• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.337-349
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• 2024

The growing quantity of tires and building trash piling up in landfills poses a serious threat to the stability of the ecosystem. Researchers are exploring ways to reduce and use such byproducts of the construction industry in an effort to promote greener building practices. Thus, using recycled crumb rubber from scrap tires in concrete manufacturing is important for the industry's long-term viability. This study examines the proportion of waste rubber in fiber form, specifically at weight percentages of 5%, 10%, and 15%. Moreover, the study examines the shear behavior of reinforced concrete beams. A total of twelve RC beam specimens, each sized 100 mm by 150 mm by 1000 mm (w × d × L), were constructed and positioned to the test. Various mixtures were designed with different levels of scrap tire rubber content (0%, 5%, 10%, and 15%) and Stirrup Vol. Ratio (2.10, 2.80, and 3.53) in reinforced concrete beams. The findings indicate that the inclusion of scrap rubber in concrete leads to a decrease in both the mechanical characteristics and weight of the material. This is mostly attributed to the lower strength and stiffness of the rubberized concrete. Furthermore, estimations generated by a variety of design codes were examined alongside the obtained data. In order to make a comparison between the estimates provided by the different codes such as ACI 318-14, CEB-FIB and Iranian national building codes, a calculation was done to determine the ratio of the experimental shear strength to the anticipated shear strength for each code.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.351-361
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• 2024

Accurate measurement of K_IC values for gas pipeline steels is important for assessing pipe safety using failure assessment diagrams. As direct measurement of K_IC was impossible for the API X70 pipeline steel, multi-specimen fracture tests were conducted to measure J_IC using three-point bend geometry. The J values were calculated from load-displacement (F-δ) plots, and the associated crack extensions were measured from the fracture surface of test specimens. Valid data points were found for the constructed J-Δa plot resulting in J_IC=356kN/m. More data points were added analytically to the J-Δa plot to increase the number of data points without performing additional experiments for different J-Δa zones where test data was unavailable. Consequently, displacement (δ) and crack-growth (Δa) from multi-specimen tests (with small displacements) were used simultaneously, resulting in the variation of Δa-δ (crack growth law) and δ-Δa obtained for this steel. For new Δa values, corresponding δ values were first calculated from δ-Δa. Then, corresponding J values for the obtained δ values were calculated from the area under the F-δ record of a full-fractured specimen (with large displacement). Given Δa and J values for new data points, the developed J-Δa plot with extra data points yielded a satisfactory estimation of J_IC=345kN/m with only a -3.1% error. This is promising and showed that the developed technique could ease the estimation of J_IC significantly and reduce the time and cost of expensive extra fracture toughness tests.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.689-706
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• 2024

This study is aimed at identifying structural element stiffness influence on vertical earthquake response of mid-rise R/C frame buildings. To this aim, a mid-rise RC building structure is designed as per the new Turkish Seismic Code for Buildings-2018, and 3D FE model of the building is established. Based on the established FE model, a total number of six buildings are considered depending on certain percentage increase in beam, slab, and column. The time-history response analyses (THA) are performed separately for only horizontal (H) and horizontal +vertical (H+V) earthquake motions to make a comparison between the load cases. The analysis results are presented comparatively in terms of the monitoring parameters of the base overturning moment (M_o), the top-story lateral displacement (d_L) and the top-story vertical displacement (d_V). The obtained results reveal that the base overturning moment and the top-story vertical displacement are affected by vertical earthquake motion regardless of the increase in the dimension of beam, slab, and column. However, vertical earthquake motion is not effective on the top-story lateral displacement due to no change between H and H+V load. The dimensional increase in either slab or beam leads to a considerable increase in the base overturning moment and the top-story vertical displacement while causing decrease in the top-story lateral displacement. In addition, the dimensional increase in column has a positive effect on the decrease in the monitoring parameters of the base overturning moment (M_o), the top-story lateral displacement (d_L) and the top-story vertical displacement (d_V).

