Engineering Commons^™

Structural Performance Of Single-Skin Glass Façade Systems Exposed To Fire, Mohamed Badr, Maged A. Youssef, Salah El-Din F. El-Fitiany, Ajitanshu Vedrtnam

Civil and Environmental Engineering Publications

Purpose

Understanding the structural performance of external glass curtain walls (façades) during fire exposure is critical for the safety of the occupants, as their failure can lead to fire spread throughout the entire building. This concern is magnified by the recent increase in fire incidents and wildfires. This paper presents the first simplified technique to model single skin façades during fire exposure, and, then utilizes it to examine the structural behaviour of vertical, inclined, and oversized façade panels.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed technique is based on conducting simplified heat transfer calculations, and, then utilizing a widely used structural analysis software to …

Dataset For Large-Scale, Lateral-Torsional Buckling Tests Of Continuous Beams In A Grillage System, Ahmed Rageh, C. Shawn Sun, Daniel G. Linzell, Jay A. Puckett

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

A number of large-scale tests of a grillage system are summarized and reduced data are provided. The tests were completed in association with a Louisiana Transportation Research Center (LTRC) project for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (LA DOTD) whose goal was to better quantify behavior and limit states of steel bridge floor systems to refine longitudinal member (stringer) load- rating calculations. A number of tests focused on the behavior of the stringers resting on transverse members (a floorbeam), a system akin to a grillage. The system was proportioned with the expectation that stringer lateral-torsional buckling, a key steel …

Evaluating The Effects Of Shored Construction On Steel Girder Composite Bridges, Parker Brooks

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Steel composite girder bridges provide economic advantages and higher load-carrying capacity than non-composite alternatives. Over the years, a conventional sequence of un-shored construction for steel girder composite bridges has been developed. There is an alternative construction sequence, known as shored construction, that uses temporary supports (discretely or fully supported) for the superstructure during the installation of metal forms and the pouring of concrete. Shored construction also can be used in an Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) practice where construction occurs at a nearby site and fully-formed elements are transported to the final site using self-propelled modular transporters (SPMTs). In order to …

Strain And Temperature Measurement From Distributed Fiber Optic Sensors In Performance-Based Fire Engineering, Yanping Zhu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Strain and temperature measurement of steel and concrete structures under fires is critical to the understanding of structural performance yet historically challenging due to a significant gap in measurement science. This Ph.D. study characterizes in six parts low-cost distributed fiber optic sensors and applies them to strain, and temperature measurements based on Rayleigh and Brillouin light scattering. The first part aims to quantify the Rayleigh scattering based measurement accuracy of distributed fiber optic sensors under a heating-holding load protocol and characterize the effect of polymer coating on the sensors as the polymer softens and melts at elevated temperatures. The second …

A Comparison Of Common Structural Materials, Molly Green

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report will compare structural steel, concrete, and lumber through the lenses of mechanical properties, design process, cost, and environmental impact. Steel is a versatile, strong, and lightweight material that comes at a premium price – both financially and environmentally. It is the most expensive material of the three included in this report. This is largely due to its complex manufacturing process that is also responsible for a significant amount of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Concrete is significantly less expensive than steel, but the carbon dioxide emissions from manufacturing are approximately equal. Concrete also only performs well in compression …

Impacts Of Using Tubular Sections In Open Web Steel Joists, Hollis (Cas) L. Caswell V

Honors Theses

Open web steel joists are lightweight structural trusses used in place of I-beams to support long-span floors and roofs of open space buildings. Their slender geometry makes them highly efficient in resisting flexure, but susceptible to out-of-plane buckling in a failure mode known as lateral-torsional buckling. This failure can be avoided by running lateral bracing between joists called bridging or potentially by using tubular sections to build up the joists rather than angle sections.

