Strengthening of reinforced concrete beams using externally bonded CFRP laminate is the most popular choice. However, premature end peeling of CFRP laminate has been shown to be the main weakness of this method. Development of high shear and normal stresses at the end of strengthening laminate is the key reason to cause end peeling which is not preventable by conventional anchoring system. This...

We consider survivable network design problems under a two-stage stochastic model with recourse and finitely many scenarios (SSNDP). We propose two new cut-based formulations for SSNDP based on orientation properties and show that they are stronger than the undirected cut-based model. We use a two-stage branch&cut algorithm for solving the decomposed model to provable optimality. In order to ac...

Infilled walls are the major non-structural elements which have significant effects on the seismic behavior of structures. The shape and strength of the brick elements are the main parameters affect the strength of the walls. In addition existence of openings may have a reduction effect. To increase the strength of the wall and to improve its behavior, the borders of the openings may be strengt...

We prove a version of the quantum de Finetti theorem: permutation-invariant quantum states are well approximated as a probabilistic mixture of multifold product states. The approximation is measured by distinguishability under measurements that are implementable by fully-one-way local operations and classical communication (LOCC). Our result strengthens Brandão and Harrow's de Finetti theorem w...

An orthogonal drawing of a plane graph G is a planar drawing of G, denoted by D(G), such that each vertex of G is drawn as a point on the plane, and each edge of G is drawn as a sequence of horizontal and vertical line segments with no crossings. An orthogonal polygon P is called orthogonally convex if the intersection of any horizontal or vertical line L and P is either a single line segment o...

The conventional strengthening strategy on the connection between the steel pile cap and reinforced concrete footing requires a series of complicated processes such as the distribution of reinforcing bars, their anchorage into concrete, and the usage of shear keys. This study investigates the structural performance of steel pile caps strengthened with newly proposed perfobond shear connectors s...

Reinforced concrete (RC) beams may require flexural strengthening due to the corrosion of reinforcing bars or changes in design load. The near surface mounted (NSM) and externally bonded (EB) techniques, using either glass carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP CFRP) composites, are used for deficient RC beams. However, strengthened with both techniques susceptible debonding failure FRP composit...