In this paper, deck models of a cable stayed bridge are generated in ABAQUS-finite element program once using only CFD model (one-way fluid-structure interaction) and another by using both the CFD model and the CSD model together (two-way fluid-structure interaction) in a co-simulation. Shedding frequencies for the associated wind velocities in the lock-in region are calculated in both approaches. The results are validated with Simiu and Scanlan results. The lift and drag coefficients are determined for the two approaches and the latter results are validated with the flat plate theory results by Munson and coauthors. A decrease in the critical wind velocity and the shedding frequencies considering two-way approach was determined compared to those obtained in the one-way approach. The results of the lift and drag forces in the two-way approach showed appreciable decrease in their values. It was concluded that the two-way approach predicts earlier vortex induced vibration for lower critical wind velocities and lock-in phenomena will appear at lower natural frequencies of the long span bridges. This helps the designers to efficiently plan and consider for the design and safety of the long span bridge against this type of vibration.

Pervious concrete systems are developing stormwater management technologies which also have wintertime benefits as melting snow may percolate into the system instead of refreezing on the surface. Enhancing the surface microtexture of pervious concrete may also be beneficial in preventing icing or slipping by pedestrians. This research explored different surface treatments on pervious concrete specimens both qualitatively from personal judgements, and quantitatively through static friction measurements with a spring balance with respect to “slipperiness”. The tests were performed on both dry and wet specimens. One aim was to determine whether the spring balance method may be a simple test for comparing surface treatments on pavement samples with little surface area such as laboratory specimens or sidewalk sections. The other purpose was to make a preliminary decision of which surface treatments to use for a sidewalk installation for future studies on wintertime performance. The reliability analysis of the spring balance results showed that there was high operator consistency. In addition, there was a high level of consistency on average results between the quantitative and qualitative methods. This implies that the spring balance test may be an acceptable methodology for comparative analyses with respect to static friction.

This paper is categorized into two parts. (1) A frame work to design the aircraft wing structure and (2) analysis of a morphing airfoil with auxetic structure. The developed design frame work in the first part is used to arrive at the sizes of the various components of an aircraft wing structure. The strength based design is adopted, where the design loads are extracted from the aerodynamic loads. The aerodynamic loads acting on a wing structure are converted to equivalent distributed loads, which are further converted point loads to arrive at the shear forces, bending and twisting moments along the wing span. Based on the estimated shear forces, bending and twisting moments, the strength based design is employed to estimate the sizes of various sections of a composite wing structure. A three dimensional numerical model of the composite wing structure has been developed and analyzed for the extreme load conditions. Glass fiber reinforced plastic material is used in the numerical analysis. The estimated natural frequencies are observed to be in the acceptable limits. Furthermore, the discussed design principles in the first part are extended to the design of a morphing airfoil with auxetic structure. The advantages of the morphing airfoil with auxetic structure are (i) larger displacement with limited straining of the components and (ii) unique deformation characteristics, which produce a theoretical in-plane Poisson’s ratio of −1. Aluminum Alloy AL6061-T651 is considered in the design of all the structural elements. The compliance characteristics of the airfoil are investigated through a numerical model. The numerical results are observed to be in close agreement with the experimental results in the literature.

A triangular web profile (TriWP) is a modified section where the flanges are connected to a web plate of triangular profile. This study examined the torsional behavior of TriWP steel sections and compared to that of the flat web (FW) steel sections. Three types of specimen sizes were used: 180 mm × 75 mm × 5 mm × 2 mm, 200 mm × 100 mm × 8 mm × 6 mm, and 200 mm × 100 mm × 6 mm × 5 mm. All the specimens were loaded vertically until the maximum load was achieved and then the load was released. For both types of specimens, it was observed that the torsional rotation for bigger size [200 mm × 100 mm × 8 mm × 6 mm] were smaller than that of smaller size [180 mm × 75 mm × 5 mm × 2 mm] of the specimens. At the maximum torsional loading, the experimental result was compared to the theoretical calculation. The comparison showed that the percentage difference ranged from 1.10% to 16.80%. From the graph of torsional load versus rotational angle, the torsional rotation for all TriWP steel sections were smaller than that of the FW steel section under the same torsional loading i.e., 0.2 kNm and 1 kNm. The range between FW and TriWP were 3.74 to 71.83 at 0.2 kNm while 14.5 to 75.1 at 1.0 kNm. The findings were shown that the TriWP steel sections had better resistance against torsion in comparison to FW steel section.

