• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.123-130
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• 2013

In the past two decades, researchers from different countries have conducted series of experimental and theoretical studies to investigate the behaviour of structures in fire. Many new insights, data and calculation methods have been reported, which form the basis for modern interdisciplinary structural fire engineering. Some of those methods are now adopted in quantitative performance-based codes and have been migrated into practice. Mainly based on the achievements in structural fire research at China, the Chinese national code for fire safety of steel structures in buildings has been drafted and approved, and will be released in this year. The code is developed to prevent steel structures subjected to fire from collapsing, ensure safe evacuation of building occupants, and reduce the cost for repairing the damages of the structure caused by fire. This paper presents the main contents of the code, which includes the fire duration requirements of structural components, fundamental requirements on fire safety design of steel components, temperature increasing of atmosphere and structural components in fire, loading effect and capacity of various components in fire, and procedure for fire-resistant check and design of steel components. The analytical approaches employed in the code and their validation works are also presented.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.776-783
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• 2019

Laser welding is usually a more effective method than electron-beam one since a vacuum chamber is not required. It is important for joining Zr-1%Nb (E110) alloy in a manufacturing process of nuclear fuel rods. In the present work, effect of energy parameters of pulsed laser welding on properties of butt joints of sheets with a thickness of 0.5 mm is investigated. The most efficient combination has been found (8-11 J pulse energy, 10-14 ms pulse duration, 780-810 W peak pulse power, 3 Hz pulse frequency, 1.12 mm/s welding speed). The results show that ultimate strength under static loading can not be used as a quality criterion for zirconium alloys welds. Increased shielding gas flow rate does not allow to protect weld metal totally and contributes to defect formation without using special nozzles. Several types of imperfections of the welds have been found, but the major problem is branching microcracks on the surface of the welds. It is difficult to identify the cause of their appearance without additional research on improving the welding zone protection (gas composition and flow rate as well as nozzle configuration) and studying the hydrogen content in the welds.

• Journal of odor and indoor environment
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.396-403
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• 2018

In this study, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from printing industries were analyzed, and an inorganic adsorbent, ${\gamma}-alumina$, was selected for the effective control of the VOC emissions. Printing processes commonly require inks, thinners, and cleaners, and they were mixed organic solvents containing aromatic compounds, ketones, and alcohols. Therefore, toluene, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK), and isopropyl alcohol (IPA) were selected as model compounds for this study. The adsorptive properties using ${\gamma}-alumina$ were determined for the model compounds. Both batch isotherm and continuous flow column tests demonstrated that the adsorption capacity of MEK and IPA was 3~4 times higher than that of toluene. The column test performed at an inlet toluene concentration of 100 ppm showed that an 80% breakthrough for toluene was observed after 3 hours, but both MEK and IPA were continuously adsorbed during the same time period. A numerical model simulated that the ${\gamma}-alumina$ could remove toluene at a loading rate of 0.4 mg/min only for a 4-hour period, which might be too short of a duration for real applications. Consequently, lifetime enhancement for ${\gamma}-alumina$ must be implemented, and ozone oxidation and regeneration would be feasible options.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.203-215
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• 2021

Current industrial practices and approaches are simplified and do not describe the actual behavior of plated elements of offshore topside structures for safety design due to fires. Therefore, it is better to make up for the defective methods with integrated fire safety design methods based on fire resistance characteristics such as residual strength capacity. This study numerically investigates the residual strength of steel stiffened panels exposed to hydrocarbon jet fire. A series of nonlinear finite element analyses (FEAs) were carried out with varying probabilistic selected exposures in terms of the jet fire location, side, area, and duration. These were used to assess the effects of exposed fire on the residual strength of a steel stiffened panel on a ship-shaped offshore structure. A probabilistic approach with a feasible fire location was used to determine credible fire scenarios in association with thermal structural responses. Heat transfer analysis was performed to obtain the steel temperature, and then the residual strength was obtained for the credible fire scenarios under compressive axial loading using nonlinear FEA code. The results were used to derive closed-form expressions to predict the residual strength of steel stiffened panels with various exposure to jet fire characteristics. The results could be used to assess the sustainability of structures at risk of exposure to fire accidents in offshore installations.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.14 no.11
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• pp.4372-4394
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• 2020

The distribution of popular videos incurs a large amount of traffic at the base stations (BS) of networks. Device-to-multi-device (D2MD) communication has emerged an efficient radio access technology for offloading BS traffic in recent years. However, traditional studies have focused on synchronous user requests whereas asynchronous user requests are more common. Hence, offloading BS traffic in case of asynchronous user requests while considering their time-varying characteristics and the quality of experience (QoE) of video request users (VRUs) is a pressing problem. This paper uses social stability (SS) and video loading duration (VLD)-tolerant property to group VRUs and seed users (SUs) to offload BS traffic. We define the average amount of data transmission (AADT) to measure the network's capacity for offloading BS traffic. Based on this, we formulate a time-varying bipartite graph matching optimization problem. We decouple the problem into two subproblems which can be solved separately in terms of time and space. Then, we propose the socially aware D2MD user selection (SA-D2MD-S) algorithm based on finite horizon optimal stopping theory, and propose the SA-D2MD user matching (SA-D2MD-M) algorithm to solve the two subproblems. The results of simulations show that our algorithms outperform prevalent algorithms.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.41 no.5
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• pp.731-746
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• 2021

