• Current Research on Agriculture and Life Sciences
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• 제32권3호
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• pp.131-134
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• 2014

The thermal death kinetics of the Black timber bark beetle, Xylosandrus germanus, was investigated to develop a heat treatment for control of infested wood packing materials used to export goods. To determine the feasibility of microwave irradiation as an alternative control method, laboratory experiments irradiating wooden blocks of Douglas fir ($200{\times}200{\times}250mm$), which were artificially infested with adults, with 2.45 GHz of microwave energy. All (100%) Ambrosia beetle adults were killed by both hot water treatments and microwave irradiation at $52^{\circ}C$ and $58^{\circ}C$, respectively. Probit analyses estimated the internal wood temperature required to produce Probit (0.99) efficacy to be $64.7^{\circ}C$ (95% CI $62.4-69.9^{\circ}C$) at one minute after microwave treatment.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제34권2호
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• pp.171-188
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• 2020

The past research on cold-formed steel (CFS) flexural members have proved that rectangular hollow flanged sections perform better than conventional I-sections due to their higher torsional rigidity over the later ones. However, CFS members are vulnerable to local buckling, substantially due to their thin-walled features. The use of packing, such as firmly connected timber planks, to the flanges of conventional CFS lipped I-sections can drastically improve their flexural performance as well as structural efficiency. Whilst several CFS composites have been developed so far, only limited packing materials have been tried. This paper presents a series of tests carried out on different rectangular hollow compression flanged sections with innovative packing materials. Four-point flexural tests were carried out to assess the flexural capacity, failure modes and deformed shapes of the CFS composite beam specimens. The geometric imperfections were measured and reported. The North American Specifications and Indian Standard for cold-formed steel structures were used to compare the design strengths of the experimental specimen. The test results indicate clearly that CFS rectangular 'compression' flanged composite beams perform significantly better than the conventional rectangular hollow flanged CFS sections.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• 제27권5호
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• pp.545-554
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• 2018

This study presents a novel method of improving the strength and stiffness of cold-formed steel (CFS) beams. Flexural members are primary members in most of the structures. Hence, there is an urgent need in the CFS industry to look beyond the conventional CFS beam sections and develop novel techniques to address the severe local buckling problems that exist in CFS flexural members. The primary objective of this study was to develop new CFS composite beam sections with improved structural performance and economy. This paper presents an experimental study conducted on different CFS composite beams with simply supported end conditions under four point loading. Material properties and geometric imperfections of the models were measured. The test strengths of the models are compared with the design strengths predicted by using Australian/New Zealand Standard for cold-formed steel structures. Furthermore, to ensure high precision testing, a special testing rig was also developed for testing of long span beams. The description of test models, testing rig features and test results are presented here. For better interpretation of results, a comparison of the test results with a hot rolled section is also presented. The test results have shown that the proposed CFS composite beams are promising both in terms of better structural performance as well as economy.