Performance of concrete structures is significantly influenced and governed by its durability and resistance to environmental or exposure conditions, apart from its physical strength. It can be monitored, evaluated and predicted through modeling of physical deterioration mechanisms, performance characteristics and parameters and condition monitoring of in situ concrete structures. One such study has been conducted using Non-destructive testing equipment in the city of Bhopal and around located in India. Some selected parameters influencing durability of reinforced concrete (RC) structures such as concrete cover, carbonation depth, chloride concentration, half cell potential and compressive strength have been measured, for establishing correlation among various parameters and age of structures. Effects of concrete cover and compressive strength over the variation of chloride content with time are also investigated.

Numerical modeling of hydraulic phenomenon by computational fluid dynamic (CFD) approaches is one of the main parts in the high cost hydraulic structure studies. In this paper, using Flow 3D as CFD commercial tool, the cavitation phenomenon was assessed along spillway's flip bucket of the Balaroud dam. Performance of numerical modeling was compared to the physical model, which was constructed to this purpose. During numerical modeling, it was found that RNG turbulence model is a suitable performance for modeling the cavitation. Physical modeling shows that minimum cavitation index is about 0.85 and minimum cavitation index based on Flow 3D results is about 0.665, which was related to the flood discharge with return period of 10000 years. The main difference between numerical and physical modeling is related to the head of velocity, which is considered in physical modeling. Results of numerical simulation show that occurrence of cavitation based on cavitation index equal to 0.25 is not possible along the spillway.

The advanced design rules and the latest known earthquakes, have imposed a strengthening of reinforced concrete structures. Many research works and practical achievements of the application of the external reinforcement by using FRP composite materials have been particularly developed in the recent years. This type of strengthening seems promising for the seismic reinforcement of buildings. Among of the components of structures that could affect the stability of the structure in case of an earthquake is the reinforced concrete walls, which require in many cases a strengthening, especially in case where the diagonal cracks can be developed. The intent of this paper is to present a numerical simulation of squat reinforced concrete wall strengthened by FRP composite material (carbon fiber epoxy). The intent of this study is to perform finite element model to investigate the effects of such reinforcement in the squat reinforced concrete walls. Taking advantage of a commercial finite element package ABAQUS code, three-dimensional numerical simulations were performed, addressing the parameters associated with the squat reinforced concrete walls. An elasto-plastic damage model material is used for concrete, for steel, an elastic-plastic behavior is adopted, and the FRP composite is considered unidirectional and orthotropic. The obtained results in terms of displacements, stresses, damage illustrate clearly the importance of this strengthening strategy.

The relationship between the convexity on the ultimate bearing surface of a structure and the second-order effects of loads is discussed. All of generalized non-overload forces acted on a structure forms a convex set when ignoring the second-order effects (coupling effects between the generalized forces). It is true also when the Hessian matrix composed of the second-order partial derivatives on the hypersurface about the ultimate bearing of the structure is negative definite. The outward convexity is kept when the surface is expressed by certain dimensionless parameters. A series of properties based on the convexity are pointed out. Some applications in the analysis of bearing capacity of structures were illustrated with examples. The study shows that an evaluation about the bearing capacity state of a complex structure can be made on the basis of several points on the surface of the ultimate bearing of the structure.

Dynamic reliability is a very important issue in reliability research. The dynamic reliability analysis for the project is still in search of domestic and international research in the exploration stage. By now, dynamic reliability research mainly concentrates on the reliability assessment; the methods mainly include dynamic fault tree, extension of event sequence diagram and Monte Carlo simulation, and et al. The paper aims to research the dynamic reliability optimization. On the basis of analysis of the four quality influence factors in the construction engineering, a method based on gray correlation degree is employed to calculate the weights of factors affecting construction process quality. Then the weights are added into the reliability improvement feasible index (RIFI). Furthermore, a novel nonlinear programming mathematic optimization model is established. In the Insight software environment, the Adaptive Simulated Annealing (ASA) algorithm is used to get a more accurate construction subsystem optimal reliability under different RIFI conditions. In addition, the relationship between construction quality and construction system reliability is analyzed, the proposed methods and detailed processing can offer a useful reference for improving the construction system quality level.

