• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제86권4호
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• pp.473-486
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• 2023

Nowadays, urban centers are increasingly vertical, making architects and engineers look for more efficient tools to analyze the effects of wind on tall buildings. Topology optimization can be used as an efficient tool for the design of bracing systems. Therefore, this work obtained the wind loads that act in the CAARC building, following the Brazilian standard NBR 6123/1988 and using Computational Fluid Dynamics. Four loading situations were considered, using the SIMP and BESO methods to optimize two-dimensional structures. A comparison between the SIMP and BESO methods is presented, showing the differences in the geometry of the solution found by both methods, the percentage variation in the objective function values and the dimensionless processing time. The solutions obtained through the loads obtained by the Brazilian standard are also compared with the numerical solutions obtained by CFD. The results show that the BESO method presented more rigid structures compared to the SIMP method. The bracing structures obtained with the SIMP method always present similar patterns in the distribution and quantity of bars, in contrast to the BESO method where no characteristic topology pattern was observed. It was concluded that even though the structures obtained by the BESO method presented greater stiffness, the SIMP method was less susceptible to the methodology used for the determination of wind loads. Additionally, it was evident the great potential that the combination topology optimization and computational wind engineering have in the design of bracing systems of high functional and aesthetic standards.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제86권4호
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• pp.547-571
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• 2023

To deeply probe the actual earthquake level and fragility of typical reinforced concrete (RC) structures under multiple intensity grades, considering diachronic measurement building stock samples and actual observations of representative catastrophic earth shocks in China from 1990 to 2010, RC structures were divided into traditional RC structures (TRCs) and bottom reinforced concrete frame seismic wall masonry (BFM) structures, and the empirical damage characteristics and mechanisms were analysed. A great deal of statistics and induction were developed on the historical experience investigation data of 59 typical catastrophic earthquakes in 9 provinces of China. The database and fragility matrix prediction model were established with TRCs of 4,122.5284×104 m² and 5,844 buildings and BFMs of 5,872 buildings as empirical seismic damage samples. By employing the methods of structural damage probability and statistics, nonlinear prediction of seismic vulnerability, and numerical and applied functional analysis, the comparison matrix of actual fragility probability prediction of TRC and BFM in multiple intensity regions under the latest version of China's macrointensity standard was established. A novel nonlinear regression prediction model of seismic vulnerability was proposed, and prediction models considering the seismic damage ratio and transcendental probability parameters were constructed. The time-varying vulnerability comparative model of the sample database was developed according to the different periods of multiple earthquakes. The new calculation method of the average fragility prediction index (AFPI) matrix parameter model has been proposed to predict the seismic fragility of an areal RC structure.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제14권6호
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• pp.507-519
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• 2023

Postsurgical infections are caused by implant-related pathogenic microorganisms that lead to graft rejection. Hence, an intrinsically antibacterial material is required to produce a biocompatible biomaterial with osteogenic properties that could address this major issue. Hence, this current research aims to make strontium-doped hydroxyapatite nanorods (SrHANRs) via an ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA)-enable microwave mediated method using Anodontia alba seashells for biomedical applications. This investigation also perceives that EDTA acts as a soft template to accomplish Sr-doping and mesoporous structures in pure hydroxyapatite nanorods (HANRs). The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis reveals the crystalline and mesoporous structures, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) indicates the surface area of all the samples, including pure HANRs and doped HANRs. In addition, the biocidal ability was tested using various implant-related infectious bacteria pathogens, and it was discovered that Sr-doped HANRs have excellent biocidal properties. Furthermore, toxicity evaluation using zebrafish reports the non-toxic nature of the produced HANRs. Incorporating Sr²⁺ ions into the HAp lattice would enhance biocompatibility, biocidal activity, and osteoconductive properties. As a result, the biocompatible HANRs materials synthesized with Sr-dopants may be effective in bone regeneration and antibacterial in-built implant applications.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제14권5호
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• pp.435-442
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• 2023

Sports activities, including playing tennis, are popular with many people. As this industry has become more professionalized, investors and those involved in sports are sure to pay attention to any tool that improves athletes' performance Tennis requires perfect coordination between hands, eyes, and the whole body. Consequently, to perform long-term sports, athletes must have enough muscle strength, flexibility, and endurance. Tennis rackets with new frames were manufactured because tennis players' performance depends on their rackets. These rackets are distinguished by their lighter weight. Composite rackets are available in many types, most of which are made from the latest composite materials. During physical exercise with a tennis racket, nanocomposite materials have a significant effect on reducing injuries. Materials as strong as graphite and thermoplastic can be used to produce these composites that include both fiber and filament. Polyamide is a thermoplastic typically used in composites as a matrix. In today's manufacturing process, materials are made more flexible, structurally more vital, and lighter. This paper discusses the production, testing, and structural analysis of a new polyamide/Multi-walled carbon nanotube nanocomposite. This polyamide can be a suitable substitute for other composite materials in the tennis racket frame. By compression polymerization, polyamide was synthesized. The functionalization of Multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) was achieved using sulfuric acid and nitric acid, followed by ultrasonic preparation of nanocomposite materials with weight percentages of 5, 10, and 15. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) confirmed a synthesized nanocomposite structure. Nanocomposites were tested for thermal resistance using the simultaneous thermal analysis (DTA-TG) method. scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis was used to determine pores' size, structure, and surface area. An X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) analysis was used to determine their amorphous nature.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.59-65
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• 2023

