Metal Plate Shear Walls (MPSWs) represent an effective, practical and economical system for the seismic protection of existing RC framed buildings. They consist of one or more metallic thin plates, bolted or welded to a stiff steel frame, which are installed in the bays of RC framed structures. A case study of an existing RC residential 5-storey building, designed between the ‘60s and ‘70s of t...

In this paper, results from full-scale tests on a corrugated soil-steel flexible culvert for railway traffic are presented. The bridge was instrumented with strain gauges, accelerometers and displacement gauges, measuring the response from passing trains. The aim of the measurement campaign was to gain knowledge of the dynamic behaviour due to train induced vibrations, both of the bridge struct...

Piezoelectric wafer active sensors (PWAS) are well known for its dual capabilities in structural health monitoring, acting as either actuators or sensors. Due to the variety of deterioration sources and locations of bridge defects, there is currently no single method that can detect and address the potential sources globally. In our research, our use of the PWAS based sensing has the novelty of...

FOREWORD Salt-induced reinforcing steel corrosion in concrete bridges has undoubtedly become a considerable economic burden to many State and local transportation agencies. Since the iron in the steel has a natural tendency to revert eventually to its most stable oxide state, this problem will, unfortunately, still be with us, but to a much lesser degree due to the use of various corrosion prot...

Fatigue cracking is one of the most prominent causes mechanical failure limiting service life existing steel and composite steel–concrete bridges among central concerns structural bridge engineers. In this context, current work presents some recent advancements in an methodology for fatigue analysis developed by authors throughout years. The specifically devoted to assessment employing local ho...

This paper presents the field testing results of an autonomous manipulator-based robotic system that strips the paint and rust from steel bridges [Liu et al., 2008]. The key components of this system are sensing and planning, which have been presented in other research papers. The grit-blasting field trial presented in this paper spanned 6 weeks, and included 20 hours over 4.5 days of actual gr...

The adequacy of the existing design provisions for concrete-filled steel pipes subjected to axial forces and flexure is reviewed by comparing the strengths predicted by the CAN/CSA-S16.1-M94, AISC LRFD 1994, and the Eurocode 4 1994 codes and standards against experimental data from a number of investigators. New proposed design equations are then developed, in a format compatible with North Ame...