accordingly, five beams, 2.7 m in length and having the same degree of soffit curvature (20 mm per 1 meter
Slurry-infiltrated fibrous concrete (SIFCON) is a special type of concrete that has great strength, as well as high ductility. However, the unit weight is high, which exceeds the unit weight of fiber-reinforced concrete, because of the high fiber content. This research aims to verify the compressive and flexural strength, as well as the density of SIFCON when using two different fibers (steel and polyolefin). Sometimes mono type of fiber steel or polyolefin, sometimes by hybridizing two types of fiber steel + polyplefin. Volume fraction (6% for all species) was used. Hook-end steel fiber and polyolefin fiber are used. With hybridization, a total volume fraction of 6% was used, which