In this present article, the mechanical behavior of single-walled black phosphorene nanotubes (SW-αPNTs) is simulated using molecular dynamics (MD). The proposed model is subjected to the axial loading and the effects of morphological parameters, such as the mono-vacancy defect and strain rate on the tensile behavior of the zigzag and armchair SW-αPNTs are studied as a pioneering work. In order to assess the accuracy of the MD simulations, the stress-strain response of the current MD model is successfully verified with the efficient quantum mechanical approach of the density functional theory (DFT). Along with reproducing the DFT results, the accurate MD simulations successfully anticipate a significant variation in the stress-strain curve of the zigzag SW-αPNTs, namely the knick point. Predicting such mechanical behavior of SW-αPNTs may be an important design factor for lithium-ion batteries, supercapacitors, and energy storage devices. The simulations show that the ultimate stress is increased by increasing the diameter of the pristine SW-αPNTs. The trend is identical for the ultimate strain and stress-strain slope as the diameter of the pristine zigzag SW-αPNTs enlarges. The obtained results denote that by increasing the strain rate, the ultimate stress/ultimate strain are respectively increased/declined. The stress-strain slope keeps increasing as the strain rate grows. It is worth noting that the existence of mono-atomic vacancy defects in the (12,0) zigzag and (0,10) armchair SW-αPNT structures leads to a drop in the tensile strength by amounts of 11.1% and 12.5%, respectively. Also, the ultimate strain is considerably altered by mono-atomic vacancy defects.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• 제85권4호
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• pp.469-484
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• 2023

A deep recursive bidirectional Cuda Deep Neural Network Long Short Term Memory (Bi-CuDNNLSTM) layer is recruited in this paper to predict the entire force time histories, and the corresponding hysteresis and backbone curves of reinforced concrete (RC) bridge piers using experimental fast and slow cyclic tests. The proposed stacked Bi-CuDNNLSTM layers involve multiple uncertain input variables, including horizontal actuator displacements, vertical actuators axial loads, the effective height of the bridge pier, the moment of inertia, and mass. The functional application programming interface in the Keras Python library is utilized to develop a deep learning model considering all the above various input attributes. To have a robust and reliable prediction, the dataset for both the fast and slow cyclic tests is split into three mutually exclusive subsets of training, validation, and testing (unseen). The whole datasets include 17 RC bridge piers tested experimentally ten for fast and seven for slow cyclic tests. The results bring to light that the mean absolute error, as a loss function, is monotonically decreased to zero for both the training and validation datasets after 5000 epochs, and a high level of correlation is observed between the predicted and the experimentally measured values of the force time histories for all the datasets, more than 90%. It can be concluded that the maximum mean of the normalized error, obtained through Box-Whisker plot and Gaussian distribution of normalized error, associated with unseen data is about 10% and 3% for the fast and slow cyclic tests, respectively. In recapitulation, it brings to an end that the stacked Bi-CuDNNLSTM layer implemented in this study has a myriad of benefits in reducing the time and experimental costs for conducting new fast and slow cyclic tests in the future and results in a fast and accurate insight into hysteretic behavior of bridge piers.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제12권1호
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• pp.25-35
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• 2022

Within the framework of the density functional theory combined with the method of non-equilibrium Green's functions (DFT + NEGF), the features of electron transport in fullerene nanojunctions, which are «core-shell» nanoobjects made of a combination of fullerenes of different diameters C₂₀, C₈₀, C₁₈₀, placed between gold electrodes (in a nanogap), are studied. Their transmission spectra, the density of state, current-voltage characteristics and differential conductivity are determined. It was shown that in the energy range of -0.45-0.45 eV in the transmission spectrum of the "Au-C₁₈₀-Au" nanojunction appears a HOMO-LUMO gap with a width of 0.9 eV; when small-sized fullerenes C₂₀, C₈₀ are intercalation into the cavity C₁₈₀ the gap disappears, and a series of resonant structures are observed on their spectra. It has been established that distinct Coulomb steps appear on the current-voltage characteristics of the "Au-C₁₈₀-Au" nanojunction, but on the current-voltage characteristics "Au-C₈₀@C₁₈₀-Au", "Au-(C₂₀@C₈₀)@C₁₈₀-Au" these step structures are blurred due to a decrease in Coulomb energy. An increase in the number of Coulomb features on the dI/dV spectra of core-shell fullerene nanojunctions was revealed in comparison with nanojunctions based on fullerene C₆₀, which makes it possible to create high-speed single-electron devices on their basis. Models of single-electron transistors (SET) based on fullerene nanojunctions "Au-C₁₈₀-Au", "Au-C₈₀@C₁₈₀-Au" and "Au-(C₂₀@C₈₀)@C₁₈₀-Au" are considered. Their charge stability diagrams are analyzed and it is shown that SET based on C₈₀@C₁₈₀-, (C₂₀@C₈₀)@C₁₈₀- nanojunctions is output from the Coulomb blockade mode with the lowest drain-to-source voltage.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제45권2호
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• pp.205-218
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• 2022