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.391-406
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• 2024

The present research investigates the combination resonance behaviors of porous FG shallow shells reinforced with oblique stiffeners and subjected to a two-term excitation. The oblique stiffeners considered in this research reinforce the shell internally and externally. To model the stiffeners, Lekhnitskii's smeared stiffeners technique is utilized. According to the first-order shear deformation theory (FSDT) and stress functions, a nonlinear model of the oblique stiffened shallow shell is established. With regard to the FSDT and von-Kármán nonlinear geometric assumptions, the stress-strain relationships for the present shell system are developed. Also, in order to discretize the nonlinear governing equations, the Galerkin method is implemented. To obtain the required relations for investigating the combination resonance theoretically, the method of multiple scales is applied. For verifying the results of the present research, generated results are compared with previous research. Additionally, a comparison with the P-T method is conducted to increase the validity of the generated results, as this method has illustrated advantages over other numerical methods in terms of accuracy and reliability. In this method, the piecewise constant argument is used jointly with the Taylor series expansion, which is why it is named the P-T method. The effects of stiffeners with different angles, and the effects of material parameters on the combination resonance behaviors of the present system are addressed. With the findings of this research, researchers and engineers in this field may use them as benchmarks for their design and research of porous FG shallow shells.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.707-724
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• 2024

This paper proposes a study of cement replacement with rice husk ash (RHA) and eggshell ash (ESA) for enhanced mechanical properties of geopolymer (GP) concrete with and without admixture. The main objective is to investigate the mechanical properties of GP with various replacement levels of Pozzolana Portland cement by RHA and ESA. The GP resistance to durability is examined and impact of ash materials on concrete's durability performance is determined. The environmental benefits of using agricultural waste materials in GP manufacturing minimize cement usage and CO2 emissions. The goal is to assess value of RHA-ESA of building material, paving stones for structures to lessen environmental impact. The novelty lies in use of ESA and RHA as partial replacements for cement and investigation of admixtures to enhance concrete properties, and reduce environmental impact. The research contributes by introducing a novel approach to reducing cement consumption by using ESA and RHA to address environmental concerns. It also explores the potential benefits of admixtures improving concrete performance and reducing environmental pollution. A study is carried with and without impacts of admixture to find compressive strength of GP cubes. The cement has been replaced by RHA and ESA in the range of (2.5%+7.5%, 5%+5%, 7.5%+2.5) by weight of cement for M20 mix. The compressive strength (CS) and split tensile strength (STS) at 7days, 14 days and 28 days is obtained as 21 N/mm2 at 7.5%RHA+2.5%ESA and 2.3 at 7.5%RHA+2.5%ESA, 24 N/mm2 at 7.5%RHA+2.5%ESA and 2.3 at 7.5%RHA+2.5%ESA, 28 N/mm2 at 7.5%RHA+2.5%ESA and 2.8 at 7.5%ESA respectively with normal curing condition.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.431-441
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• 2024

A newly developed line-style sand pluviator has been calibrated to prepare repeatable sand specimens of specific statuses of compactness and homogeneity for laboratory tests. Sand is falling via a bottom slot of a fixed hopper, and by moving the sample container under the slot, the container is evenly filled with sand. The pluviator is designed with high flexibility: The falling height of sand, the hopper's opening width and the relative moving speed between the hopper and the sample box can be easily adjusted. By changing these control factors, sand specimens of a wide range of densities can be prepared. A series of specimen preparation was performed using the coarse Merwede River sand. Performance of the pluviator was systematically evaluated by exploring the alteration of achievable density, as well as checking the homogeneity and fabric of the prepared samples by CT scanning. It was found that the density of prepared coarse sand samples has monotonic correlations with none of the three control factors. Furthermore, CT scanning results suggested that the prepared samples exhibited excellent homogeneity in the horizontal direction but periodical alteration of density in the vertical direction. Based on these calibration test results, a preliminary hypothesis is proposed to describe the general working principles of this type of pluviators a priori, illustrating the mechanisms dominating the non-monotonic correlations between control factors and the relative density as well as the vertically prevalent heterogeneity of specimens. Accordingly, practical recommendations are made in a unified framework in order to lessen the load of similar calibration work.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.441-456
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• 2024

This paper aims to develop Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to predict the buckling resistance of cold-formed steel (CFS) channels with restrained flanges, widely used in typical CFS sheathed wall panels, and provide practical design tools for engineers. The effects of cross-sectional restraints were first evaluated on the elastic buckling behaviour of CFS channels subjected to pure axial compressive load or bending moment. Feedforward multi-layer Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) were then trained on different datasets comprising CFS channels with various dimensions and properties, plate thicknesses, and restraining conditions on one or two flanges, while the elastic distortional buckling resistance of the elements were determined according to the Finite Strip Method (FSM). To develop less biased networks and ensure that every observation from the original dataset has the chance of appearing in the training and test set, a K-fold cross-validation technique was implemented. In addition, the hyperparameters of the ANNs were tuned using a grid search technique to provide ANNs with optimum performances. The results demonstrated that the trained ANNs were able to predict the elastic distortional buckling resistance of CFS flange-restrained elements with an average accuracy of 99% in terms of coefficient of determination. The developed models were then used to propose a simple ANN-based design formula for the prediction of the elastic distortional buckling stress of CFS flange-restrained elements. Finally, the proposed formula was further evaluated on a separate set of unseen data to ensure its accuracy for practical applications.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.453-465
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• 2024

