Considering the effects of earthquakes occurred during the last 15 years, this article focusses on finding solutions to minimize the human and economic losses. Several methodologies were developed in order to assess the vulnerability of the built environment with special reference to one of the most suitable structural systems in seismic areas for dwellings, offices or other functionalities, wh...

Prefabricated modular housing structures have become a promising alternative to site-built structures with equal or higher engineering quality and durability. Major advantages of this technology are fast and cost-efficient construction, reduced labor requirements, and superior quality control due to factory production. The modular design of these prefabricated structures offers the opportunity ...

The Long-Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) database contains surface profile data for numerous pavements that are used mainly for computing International Roughness Index (IRI).(2) In order to obtain more information from these surface profiles, a Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) based surface profile algorithm was developed to analyze LTPP field road profile data in order to extract smoothed, consi...

This article evaluates and compares the punching shear behaviour of unbonded prestressed concrete (UPC) slab - concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) column connections/joints with that reinforced (RC) connection – CFT connections. The experimental program was carried out on five large-sized samples, including three UPC samples two RC samples. Steel plate details were utilised to increase bond betwee...

From among the several types of slabs, there is uncertainty about most cost-effective one for structures with short, medium, and long spans. A study comparing cost solid, flat, hollow block (HB), post-tensioned (PT) slabs 4, 6, 8m spans was conducted using SAFE software. For each span length, total quantities concrete steel bars were found compared 4 slabs. Then, bars, concrete, blocks, tendons...

The moisture and dimensional behaviors of a nail-laminated timber (NLT)–concrete slab composed an NLT–plywood composite topping concrete are monitored for 385 days. is developed using as flexural elements such floors. humidity control wood gently introduces significant fluctuations under the ambient relative into slab, in result changes. equilibrium content increases from 6.7% to 15.3% during m...

This paper presents a Cuckoo Optimization Algorithm (COA) model for the cost optimization of the one-way and two-way reinforced concrete (RC) slabs according to ACI code. The objective function is the total cost of the slabs including the cost of the concrete and that of the reinforcing steel. In this paper, One-way and two-way slabs with various end conditions are formulated as ACI code. The t...

The deteriorating national infrastructures demand improved non-destructive evaluation (NDE) methods for detection of defects which reduce the integrity of the structures. Vibration resonance tests offer an efficient NDE method to identify and characterize shallow (near surface) delamination defects in reinforced concrete slabs In this study, we compare the capability to visualize near surface d...

Concrete overlays on bridge decks are expected to be more durable as compared with the more common asphalt solution. Besides stresses due to traffic load and temperature variations at service, the overlays are exposed to stresses due to long term shrinkage. Of interest is to evaluate the concrete overlay due to the shrinkage induced stresses at the composite interface. Three strategies have bee...

Photon ambient dose equivalent buildup factors were calculated for point and plaque isotropic cobalt-60 and cesium-137 radioactive sources irradiating a finite slab shield materials of ordinary concrete, barite concrete, lead, lead glass and water using MCNP5 code. Studied shield thickness ranged from 1 to 15 mean free paths (mfp). A variance reduction technique available in the code was used t...