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This comprehensive treatise covers in detail practical methods of analysis as well as advanced mathematical models for structures highly sensitive to creep and shrinkage. Effective computational algorithms for century-long creep effects in structures, moisture diffusion and high temperature effects are presented. The main design codes and recommendations (including RILEM B3 and B4) are critically compared. Statistical uncertainty of century-long predictions is analyzed and its reduction by extrapolation is discussed, with emphasis on updating based on short-time tests and on long-term measurements on existing structures. Testing methods and the statistics of large randomly collected databases are critically appraised and improvements of predictions of multi-decade relaxation of prestressing steel, cyclic creep in bridges, cracking damage, etc., are demonstrated. Important research directions, such as nanomechanical and probabilistic modeling, are identified, and the need for separating the long-lasting autogenous shrinkage of modern concretes from the creep and drying shrinkage data and introducing it into practical prediction models is emphasized.All the results are derived mathematically and justified as much as possible by extensive test data. The theoretical background in linear viscoelasticity with aging is covered in detail. The didactic style makes the book suitable as a textbook. Everything is properly explained, step by step, with a wealth of application examples as well as simple illustrations of the basic phenomena which could alternate as homeworks or exams. The book is of interest to practicing engineers, researchers, educators and graduate students.

This book presents a critical review of a criterion of risk, created to assess the flood risk to heritage buildings, and evaluates this criterion by applying it to the sample Portuguese heritage buildings. In a first approach, the total number of potential parameters is effectively reduced and the selected criteria are divided into two different groups: the monument's location in relation to a waterway, and the behaviour of its construction material in contact with water.Above all, the book discusses the importance of architectural heritage and argues for the need to safeguard it from extreme climatic phenomena such as floods. As such, the book vividly reminds the scientific community that the intensification of the global warming and climate change will worsen throughout the 21st century, and that it is therefore necessary to adopt preventive measures to minimize, mitigate and control these adverse effects if we hope to avoid catastrophic consequences.At the same time, the book takes into account a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines, such as civil engineering and architecture, offering a synthesis of the current state of knowledge to benefit and guide experts and practitioners in related fields.

This book presents a critical review on the development and application of hygrothermal analysis methods to simulate the coupled transport processes of Heat, Air, and Moisture (HAM) transfer for one or multidimensional cases. During the past few decades there has been relevant development in this field of study and an increase in the professional use of tools that simulate some of the physical phenomena that are involved in Heat, Air and Moisture conditions in building components or elements. Although there is a significant amount of hygrothermal models referred in the literature, the vast majority of them are not easily available to the public outside the institutions where they were developed, which restricts the analysis of this book to only 14 hygrothermal modelling tools. The special features of this book are (a) a state-of-the-art of numerical simulation tools applied to building physics, (b) the boundary conditions importance, (c) the material properties, namely, experimental methods for the measurement of relevant transport properties, and (d) the numerical investigation and application The main benefit of the book is that it discusses all the topics related to numerical simulation tools in building components (including state-of-the-art and applications) and presents some of the most important theoretical and numerical developments in building physics, providing a self-contained major reference that is appealing to both the scientists and the engineers. At the same time, this book will be going to the encounter of a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines, such as civil and mechanical engineering, architecture, etc… The book is divided in several chapters that intend to be a resume of the current state of knowledge for benefit of professional colleagues.

This book contains results of more than a decade's effort on coupled deformation and diffusion obtained in research performed at the Institute of Fracture and Solid Mechanics, Lehigh University. Despite the overwhelming number of theories on this subject, little is known on the assessment of coupling effects because of the inherent difficulties associated with experimentation. A case in point is couple thermoelasticity, a theory that has remained virtually unused in practice. This is indicative of the inadequacy of conventional approaches. The interdependence of heat, moisture and deformation arises in many engineer­ ing problems of practical interest. Whether these effects are coupled or not depend on the transient character of the boundary conditions. Special attention is given to finding the coupling constants. Invoked is the assumption that the physical parameters should be independent of the specified boundary conditions. They can thus be extracted from known experimental data for situations where coupling effects are relatively weak and then applied to predict strong coupling effects as boundary conditions are altered. This is illustrated for the T300/5208 material commonly used in composites and permits a more reliable evaluation of material behaving under extreme environmental conditions. The lack of this knowledge can often be a major deterrent to the achievement of new technological advances. The reader will recognize that the material in this book does not follow the main stream of research on moisture-temperature diffusion and deformation.