• Advances in concrete construction
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.113-121
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• 2022

Polymers, particularly plastics, have been widely seen as an existential risk to the environment due to their contribution to pollution, carbon emissions and climate change. Many argue that it is possible to substantially ease the threat of plastics by engaging the public in reducing their use in day-to-day life and implementing efficient domestic waste management strategies. On the other hand, polymers and plastics in building and construction are considerably less problematic, if not attractive. In fact, the applications of polymers in construction have been continuously expanding. This is partly due to the developments made in this area being implemented within a sustainable development strategy. In this paper, the main applications of polymers in construction have been revisited and an overview of the research topics in each application has been briefly presented.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.695-713
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• 2008

The aim of this contribution is to present a new link/beam finite element suitable for electrothermo-structural analysis of uni-axially graded materials. Continuous polynomial variation of geometry and material properties will be considered. The element matrix and relations for solution of Joule's heat (and its distribution to the element nodes) have been established in the sense of a sequence method of a coupled problem solution. The expression for the solution of nodal forces caused by a continuously distributed temperature field has also been derived. The theoretical part of this contribution is completed by numerical validation, which proves the high accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed element. The results of the performed experiments are compared with those obtained using the more expensive multiphysical link element and solid element of the FEM program Ansys. The proposed finite element could be used not only in the multiphysical analysis of the current paths and actuators but also in analysis of other 1D construction parts made of composite or uni-axially graded materials.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.297-306
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• 1997

The bouncing of a cantilever with the free end pressed against a stop can create high-frequency vibration that the Bernoulli-Euler beam theory is inadequate to solve. An analytic procedure is presented using Timoshenko beam theory to obtain the non-linear response of a cantilever supported by an elastic stop with clearance at the free end. Through a numerical example, the bouncing behavior of the Timoshenko and Bernoulli-Euler beam models are compared and discussed.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.4 no.6
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• pp.717-729
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• 1996

This paper presents the concepts of Process Innovation and Concurrent Engineering in view of their use within Integrated CAD Systems. It follows by proposing process models that support an effective implementation. The work is practically founded on the authors' experience in performing the initial steps of implementation of some of such integrated systems for the construction industry.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.69-88
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• 2008

A number of construction practices, implemented during the design process of a reinforced concrete (RC) structural system, may have significant consequences on the behaviour of the structural system in the case of earthquake loading. Although a number of provisions are imposed by the contemporary Greek national design codes for the seismic design of RC structures, in order to reduce the consequences, the influence of the construction practices on the seismic behaviour of the structural system remains significant. The objective of this work is to perform a comparative study in order to examine the influence of three, often encountered, construction practices namely weak ground storey, short and floating columns and two combinations on the seismic performance of the structural system with respect to the structural capacity and the maximum interstorey drifts in three earthquake hazard levels.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.477-485
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• 2017

The structural designs of RC flat plates that have no flexural stiffness by boundary beams may be governed not by strength conditions but by serviceabilities. Specially, since over-loading and tensile cracking in early-aged slabs significantly increase the short- and long-term deflections of a flat plate system, a construction sequence and its impact on the slab deflections may be decisive factors in designs of flat plate systems. In this study, the procedure of simulating slab deflections with considering construction sequences, concrete cracking, and long-term effects is proposed. The proposed method is practically useful, as it can predict well the slab deflections at construction and service stages only with a few input data. The proposed method is verified by comparisons with measured results in a real-scale test.

• Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.1-12
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• 2014

Construction management has been suffering from many problems, which need to be solved or better understood. Most of construction projects have not achieved efficiency as expected. In this context, waste was also considered as a problem of efficiency decrease, and poor production planning was considered as a cause for waste. This study was conducted on the basis of waste concepts and production planning processes based on the philosophies of Lean Construction. A survey to find out the relationship between them was carried out through questionnaire, which was answered by experienced people in construction projects. The results have shown that frequency of wastes occurrence is quite high, and production planning processes are superficially performed in construction phase. There is a significant negative relationship between production planning and waste occurrence (r = -0.262). Weekly Work Plan (WWP) is the most dominant plan for waste control with seventeen in total of nineteen waste factors, and phase plan is the most dominant plan for two remaining waste factors. A case study was adopted to validate the relationship between production planning and waste occurrence. The results showed that the better the project was planned, the fewer the waste would occur on construction sites.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.81 no.2
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• pp.205-217
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• 2022

The thermodynamic properties of shaft lining concrete (SLC) are important evidence for the design and construction, and the spatial variability of concrete materials can directly affect the stochastic thermal analysis of the concrete structures. In this work, an array of field experiments of the concrete materials are carried out, and the statistical characteristics of thermophysical parameters of SLC are obtained. The coefficient of variation (COV) and scale of fluctuation (SOF) of uncertain thermophysical parameters are estimated. A three-dimensional (3-D) stochastic thermal model of concrete materials with heat conduction and hydration heat is proposed, and the uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are computed by the self-compiled program. Model validation with the experimental and numerical temperatures is also presented. According to the relationship between autocorrelation functions distance (ACD) and SOF for the five theoretical autocorrelation functions (ACFs), the effects of the ACF, COV and ACD of concrete materials on the uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are analyzed. The results show that the spatial variability of concrete materials is subsistent. The average temperatures and standard deviation (SD) of inner SLC are the lowest while the outer SLC is the highest. The effects of five 3-D ACFs of concrete materials on uncertain thermodynamic properties of SLC are insignificant. The larger the COV of concrete materials is, the larger the SD of SLC will be. On the contrary, the longer the ACD of concrete materials is, the smaller the SD of SLC will be. The SD of temperature of SLC increases first and then decreases. This study can provide a reliable reference for the thermodynamic properties of SLC considering spatial variability of concrete materials.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.103-113
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• 2023

This study focused on understanding the relationship between the design of a tunnel boring machine disc cutter ring and its rock-breaking efficiency, as well as the applicable conditions of different cutter ring types. The discrete element method was used to establish a numerical model of the rock-breaking process using disc cutters with different ring types to reveal the development of rock damage cracks and variation in cutter penetration load. The calculation results indicate that a sharp-edged (V-shaped) disc cutter penetrates a rock mass to a given depth with the lowest load, resulting in more intermediate cracks and few lateral cracks, which leads to difficulty in crack combination. Furthermore, the poor wear resistance of a conventional V-shaped cutter can lead to an exponential increase in the penetration load after cutter ring wear. In contrast, constant-cross-section (CCS) disc cutters have the highest quantity of crack extensions after penetrating rock, but also require the highest penetration loads. An arch-edged (U-shaped) disc cutter is more moderate than the aforementioned types with sufficient intermediate and lateral crack propagation after cutting into rock under a suitable penetration load. Additionally, we found that the cutter ring wedge angle and edge width heavily influence cutter rock-breaking efficiency and that a disc cutter with a 16 to 22 mm edge width and 20° to 30° wedge angle exhibits high performance. Compared to V-shaped and U-shaped cutters, the CCS cutter is more suitable for soft or medium-strength rocks, where the penetration load is relatively small. Additionally, two typical case studies were selected to verify that replacing a CCS cutter with a U-shaped or optimized V-shaped disc cutter can increase cutting efficiency when encountering hard rocks.

• Communications of the Korean Mathematical Society
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 1986