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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Intelligent Controller For Smart Base Isolation Of Masonry Structures, Simon Laflamme, T.Y. Yu, Jerome J. Connor Oct 2009

Intelligent Controller For Smart Base Isolation Of Masonry Structures, Simon Laflamme, T.Y. Yu, Jerome J. Connor

Simon Laflamme

In this paper, an intelligent controller to control a smart base-isolated masonry structure is proposed. The smart base isolation consists of rubber bearings and a magnetorheological damper. This semi-active scheme takes advantage of the low power requirement of magnetorheological devices to achieve structural control. The controller is capable of mapping the behaviour of the controlled structure sequentially, using a self-organizing neural network which has time-varying learning rates. This neurocontroller is augmented by a sliding mode controller to account for the uncertainty on the semi-active damping forces. Wavelets are used as functions in the single hidden layer for their capability of …


Shear Strength Of Oil Palm Shell Foamed Concrete Beams, Hilmi Mahmud Jun 2009

Shear Strength Of Oil Palm Shell Foamed Concrete Beams, Hilmi Mahmud

Hilmi Mahmud

Four reinforced oil palm shell foamed concrete (OPSFC) beams were fabricated, and their shear behaviour was tested. The OPSFC has a target density of approximately 1600 kg/m3 and a 28-day compressive strength of about 20 MPa. Two beams were cast with shear reinforcements while the other two were cast without such reinforcements. For comparison, four reinforced normal weight concrete (NWC) beams were also cast. The beams that contained shear links failed in flexure mode, while those without links failed in shear mode. The experimental results indicated that the shear capacities of OPSFC beams without shear links are higher than those …


Reliability Assessment Of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alexander Remennikov Jan 2009

Reliability Assessment Of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alexander Remennikov

Alex Remennikov

This paper carries out the assessment of reliability indices of railway prestressed concrete sleepers designed in accordance with Australian Standard: AS1085.19. The current design approach of the prestressed concrete sleeper relies on the permissible stresses over crosssectional area. Loading condition acting on railway sleepers is considered from axle burden and dynamic amplification factor. On the basis of Australian design of railway prestressed concrete sleepers, only service limit states are considered; however, the design challenge is to provide adequate resistance of certain cross sections to both positive and negative bending moments. In this paper, the service limit states functions are formulated …


Impact Damage Classification Of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alexander Remennikov Jan 2009

Impact Damage Classification Of Railway Prestressed Concrete Sleepers, Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Alexander Remennikov

Alex Remennikov

Commonly, railway tracks suffer with the extreme loading conditions, which are attributed to the train operations with either wheel or rail abnormalities such as flat wheels, dipped rails, etc. These loads are of very high magnitude but short duration, as well as they are of low-possibility occurrence during the design life of the prestressed concrete sleepers. In spite of the most common use of the prestressed concrete sleepers in railway tracks, their impact responses and behaviours are not deeply appreciated nor taken into the design consideration. Up until recently, a new limit states design approach, whereas the dynamic effects are …


Material Aspects For High-Strength High Performance Concrete, Hilmi Mahmud Jan 2009

Material Aspects For High-Strength High Performance Concrete, Hilmi Mahmud

Hilmi Mahmud

The merits of high-strength high performance concrete (HSHPC) depend on the quality of constituent materials. The constituent materials play the vital roles to improve the performance of HSHPC. In particular, the use of supplementary cementing materials is essential when high strength and durability become the most critical issues to be considered for concretes. The addition of high-range water reducer and air-entraining admixtures are also inevitable to achieve good workability and freeze-thaw durability, respectively. This paper discusses various aspects of the major component materials of HSHPC. It briefly describes the property requirements of the component materials and emphasizes their contents or …


Masw Tests For Detection Of Decayed Buried Timber Within Railway Embankments, Barry A. Palynchuk Phd, Chris Bunce Phd, Steve Sather M.Eng Jan 2009

Masw Tests For Detection Of Decayed Buried Timber Within Railway Embankments, Barry A. Palynchuk Phd, Chris Bunce Phd, Steve Sather M.Eng

Barry A. Palynchuk PhD

No abstract provided.