Search

The influence of various seismic parameters on the seismic performance of rectangular reinforced recycled concrete columns was comprehensively revealed through collecting and screening experimental data from 53 rectangular recycled aggregate concrete columns. The research results showed that the bearing capacity of the specimens decreased and the ductility performance increased, which were attributed to the following factors. a. The increase in the replacement ratio and slenderness ratio of recycled coarse aggregate, and b. the reduction in the axial compression ratio and the strength of recycled aggregate concrete. The seismic design limitations and boundary conditions of this study are γ ∈ [0, 100%], n0 ∈ [0, 0.9], λ0 ∈ [5.06, 18.479], λ ∈ [1.09, 3.93], ρsl ∈ [1.01%, 2.45%], ρsv ∈ [1.4%, 5.33%], and f ∈ [C30, C50]. Thus, it is recommended that for the seismic design value of rectangular recycled aggregate concrete columns, the optimal longitudinal reinforcement rate be set at 1.59%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the seismic behavior of a seismic-damaged double-deck viaduct frame pier (DVFP) strengthened with CFRP and enveloped steel, four strengthened DVFP specimens with different degrees of initial damage were tested under quasi-static cyclic loading. Based on the test results, the hysteretic behavior, the stiffness and strength degradation, crack propagation, and failure mechanism were firstly analyzed. Then, the damage indexes of the tested specimens were calculated with different models to evaluate the seismic strengthening performance. Results of this study show that CFRP and enveloped steel strengthening could effectively improve the strength and ductility of pre-damaged DVFPs. The ultimate load, the failure displacement and the displacement ductility of the moderately damaged specimen after being strengthened were found to increase by 120.74%, 35% and 32.33%, respectively. For the severely damaged specimens with CFRP and enveloped steel strengthening, the figures were 105.36%, 25.98% and 31.41%, respectively. The research results can provide reference for the hybrid strengthening application of seismic-damaged DVFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, an absorber with a resistive film is proposed, which holds stable polarization absorption characteristics at large angles by exploring the principle of absorption structure. The absorber contains three layers: the top layer is a metal patch with a resistive film, and the middle layer is covered with a metal patch. The thickness of the absorber structure is only 0.5 mm, and the absorber can be perfectly attached to the trihedral corner reflector (TCR) without affecting the characteristics of the reflector. By laying the absorber on the TCR, the TCR is stabilized at 8–40 GHz in the range of the incident angle ±20°, and the radar cross-section (RCS) reduction value of the TCR fluctuates around 1 dBsm. Thus, the RCS values of the three frequency points of 10 GHz, 15 GHz, and 35 GHz are consistent to achieve the accurate regulation of RCS. The stability of the absorber at different frequencies can be achieved, which is essential for the precise RCS regulation of complex scatterer structures. The effectiveness of the method was verified in experiments using a TCR metamaterial absorbing unit with resistive film. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of superelastic shape memory alloy fibers and ECC materials can form a new SMA fiber reinforced ECC composite material (SMAF-ECC) with good self-centering performance. In order to study the self-centering performance of the new composite material, 6 groups of pre-notch beam specimens were made for three-point bending cyclic loading tests, and the failure phenomenon, hysteresis curve, self-centering effect and influencing factors of the specimens were analyzed. The research results show that when the SMA fibers are effectively anchored in the ECC matrix, the SMA fibers can exert the superelastic properties to provide the ECC beams with recoverying force, and realize the crack self-closure and deflection self-recovery function for the beams, with the minimum residual crack width and deflection is only 0.9 mm and 1.3 mm respectively. Increasing fiber content can cause a small increase in the self-centering ability of the beams. However, only when the fiber diameter is appropriate, better self-centering effect can be achieved, but the difference caused by fiber diameter in the test was only 5%. SMA Fiber end forms have significant influence on self-centering performance. The knotted end beam can get a more than 70% self-centering ratio, while the straight end beams and bended end beams have no self-centering ability. The research results provide important reference for the research and application of this new self-centering materials and their structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local buckling in steel tubes was observed to be capable of reducing the ultimate loads of thin-walled concrete-filled steel-tube (CFST) columns under axial compression. To strengthen the steel tubes, steel bars were proposed in this paper to be used as stiffeners fixed onto the tubes. Static-loading tests were conducted to study the compression behavior of square thin-walled CFST columns with steel bar stiffeners placed inside or outside the tube. The effect and feasibility of steel bar stiffeners were studied through the analysis of failure mode, load–displacement relationship, ultimate load, ductility, and local buckling. Different setting methods of steel bars were compared as well. The results showed that steel-bar stiffeners proposed in this paper can be effective in delaying local buckling as well as increasing the bearing capacity of the columns, but will decrease the ductility of the columns. In order to obtain a higher bearing capacity of columns, steel bars with low stiffness should be placed inside and steel bars with high stiffness should be placed outside of the steel tubes. The study is helpful in providing reference to the popularization and application of this new structural measure to avoid or delay the local buckling of thin-walled CFST columns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalysis is a popular and promising technology in water treatment, but the performance evaluation usually depends on expensive equipment. In this study, using a smartphone for colorimetric detection, a self-invented method based on paper and microtubes (PMTs) is proposed to test the photocatalytic performance of TiO2. Firstly, the study has identified that PMTs achieved a correlation coefficient of above 0.9 between the greyscale values and concentrations during the physical process of different color dyes (i.e., rhodamine B (RhB), reactive yellow (RY), methylene blue (MB), and mixtures of the two or three dyes). The results indicate that when the principle of solution color follows the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black) color model, its photo color on white paper background conforms to the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) color model. Compared to the results obtained from the absorbance method, the PMTs method showed high reliabilities up to 99.36% on the monitoring of the photocatalytic process of the different dye solutions. Interestingly, the colorless solution of salicylic acid (SA) could also be analyzed by the PMTs after complexed with Fe(III) ion to develop a purple solution. These results suggest that the PMTs could be an alternative analysis method to evaluating physical and chemical reaction processes when the high-tech analysis equipment is unviable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]