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the axial bearing capacity and residual properties of steel reinforced recycled aggregate concrete (SRC) column after elevated temperature. A total of 48 SRC columns were designed for the static loading test after elevated temperature. The variables include replacement ratios, designed temperature, target duration, thicknesses of cover concrete, steel ratios and stirrup spacing. From this test, the mass loss ratio and stress load-deformation curve were obtained, and the influence of various parameters on residual bearing capacity were analyzed. ABAQUS was used to calculate the temperature field of specimens, and then got temperature damage distribution on the cross-section concrete. It was shown that increasing of the elevated temperatures leaded to the change of concrete color from smoky-gray to grayish brown and results in reducing the bearing capacity of SRC columns. The axial damage and mechanism of SRC columns were similar to those of reinforced natural aggregate concrete columns at the same temperatures. Finally, the calculation method of axial compressive residual bearing capacity of SRC columns recycled concrete columns after high temperature was reported based on the test results and finite element analysis.

• Medical Lasers
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.28-31
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• 2019

Superficial fungal infections with dermatophytes, nondermatophyte molds, or yeasts are treated primarily with topical and/or systemic antifungal agents. Additional or alternative treatment modalities, particularly energy-delivering modalities, however, are used widely to induce fungicidal effects via selective photothermal reactions. In addition to light- or laser-based devices, plasma therapy also has antifungal properties. This report describes a Korean male patient with mycologically confirmed tinea pedis that was treated effectively with two sessions of nitrogen plasma treatment at one-week intervals using a plasma delivering system. Nitrogen plasma was prepared by loading a 0.28-ml inert nitrogen gas/pulse that was activated by a microwave generator. The other treatment settings were a nozzle diameter of 5 mm, pulse energy of 0.75 J, pulse duration of 7 msec, and two passes. One week after the first session of nitrogen plasma treatment, the patient exhibited marked reductions in scale and inflammation. One month after the final treatment, no clinical features of recurrence were found, and successive potassium hydroxide testing revealed negative results.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.371-382
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• 2023

Box girder bridges are now widely used in bridge construction, and it is necessary to perform load rating regularly to evaluate the load capacity of box girder bridges. Load testing is a common measure for load rating. However, the bridge must be loaded by many trucks under different loading conditions, which is time-consuming and laborious. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a load rating method for box girder bridges based on rapid moving loads testing. The method includes three steps. First, the quasi-influence factors of the bridge are obtained by crossing the bridge with rapidly moving loads, and the structural modal parameters are simultaneously obtained from the dynamic data to supplement. Second, an objective function is constructed, consisting of the quasi-influence factors at several measurement points and structural modal parameters. The finite element model for load rating is then updated based on the Rosenbrock method. Third, on this basis, a load rating method is proposed using the updated model. The load rating method proposed in this paper can considerably reduce the time duration of traditional static load testing and effectively utilize the dynamic and static properties of box girder bridges to obtain an accurate finite element model. The load capacity obtained based on the updated model can avoid the inconsistency of the evaluation results for the different structural members using the adjustment factors specified in codes.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.503-517
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• 2023

Standard Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) approaches are based on pattern matching between two reconstructed volumes acquired at different stages. Such frameworks are limited by the number of scans (due to acquisition duration), and time-dependent phenomena can generally not be captured. Projection-based Digital Volume Correlation (P-DVC) measures displacement fields from series of 2D radiographs acquired at different angles and loadings, thus resulting in richer temporal sampling (compared to standard DVC). The sought displacement field is decomposed over a basis of separated variables, namely, temporal and spatial modes. This study utilizes an alternative route in which spatial modes are con-structed via scan-wise DVC, and thus only the temporal amplitudes are sought via P-DVC. This meth-od is applied to a glass fiber mat reinforced polymer specimen containing a machined notch, subjected to in-situ cyclic tension, and imaged via X-Ray Computed Tomography. Different temporal interpolations are exploited. It is shown that utilizing only one DVC displacement field (as spatial mode) was sufficient to properly capture the complex kinematics up to specimen failure.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.91 no.2
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• pp.135-147
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• 2024

The objective of this study is to analyze, using the finite element method, the durability of damaged and repaired structures under the effect of mechanical loading coupled with environmental conditions (water absorption and/or temperature). The study is based on the hybrid patch repair technique, considering several parameters based on the J integral to observe the behavior of the adhesive in transferring load from a damaged plate to the repair patch. The results clearly show that water absorption and increased temperature cause degradation of the mechanical properties of the adhesive, leading to an increase in its plasticization, which is beneficial for the assembly's strength. However, the degradation of the adhesive's properties due to aging in the repair results in poor load transfer from the damaged area to the patch. The findings of this study allowed the authors to conclude that the [0°]8 sequence consistently offers the best performance, with the lowest J integral values and superior crack resistance. The lowest the J integral for the [0°]8 stacking sequence is typically 3-7% lower than that of the [0/-45/45/90]S and [0/-45/90/45]S sequences at elevated temperatures. At 60℃, the J integral increases by approximately 3-6% compared to 40℃ and 20, depending on the aging duration and stacking sequences.