Eighteen (18) (120×300×2200 mm) beams were prepared and tested to evaluate the shear strength of Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) beams with no shear reinforcement, and evaluate the effectiveness of various innovative strengthening systems to increase the shear capacity of the GFRC beams. The test variables are the amount of discrete glass fiber (0.0, 0.6, and 1.2% by volume of concrete) and the type of longitudinal reinforcement bars (steel or GFRP), the strengthening systems (externally bonded (EB) sheet, side near-surface mounted (SNSM) bars, or the two together), strengthening material (GFRP or steel) links, different configurations of NSM GFRP bars (side bonded links, full wrapped stirrups, side C-shaped stirrups, and side bent bars), link spacing, link inclination angle, and the number of bent bars. The experimental results showed that adding the discrete glass fiber to the concrete by 0.6%, and 1.2% enhanced the shear strength by 18.5% and 28%, respectively in addition to enhancing the ductility. The results testified the efficiency of different strengthening systems, where it is enhanced the shear capacity by a ratio of 28.4% to 120%, and that is a significant improvement. Providing SNSM bent bars with strips as a new strengthening technique exhibited better shear performance in terms of crack propagation, and improved shear capacity and ductility compared to other strengthening techniques. Based on the experimental shear behavior, an analytical study, which allows the estimation of the shear capacity of the strengthened beams, was proposed, the results of the experimental and analytical study were comparable by a ratio of 0.91 to 1.15.

Constitutive modeling that could reasonably predict and effectively evaluate the post-peak structural behavior while eliminating the mesh-dependency in numerical simulation remains to be developed for general engineering applications. Based on the previous work, a simple one-dimensional modeling procedure is proposed to predict and evaluate the post-peak response, as characterized by the evolution of localized strain field, of a steel member to monotonically uniaxial tension. The proposed model extends the classic one-dimensional softening with localization model as introduced by (Schreyer and Chen 1986) to account for the localization length, and bifurcation and rupture points. The new findings of this research are as follows. Two types of strain-softening functions (bilinear and nonlinear) are proposed for comparison. The new failure criterion corresponding to the constitutive modeling is formulated based on the engineering strain inside the localization zone at rupture. Furthermore, a new mathematical expression is developed, based on the strain rate inside and outside the localization zone, to describe the displacement field at which bifurcation occurs. The model solutions are compared with the experimental data on four low-carbon cylindrical steel bars of different lengths. For engineering applications, the model solutions are also compared to the experimental data of a cylindrical steel bar system (three steel bars arranged in series). It is shown that the bilinear and nonlinear softening models can predict the energy dissipation in the post-peak regime with an average difference of only 4%.

The present study deals with forced vibrations of an elastic circular plate supported along its circular edge by unilateral elastic springs. The plate is assumed to be subjected to a uniformly distributed and a concentrated load. Under the combination of these loads, equations of motion are explicitly derived for static and dynamic response analyses by assuming a series of the displacement functions of time and other unknown parameters which are to be determined by employing Lagrangian functional. The approximate solution is sought by applying the Lagrange equations of motions by using the potential energy of the external forces that includes the contributions of the edge forces and the external moments, i.e., those of the effects of the boundary condition to the analysis. For the numerical treatment of the problem in the time domain, the linear acceleration procedure is adopted. The tensionless character of the support is taken into account by using an iterative process and, the coordinate functions for the displacement field are selected to partially fulfill the boundary conditions so that an acceptable approximation can be achieved faster. Numerical results are presented in the figures focusing on the nonlinearity of the problem due to the plate lift-off from the unilateral springs at the edge support.

In this research, a numerical study has been provided for examining the nonlinear stability behaviors of sandwich beams having a cellular core and two face sheets made of nanocomposites. The nonlinear stability behaviors of the sandwich beam having geometrically perfect/imperfect shapes have been studied when it is subjected to a compressive buckling load. The nanocomposite face sheets are made of epoxy reinforced by graphene oxide powders (GOPs). Also, the core has the shape of a honeycomb with regular configuration. Using finite element method based on a higher-order deformation beam element, the system of equations of motions have been solved to derive the stability curves. Several parameters such as face sheet thickness, core wall thickness, graphene oxide amount and boundary conditions have remarkable influences on stability curves of geometrically perfect/imperfect sandwich beams.