Proper calculation of splitting tensile strength (STS) of concrete has been a crucial task, due to the wide use of concrete in the construction sector. Following many recent studies that have proposed various predictive models for this aim, this study suggests and tests the functionality of three hybrid models in predicting the STS from the characteristics of the mixture components including cement compressive strength, cement tensile strength, curing age, the maximum size of the crushed stone, stone powder content, sand fine modulus, water to binder ratio, and the ratio of sand. A multi-layer perceptron (MLP) neural network incorporates invasive weed optimization (IWO), cuttlefish optimization algorithm (CFOA), and electrostatic discharge algorithm (ESDA) which are among the newest optimization techniques. A dataset from the earlier literature is used for exploring and extrapolating the STS behavior. The results acquired from several accuracy criteria demonstrated a nice learning capability for all three hybrid models viz. IWO-MLP, CFOA-MLP, and ESDA-MLP. Also in the prediction phase, the prediction products were in a promising agreement (above 88%) with experimental results. However, a comparative look revealed the ESDA-MLP as the most accurate predictor. Considering mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) index, the error of ESDA-MLP was 9.05%, while the corresponding value for IWO-MLP and CFOA-MLP was 9.17 and 13.97%, respectively. Since the combination of MLP and ESDA can be an effective tool for optimizing the concrete mixture toward a desirable STS, the last part of this study is dedicated to extracting a predictive formula from this model.

• Advances in nano research
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• 제13권4호
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• pp.325-339
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• 2022

Endophytes ascertain a symbiotic relationship with plants as promoters of growth, defense mechanism etc. This study is a first report to screen the endophytic population in Waltheria indica, a tropical medicinal plant. 5 bacterial and 3 fungal strains in leaves, 3 bacterial and 1 yeast species in stems were differentiated morphologically and identified by biochemical and molecular methods. The phylogenetic tree of the isolated endophytes was constructed using MEGA X. Silver nanoparticles were biosynthesized from a rare endophytic bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans isolated from the leaf of W. indica. The formation of silver nanoparticles was confirmed by UV-Visible spectrophotometer that evidenced a strong absorption band at 408.5 nm of UV-Visible range with crystalline nature and average particle size of 16.4 nm by Particle size analyzer. The Fourier Transform Infra-Red spectrum displayed the presence of various functional groups that stabilized the nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction peaks were conferred to face centered cubic structure. Transmission Electron Microscope and Scanning Electron Microscope revealed the spherical-shaped, polycrystalline nature with the presence of elemental silver analyzed by Energy Dispersive of X-Ray spectrum. Selected area electron diffraction also confirmed the orientation of AgNPs at 111, 200, 220, 311 planes similar to X-ray diffraction analysis. The synthesized nanoparticles are evaluated for antimicrobial activity against 7 bacterial and 3 fungal pathogens. A good zone of inhibition was observed against pathogenic bacteria than fungal pathogens. Thus the study could hold a key aspect in drug discovery research and other pharmacological conducts of human clinical conditions.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• 제30권5호
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• pp.545-556
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• 2022

Through the examination of literatures, electronic commerce is a subject which is accepted in enterprises to define e-commerce adoption, trends, and issues that are assisting and obstructing its efficacy. E-commerce offers numerous advantages to consumer satisfaction in any place and helps the company to get a competitive benefit over its competitors. The Internet has expanded the scope of business. Many business information is available by the global network that supports information gathering between organizations, businesses and their clients, while various divisions of a business is increasing at an exponential rate. Meanwhile, there are a few barriers to proper e-commerce usage and adoption, such as reliable internet connections, poor e-commerce supporting infrastructures, logistics systems presenting socio-regulatory and poor transportation barriers and demonstrating the significant improvement of e-commerce reliable and affordable Internet provisions, i.e., Internet cost, intensity, and reasonable level of e-readiness. The operational and strategic significance of information-based virtual value chains for all organizations cannot be emphasized. As a consequence, this study confirms worldwide market elements of e-commerce, such as its issues, benefits, relevance, scope, facilitators and projects prospective obstacles in a developing economy.