This paper presents a logarithmic shear deformation theory to study the thermal buckling response of power-law FG one-dimensional structures in thermal conditions with different boundary conditions. It is assumed that the functionally graded material and thermal properties are supposed to vary smoothly according to a contentious function across the vertical direction of the beams. A P-FG type function is employed to describe the volume fraction of material and thermal properties of the graded (1D) beam. The Ritz model is employed to solve the thermal buckling problems in immovable boundary conditions. The outcomes of the stability analysis of FG beams with temperature-dependent and independent properties are presented. The effects of the thermal loading are considered with three forms of rising: nonlinear, linear and uniform. Numerical results are obtained employing the present logarithmic theory and are verified by comparisons with the other models to check the accuracy of the developed theory. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the effects of various parameters on the critical thermal stability of P-FG beams. These parameters included support type, temperature fields, material distributions, side-to-thickness ratios, and temperature dependency.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.475-498
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• 2024

The prediction of the susceptibility of soil to liquefaction using a limited set of parameters, particularly when dealing with highly unbalanced databases is a challenging problem. The current study focuses on different ensemble learning classification algorithms using highly unbalanced databases of results from in-situ tests; standard penetration test (SPT), shear wave velocity (V_s) test, and cone penetration test (CPT). The input parameters for these datasets consist of earthquake intensity parameters, strong ground motion parameters, and in-situ soil testing parameters. liquefaction index serving as the binary output parameter. After a rigorous comparison with existing literature, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), bagging, and random forest (RF) emerge as the most efficient models for liquefaction instance classification across different datasets. Notably, for SPT and V_s-based models, XGBoost exhibits superior performance, followed by Light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM) and Bagging, while for CPT-based models, Bagging ranks highest, followed by Gradient boosting and random forest, with CPT-based models demonstrating lower G_mean(error), rendering them preferable for soil liquefaction susceptibility prediction. Key parameters influencing model performance include internal friction angle of soil (ϕ) and percentage of fines less than 75 µ (F₇₅) for SPT and V_s data and normalized average cone tip resistance (q_c) and peak horizontal ground acceleration (a_max) for CPT data. It was also observed that the addition of V_s measurement to SPT data increased the efficiency of the prediction in comparison to only SPT data. Furthermore, to enhance usability, a graphical user interface (GUI) for seamless classification operations based on provided input parameters was proposed.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.3
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• pp.243-260
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• 2024

Thirteen self-compacting recycled concrete filled aluminium tubular (SCRCFAT) columns were tested under concentric compression loads. The effects of the replacement ratio of the recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) and steel fibre (SF) reinforcement on the structural performance of the SCRCFAT columns were studied. A control specimen (C000) was cast with normal concrete without SF to be reference for comparison. Twelve columns were cast using RCA, six columns were cast using concrete incorporating 2% SF while the rest of columns were cast without SF. Failure mode, ductility, ultimate load capacity, axial deformation, ultimate strains, stress-strain response, and stiffness of the SCRCFAT columns were studied. The results showed that, the peak load of tested SCRCFAT columns incorporating 5-100 % RCA without SF reduced by 2.33-11.28 % compared to that of C000. Conversely, the peak load of tested SCRCFAT columns incorporating 5-100% RCA in addition to 2% SF increased by 21.1-40.25%, compared to C000. Consequently, the ultimate axial deformation (Δ) of column C100 (RCA=100% and SF 0%) increased by about 118.9 % compared to C000. The addition of 2% SF to the concrete mix decreased the axial deformation of SCRCFAT columns compared to those cast with 0% SF. Moreover, the stiffness of the columns cast without SF decreased as the RCA % increased. In contrast, the columns stiffness cast with 2% SF increased by 26.28-89.7 % over that of C000. Finally, a theoretical model was proposed to predict the ultimate loads tested SCRCFAT columns and the obtained theoretical results agreed well with the experimental results.