In this article, multi-objective optimization of braced frames is investigated using a novel hybrid algorithm. Initially, the applied evolutionary algorithms, ant colony optimization (ACO) and genetic algorithm (GA) are reviewed, followed by developing the hybrid method. A dynamic hybridization of GA and ACO is proposed as a novel hybrid method which does not appear in the literature for optimal design of steel braced frames. Not only the cross section of the beams, columns and braces are considered to be the design variables, but also the topologies of the braces are taken into account as additional design variables. The hybrid algorithm explores the whole design space for optimum solutions. Weight and maximum displacement of the structure are employed as the objective functions for multi-objective optimal design. Subsequently, using the weighted sum method (WSM), the two objective problem are converted to a single objective optimization problem and the proposed hybrid genetic ant colony algorithm (HGAC) is developed for optimal design. Assuming different combination for weight coefficients, a trade-off between the two objectives are obtained in the numerical example section. To make the final decision easier for designers, related constraint is applied to obtain practical topologies. The achieved results show the capability of HGAC to find optimal topologies and sections for the elements.

The shaking table model test was conducted to investigate earthquake resistant behavior of stone columns under the intensity of an earthquake resistance of buildings is VIII. The test results show that when acceleration is less than 0.20 g, composite foundation is not liquefied, settlement is also small and pile dislocation is not observed; when acceleration is 0.3g, ground outside embankment’s slope toe is liquefied and ground within stone column composite foundation is not. It is suggesting that reinforcement scale of stone column foundation should be widened properly. The designed stone column composite foundation meets the requirements for seismic resistance.

The research on the mechanism of pile-soil-cap-goaf interaction and settlement of high-speed railway bridge located in mined-out area is still relatively rare. By taking the pile group of Guanshandi bridge foundation in Hefei-Fuzhou high-speed railway as the prototype, a model test is carried out. According to the similarity theory, the similar constant is derived and the similar model material is determined. Meanwhile, three types of data including the bearing behavior of piles, and the settlement law, and soil among piles are investigated. It can be found that: the influence of goaf on the bearing capacity of pile is inversely to the loading degree, the larger of loading degree, the smaller impact of goaf on the bearing capacity. There is no negative side friction can been found in pile body and the degree of downward tendency for the barycenter of side friction layout is obvious for piles in goaf. Although the bearing ratio of soil resistance under cap is relatively large, the cap effect is suggested be ignored considering the characteristic of goaf. There is a maximum critical value for the uneven settlement of pile group in goaf, and when the value is reached, the uneven settlement stop growing anymore. In addition, the formula for calculating bearing capacity and settlement of pile group in goaf based on test results, theory analysis and related standard is established.

In open-ended piles, inner friction is developed between inner pile shaft and the inner soil. Inner frictional resistance depends largely on the degree of soil plugging, which is influenced by many factors including pile diameter, relative density and end conditions of piles. In this paper, effects of inner sleeves on inner frictional resistance are discussed. The experiments were conducted on a medium-dense sandy ground using laboratory-scale piles. It was observed that the piles penetrated under partially-plugged or unplugged state. The results suggest that inner frictional resistance, Q_in increases with sleeve height, l linearly and requires 2D (D is pile outer diameter) of l to produce a large as 50% of Q_t by Q_in (Q_t is total resistance). The results also indicate that bearing capacity increases with wall thickness at the pile tip, which can be attributed to the increase in annular area. The results also indicate that soil plug height is independent of sleeve height. The results also reveal that the penetration of straight piles is closer to unplugged state than the sleeved piles. The results of incremental filling ratio and plug length ratio also indicate that the degree of soil plugging is affected by the sleeve height.