Before deciding if structures exposed to high temperature are to be repaired or demolished, their final state should be carefully examined. Destructive and non-destructive testing methods are generally applied for this purpose. Compressive strength and color change in mortars are observed as a result of the effects of high temperature. In this study, ordinary and pozzolan-added mortar samples were produced using different aggregates, and exposed to 100, 200, 300, 600, 900 and $1200^{\circ}C$. The samples were divided into two groups and cooled to room temperature in water and air separately. Compression tests were carried out on these samples, and the color change was evaluated by the Munsell Color System. The relationships between the change in compressive strength and color of mortars were determined by using a multi-layered feed-forward Neural Network model trained with the back-propagation algorithm. The results showed that providing accurate estimates of compressive strength by using the color components and ultrasonic pulse velocity design parameters were possible using the approach adopted in this study.

Although concrete is believed to be a durable material, concrete structures have been degraded by severe environmental conditions such as the effects of chloride and chemical, abrasion, and other deterioration processes. Therefore, durability evaluation has been required to ensure the long term serviceability of structures located in chloride exposed environments. Recently, probability-based durability analysis and design have proven to be reliable for the service-life predictions of concrete structures. This approach has been successfully applied to durability estimation and design of concrete structures. However, currently it is difficult to find an appropriate method engineers can use to solve these probability-based diffusion problems. In this paper, computer software has been developed to facilitate probability-based durability analysis and design. This software predict the chloride diffusion using the Monte Carlo simulation method based on Fick's second law, and provides durability analysis and design solutions. A graphic user interface (GUI) is adapted for intuitive and easy use. The developed software is very useful not only for prediction of the service life but for the durability design of the concrete structures exposed to chloride environments.

This paper describes the development of a fiber reinforced concrete (FRC) unit cell for analyzing concrete structures by executing a multiscale analysis procedure using the theory of homogenization. This was achieved through solving a periodic unit cell problem of the material in order to evaluate its macroscopic properties. Our research describes the creation of an FRC unit cell through the use of concrete paste generic information e.g. the percentage of aggregates, their distribution, and the percentage of fibers in the concrete. The algorithm presented manipulates the percentage and distribution of these aggregates along with fiber weight to create a finite element unit cell model of the FRC which can be used in a multiscale analysis of concrete structures.

The Finite Element Method (FEM) was employed to demonstrate that accurate simulations of seismically repaired and retrofitted reinforced concrete shear walls can be achieved provided a good analysis program with comprehensive models for material and structural behaviour is used. Furthermore, the analysis tool should have the capability to retain residual damage experienced by the original structure and carry it forward in the repaired and retrofitted structure. The focus herein is to provide quick, simple, but reliable modelling procedures for repair and retrofitting strategies such as concrete replacement, addition of diagonal reinforcing bars, bolting of external steel plates, and bonding of external steel plates and fibre reinforced polymer sheets, thus illustrating versatility in the modelling. Slender, squat, and slender-squat shear walls were investigated. The modelling utilized simple rectangular membrane elements for the concrete, truss bar elements for the steel and FRP retrofitting materials, and bond-link elements for the bonding interface between steel or FRP to concrete. The analyses satisfactorily simulated seismic behaviour, including lateral load capacity, displacement capacity, energy dissipation, hysteretic response, and failure mode.

The signal-based acoustic emission (AE) characterization of concrete fracture process utilizing home-programmed AE monitoring system was performed for three kinds of static loading tests (Cubic-splitting, Direct-shear and Pull-out). Each test was carried out to induce a distinct fracture mode of concrete. Apart from monitoring and recording the corresponding fracture process of concrete, various methods were utilized to distinguish the characteristics of detected AE waveform to interpret the information of fracture behavior of AE sources (i.e. micro-cracks of concrete). Further, more signal-based characters of AE in different stages were analyzed and compared in this study. This research focused on the relationship between AE signal characteristics and fracture processes of concrete. Thereafter, the mode of concrete fracture could be represented in terms of AE signal characteristics. By using cement-based piezoelectric composite sensors, the AE signals could be detected and collected with better sensitivity and minimized waveform distortion, which made the characterization of AE during concrete fracture process feasible. The continuous wavelet analysis technique was employed to analyze the wave-front of AE and figure out the frequency region of the P-wave & S-wave. Defined RA (rising amplitude), AF (average frequency) and P-wave & S-wave importance index were also introduced to study the characters of AE from concrete fracture. It was found that the characters of AE signals detected during monitoring could be used as an indication of the cracking behavior of concrete.

This paper studied the cement efficiency factor (k factor) of high calcium Class F fly ash. This k factor represents a unit of fly ash with efficiency equivalent to k unit of cement. The high calcium Class F fly ash was used to replace cement in concrete. The modified Bolomey's law with linear relationship was used for the analysis of the result of compressive strength, cement to water ratio (c/w) and fly ash to water ratio (f/w) by using the multi-linear regression to determine the k factor and other constants in the equations. The results of analysis were compared with the results from other researcher and showed that the k factor of high calcium Class F fly ash depends on the fineness of fly ash, replacement level and curing age. While the amount of CaO content in Class F fly ash not evident. Furthermore, necessary criteria and variables for the determination of the k factor including the use of the k factor in concrete mix design containing fly ash were proposed.

With respect to rehabilitation, strengthening and retrofitting of existing and deteriorated columns in buildings and bridges, CFRP sheets have been found effective in enhancing the performance of existing RC columns by wrapping and bonding CFRP sheets externally around the concrete. Concrete columns and piers that are confined by both lateral steel reinforcement and CFRP are sometimes referred to as "hybrid" concrete columns. With the availability of experimental data on concrete columns confined by steel reinforcement and/or CFRP, the study presents modeling using artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the compressive strength of hybrid circular RC columns. The prediction of the ultimate confined compressive strength of RC columns is very important especially when this value is used in estimating the capacity of structures. The present ANN model used as parameters for the confining materials the lateral steel ratio (${\rho}_s$) and the FRP volumetric ratio (${\rho}_{FRP}$). The model gave good predictions for three types of confined columns: (a) columns confined with steel reinforcement only, (b) CFRP confined columns, and (c) hybrid columns confined by both steel and CFRP. The model may be used for predicting the compressive strength of existing circular RC columns confined with steel only that will be strengthened or retrofitted using CFRP.