Engineering Commons^™

Aversion And Warning Factors For Assessing Existing Reinforced Concrete Structures, Marcie Van Weerdhuizen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In a world of aging infrastructure, sustainability initiatives require additional investment in the assessment of existing reinforced concrete structures. Reliability-based assessment should minimize costs by reducing conservatism, while ensuring levels of safety equivalent to those for new designs. Current Canadian and US provisions assign target reliability levels for structural assessment based on criteria including occupancy type, expected failure behaviour, and the effect of element failure on the overall structural integrity. These criteria are defined using discrete and qualitative parameter values. It is shown that the true structural conditions can be better represented by verifying the applicability and completeness of these …

Quantification Of Uncertainties In Inline Inspection Data For Metal-Loss Corrosion On Energy Pipelines And Implications For Reliability Analysis, Tammeen Siraj

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the major threats to the oil and gas transmission pipeline integrity is metal-loss corrosion. Pipeline operators periodically inspect the size of the metal loss corrosion in a pipeline using in-line inspection (ILI) tools to avoid pipe failure which may lead to severe consequences. To predict pipe failure efficiently, reliability-based corrosion management program is gaining popularity as it effectively incorporates all the uncertainties involved in the pipe failure prediction. The focus of the research reported in this thesis is to investigate the unaddressed issues in the reliability-based corrosion assessment to assist in better predicting pipe failure.

First, a methodology …

Eco-Efficient Preplaced Recycled Aggregate Concrete Incorporating Recycled Tire Waste Rubber Granules And Steel Wire Fibre Reinforcement, Saud A. Alfayez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With increasing world population and urbanization, the depletion of natural resources and generation of waste materials is becoming a considerable challenge. As the number of humans has exceeded 7 billion people, there are about 1.1 billion vehicles on the road, with 1.7 billion new tires produced and over 1 billion waste tires generated each year. In the USA, it was estimated in 2011 that 10% of scrap tires was being recycled into new products, and over 50% is being used for energy recovery, while the rest is being discarded into landfills or disposed. The proportion of tires disposed worldwide into …

Flexural Behaviour Of Reinforced Concrete Elements Retrofitted Using External Unbonded Superelastic Shape Memory Alloy Bars, Yamen Ibrahim Elbahy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Steel reinforced concrete (RC) framed structures are seismically designed for safety, where the earthquake energy is dissipated through yielding of the steel bars. During strong earthquakes, high inelastic deformations are allowed to take place. This allowance results in significant residual deformations. Thus, following an earthquake, the structure might be deemed irreparable, requiring its demolishing and replacement. If the frame can be designed to regain its original shape following an earthquake, then the structure will be repairable. This kind of design can be achieved by using smart materials such as Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs).

SMAs have unique properties, which make them …

Design And Probabilistic Analysis Of Mid- And High-Rise Wood Buildings Subjected To Earthquake Excitations, Shucheng Yang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Mass timber products, such as the glulam or cross laminated timber (CLT), are less frequently used construction materials at present for mid-rise and high-rise buildings. The feasibility and possible advantages of applying timber materials for constructing mid- and high-rise buildings are under investigation. One of the issues that needs to be addressed for the use of heavy timber materials is the safety of such constructions under seismic excitations. To address this issue, the nonlinear inelastic seismic responses and capacity curves of a wood buildings must be assessed. For this, the 10-, 15- and 20-storey buildings are designed using heavy timber …

Experimental And Numerical Investigation Of Emulative Connections In Precast Concrete Walls, Mohamed Gamal Elsayed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Grouted connections are widely used in the precast concrete construction. For instance, in precast concrete walls, they are used to connect assemblies of vertically stacked panels. The connection is comprised of a grout cylinder bound by a corrugated metallic duct, which is used to house a large diameter reinforcing bar bridging the horizontal gap of stacked panels. The connection is used to provide vertical continuity to the assembly, and to help resist tensile demands from in-plane bending. Current design guidelines consider such connections through a bar-in-concrete treatment, disregarding its composite nature and the confinement effect of the duct. This has …

Condition Assessment Of Concrete Bridge Decks Using Ground And Airborne Infrared Thermography, Tarek Omar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Applications of nondestructive testing (NDT) technologies have shown promise in assessing the condition of existing concrete bridges. Infrared thermography (IRT) has gradually gained wider acceptance as a NDT and evaluation tool in the civil engineering field. The high capability of IRT in detecting subsurface delamination, commercial availability of infrared cameras, lower cost compared with other technologies, speed of data collection, and remote sensing are some of the expected benefits of applying this technique in bridge deck inspection practices. The research conducted in this thesis aims at developing a rational condition assessment system for concrete bridge decks based on IRT technology, …