This paper aims to study the fracture mechanism of rocks under the 'u'shape cutters considering the effects of crack (pre-existing crack) distances, crack spacing and crack inclination angles. The effects of loading rates on the rock fragmentation underneath these cutters have been also studied. For this purpose, nine experimental samples with dimensions of 5 cm×10 cm×10 cm consisting of the non-persistent cracks were prepared. The first three specimens' sets had one non-persistent crack (pre-existing crack) with a length of 2 cm and angularity of 0°, 45°, and 90°. The spacing between the crack and the "u" shape cutter was 2 cm. The second three specimens" set had one non-persistent crack with a length of 2 cm and angularity of 0°, 45°, and 90° but the spacing between pre-existing crack and the "u" shape cutter was 4 cm. The third three specimens'set has two non-persistent cracks with lengths of 2 cm and angularity of 0°, 45° and 90°. The spacing between the upper crack and the "u" shape cutter was 2 cm and the spacing between the lower crack and the upper crack was 2 cm. The samples were tested under a loading rate of 0.005 mm/s. concurrent with the experimental investigation. The numerical simulations were performed on the modeled samples with non-persistent cracks using PFC2D. These models were tested under three different loading rates of 0.005 mm/s, 0.01 mm/sec and 0.02 mm/sec. These results show that the crack number, crack spacing, crack angularity, and loading rate has important effects on the crack growth mechanism in the rocks underneath the "u" shape cutters. In addition, the failure modes and the fracture patterns in the experimental tests and numerical simulations are similar to one another showing the validity and accuracy of the current study.

The strength models for fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP)-confined normal strength concrete (NC) cylinders available in the literature have been suggested based on small databases using limited variables of such structural members portraying less accuracy. The artificial neural network (ANN) is an advanced technique for precisely predicting the response of composite structures by considering a large number of parameters. The main objective of the present investigation is to develop an ANN model for the axial strength of FRP-confined NC cylinders using various parameters to give the highest accuracy of the predictions. To secure this aim, a large experimental database of 313 FRP-confined NC cylinders has been constructed from previous research investigations. An evaluation of 33 different empirical strength models has been performed using various statistical parameters (root mean squared error RMSE, mean absolute error MAE, and coefficient of determination R²) over the developed database. Then, a new ANN model using the Group Method of Data Handling (GMDH) has been proposed based on the experimental database that portrayed the highest performance as compared with the previous models with R²=0.92, RMSE=0.27, and MAE=0.33. Therefore, the suggested ANN model can accurately capture the axial strength of FRP-confined NC cylinders that can be used for the further analysis and design of such members in the construction industry.

In this paper, a novel multi-feature model predictive control (MPC) framework with real-time and adaptive performances is proposed for intelligent structural control in which some drawbacks of the algorithm including, complex control rule and non-optimality, are alleviated. Hence, Linear Programming (LP) is utilized to simplify the resulted control rule. Afterward, the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) is applied to the optimal and adaptive tuning of the LP weights independently at each time step. The stochastic control rule is also achieved using Kalman Filter (KF) to handle noisy measurements. The Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) is then adopted to develop a data-driven and real-time control algorithm. The efficiency of the developed algorithm is then demonstrated by numerical simulation of a twenty-story high-rise benchmark building subjected to earthquake excitations. The competency of the proposed method is proven from the aspects of optimality, stochasticity, and adaptivity compared to the KF-based MPC (KMPC) and constrained MPC (CMPC) algorithms in vibration suppression of building structures. The average value for performance indices in the near-field and far-field (El earthquakes demonstrates a reduction up to 38.3% and 32.5% compared with KMPC and CMPC, respectively.

In this paper, the effect of fire conditions according to ISO 834 standard on the behavior of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) reinforced steel beams coated with gypsum-based mortar has been investigated numerically. To study the efficiency of these beams, 3D coupled temperature-displacement finite element analyzes have been conducted. Mechanical and thermal characteristics of three different parts of composite beams, i.e., steel, CFRP plate, and fireproof coating, were considered as a function of temperature. The interaction between steel and CFRP plate has been simulated employing the adhesion model. The effect of temperature, CFRP plate reinforcement, and the fireproof coating thickness on the deformation of the beams have been analyzed. The results showed that within the first 120 min of fire exposure, increasing the thickness of the fireproof coating from 1 mm to 10 mm reduced the maximum temperature of the outer surface of the steel beam from 380℃ to 270℃. This increase in the thickness of the fireproof layer decreased the rate of growth in the temperature of the steel beam by approximately 30%. Besides excellent thermal resistance and gypsum-based mortar, the studied fireproof coating method could provide better fire resistance for steel structures and thus can be applied to building materials.

This study aimed to evaluate the progressive collapse potential of buildings designed using conventional design codes for the merchant occupancy classification and subjected to a sudden column failure. For this purpose, three reinforced concrete buildings having different story numbers were designed according to the seismic design recommendations of TSCB-2019. Later on, the buildings were analyzed using the GSA-2016 and UFC 4-023-03 to observe their progressive collapse responses. Three columns were removed independently in the structures from different locations. Nonlinear dynamic analysis method for the alternate path direct design approach was implemented for the design evaluation. The plasticity of the structural members was simulated by using nonlinear fiber hinges. The moment, axial, and shear force interaction on the hinges was considered by the Modified Compression Field Theory. Moreover, an existing experimental study investigating the progressive collapse behavior of reinforced concrete structures was used to observe the validation of nonlinear fiber hinges and the applied analysis methodology. The study results deduce that a limited local collapse disproportionately more extensive than the initial failure was experienced on the buildings designed according to TSCB-2019. The mercantile structures designed according to current seismic codes require additional direct design considerations to improve their progressive collapse resistance against the risk of a sudden column loss.