Engineering Commons^™

Behaviour Of Transmission Line Conductors Under Tornadoes, Dingyu Yao

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Transmission line (TL) structure failures caused by tornadoes have been observed in multiple countries around the globe. The objective of this study is to develop an accurate load case that can simulate the critical tornado forces transmitted from the TL conductors to the towers. In order to achieve the goal, three different tornado wind fields, which were previously developed using computational fluid dynamic simulations, are considered. The tornado wind field provides the most critical forces on the TL conductors is determined and considered to obtain the critical load cases. Using the critical wind field, parametric studies are conducted to identify …

Behavior Of Wind Turbine Towers And Blades Under Tornado Wind Fields, Mohamed Abugazia

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The installation rate of wind turbines around the world is increasing significantly. Therefore, wind turbine farms are constructed in plentiful wind resources areas that put a considerable number of wind turbine towers under severe wind conditions. As a result, failures due to unexpected wind loads on either the blades or the tower are increasing. In addition, wind turbines are designed to resist synoptic wind loads as per the current guidelines, which do not consider high-intensity wind (HIW) events such as tornadoes. The built-in-house numerical code “HIW-WT” has been developed in this study to model wind turbines under three-dimensional wind fields …

Effects Of The Soil Spatial Variability On Pipelines, Jose Luis Espinosa Mendez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Pipelines are the safest and most efficient way to transport large volumes of oil and gas from extraction fields, to refineries, industry and home consumption. Extensively used to transport fluids over long distances, pipelines may pass through terrain features exposed to geohazards. The performance of buried pipelines in areas subjected to ground displacements constitute a criterion for design, assessment and management of gas pipelines, to ensure public, environment and property safety in a cost-effective manner. Modern surveying and sampling techniques allow for better geotechnical characterization of ground movements and the variability of the soil properties with confidence. The statistical data …

Experimental Simulation Of Tornado-Like Vortices And Their Impact On High-Rise Buildings, Arash Ashrafi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

One of the most crucial research areas in wind engineering is tornadoes due to the widespread damages to infrastructure and the environment in North America and other parts of the world. The proper scaling of tornadoes in experimental facilities, generating tornado-like vortices (TLVs) is, therefore, an essential part of evaluating tornado-indued damages on engineered buildings. The capability of producing TLVs of length scales in the range between 1:300 and 1:150 inside the Wind Engineering, Energy and Environment (WindEEE) Dome at Western University has already been demonstrated using only one mode of the full potential of this simulator. A new mode …

Structural Performance Of Glass Façades Exposed To Fire, Mohamed Badr

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Glass façades are commonly used in the modern construction industry. The thesis starts by providing a general background about glass façades, their design criteria, and related previous research studies. The common concern among the previous studies was the inadequate performance of glass façades during fire incidents, which accelerates the spread and severity of the fire. This concern is magnified by the recent worldwide increase in wildfires. Thus, it is critical for engineers to be able to assess the structural performance of glass façades at elevated temperatures. The thesis addresses this need by presenting a simplified technique to model single skin …

A Case Study On Medium And High Rise Timber Buildings, Moustafa El-Assaly

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Heavy timber is the upcoming and rising star in the construction industry in the European and north American market. However, this topic is yet to be discovered. Light frame wood LFW has been used for decades but was always restricted to certain limits. Limits that heavy timber can overcome easily. In this thesis, topics related to the application of heavy timber in the construction of buildings are searched. First, a comparative study based on the Canadian market discussing the alternatives heavy timber can offer such as glulam and cross laminated timber (CLT) in comparison with LFW when applied to mid-rise …

Performance Of Single And Grouped Helical Piles Under Strong Earthquake Shaking, Abdelrahman F.F. Aly

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Full-scale shaking table testing was conducted to evaluate the seismic performance of single and grouped helical piles. Eight circular and one square helical piles with different properties as well as one driven circular pile were installed in dry sand enclosed in a laminar soil shear box that was situated on the shaking table. Dynamic properties of sand bed and its natural frequency, as well as the natural frequencies of single and grouped helical pile-soil systems were evaluated from the collected data during different shaking events. The effects of different pile configurations as well as successive shakings on the characteristics of …

Implication Of City Growth On Wind-Induced Loads For Cladding And Structural Design, Hadil M. Abdallah

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As cities grow, the urban topology changes in density resulting in continuous variations in wind flow. The interaction of flow with this changing surrounding environment drives the aerodynamics to become more complex and varying, subjecting the building to significant changes in wind-induced-loads both on structural and non-structural elements. In this study, a series of boundary layer wind tunnel tests are conducted to investigate the impact of city growth on cladding and structural loading by using a typical tall building adopted from the Commonwealth Advisory Aeronautical Council (CAARC) building model. The city growth is represented by five different generic surrounding configurations, …

Machine Learning Prediction Of Structural Response For Reinforced Concrete Members Under Blast Loading, Monjee Almustafa

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

With increasing accidental and intentional explosions and blast events inflicting life loss and economic damage to civil infrastructure, greater attention is given to the analysis and design of blast-resistant structures. Accordingly, this thesis introduces state-of-the-art machine learning models dedicated to predicting the structural behavior of various reinforced concrete (RC) members under blast loading, including slabs, columns, and beams. Moreover, extended prediction models were developed for RC members that employ fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) retrofitting and steel fiber-reinforced concrete as blast mitigation strategies. For each model, extensive validation was conducted through statistical performance measures and comparisons to existing prediction methods. Additionally, feature …

Burst Capacity Evaluation Of Corroded Pipelines Under Internal Pressure And Internal Pressure Combined With Longitudinal Compression, Shulong Zhang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Central to the design and integrity assessment of oil and gas transmission pipelines is to accurately evaluate their pressure containment capacities, i.e. burst capacities. Corrosion defects threaten the structural integrity of pipelines as they cause thinning of the pipe wall and therefore reduce the burst capacity. Corroded in-service pipelines may be subjected to longitudinal compression resulting from, for example, ground movement or formation of free spans, in addition to internal pressures. The main objective of the research reported in this thesis is to facilitate Fitness-For-Service (FFS) assessment of corroded pipelines.

The first study investigates the conservatism associated with the rectangular …

Towards Multiclass Damage Detection And Localization Using Limited Vibration Measurements, Sandeep Sony

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Traditional vibration-based damage detection methods provide structural health information based on their measured data (i.e., acceleration and displacement response). Over the last few decades, various model-based and time-frequency methods have shown great promises for damage identification and localization. However, the existing methods are unable to perform satisfactorily in many situations, including the presence of limited sensor measurements and training data, detection of minor and progressive damage, and identification of multiclass damage, creating constraints to make them free of user-intervention and implemented using the modern sensors. The main objective of this thesis is to develop algorithms capable of damage identification and …