It is possible that a joist design using tubular cross-sections could require less bridging and prevent the need to use erection bridging for initial joist construction. …

Nondestructive Condition Assessment Of Civil Infrastructure Using Ultrasonic Technique, Tyler Keith Ashbrook

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Civil Infrastructure controls the way people live by providing safe passage and shelter across the entire globe. Since safety leads the concern in infrastructure, it is essential to ensure that these structures have been adequately tested and analyzed periodically. Testing these structures can be extremely expensive when parts are required to be removed to capture the flaw, which is why nondestructive testing (NDT) continues to grow in demand since it can evaluate the structural component in-situ without causing any damage. Ultrasonic testing (UT) helps to adequately sustain and advance the safety in existing and future infrastructure across the globe. Continual …

Seismic Design Coefficients For Speedcore Or Composite Plate Shear Walls - Concrete Filled (C-Psw/Cf), Shubham Agrawal, Morgan Broberg, Amit H. Varma

Bowen Laboratory Research Reports

This report summarizes the results from FEMA P695 analytical studies conducted to verify the seismic design factors for composite plate shear walls – concrete filled (C-PSW/CF), also referred to as Speedcore. ASCE 7-16 provides the seismic design factors, which include the seismic response modification factor, R, deflection amplification factor, C_d, and overstrength factor, Ω_o, for various approved seismic systems. C-PSW/CFs are assigned a response modification factor of 6.5, a deflection amplification factor of 5.5, and an overstrength factor of 2.5 for C-PSW/CFs. These seismic design factors were selected based on the seismic performance of similar structural …

Extremely Low Cycle Fatigue Behavior Of Additively Manufactured 17-4ph Stainless Steel, Kaley Collins

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Steel structures survive seismic loading thanks to components capable of dissipating large amounts of energy through large deformations. Future optimizations of these components include complex free-form geometries that are difficult to fabricate with traditional casting processes. Additive manufacturing (AM) is an alternative for producing optimized free-form geometries. AM material contains significant differences in microstructural characteristics and mechanical behavior compared to its wrought counterparts. Research has been conducted to understand the effect of microscopic features in the high cycle fatigue (HCF) and low cycle fatigue (LCF) regimes. This study focuses on the behavior of 17-4 Precipitation Hardening (PH) stainless steel in …

Nucor Steel Storage Rack Design, Mac Hanson, Hannah Cataldo, Jason Ziganto, Robert Wozek

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The goal of this design project was to build effective steel storage racks for Nucor Steel Kankakee. The important criteria that the design team needed to meet was that the rack was adjustable, could fit all of the manufactured products that Nucor makes, and could fit various lengths of product. Nucor needs a new rack system because their current process makes the shipping process very inefficient.

Inelastic Behavior And Seismic Design Of Multistory Chevron-Braced Frames With Yielding Beams, Charles W. Roeder, Andrew D. Sen, Hayato Asada, Sara M. Ibarra, Dawn E. Lehman, Jeffrey W. Berman, Keh-Chyuan Tsai, Ching-Yi Tsai, An-Chien Wu, Kung-Juin Wang, Ruyue Liu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Chevron or inverted V-braced frames offer numerous architectural and structural advantages, but the current special concentrically braced frame (SCBF) seismic-design requirements in the American Institute of Steel Construction (AISC) Seismic Provisions for Structural Steel Buildings lead to deep, heavy chevron beams; as a result, few chevron SCBFs are built today. Recent research on single-story chevron SCBFs demonstrated that beam yielding can be advantageous at higher demand levels, and design for large, inelastic unbalanced brace-force demands may still result in acceptable seismic performance. However, this prior research did not consider the response of multistory frames. In particular, questions remain as to …

Hester Gardens - A Lifemoves Temporary Interim-Housing Facility, Jeffrey Meier, Megan Sauter, Jenna Tran, Taylor Klauser

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

LifeMoves, an organization that provides interim housing and supportive services to families and individuals experiencing homelessness, recently purchased 0.35 acres of land, located at 1759 Hester Avenue, San Jose, CA 95128. LifeMoves has challenged the design team to provide preliminary building layouts, a structural alternative analysis, construction management plans, and general civil plans for a multi-story, family-friendly, interim housing facility, which has been named Hester Gardens. The design team considered both steel, a traditional building material, and shipping containers, a sustainable alternative building material, for this project. Each alternative included a structural design and analysis, as well as a cost …

Experimental Assessment Of The Current Load Rating Procedures For A Corroded Steel Ridge Girder In Massachusetts, Brendan T. Knickle

Structural Engineering Masters Projects

The work conducted for this project involves an experimental assessment of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s (MassDOT) existing procedure for determining the resistance of a corroded steel girder end when load rating a bridge. Three steel girders with significant corrosion developed over a 79-year service life were obtained from a recently rehabilitated bridge and loaded to determine the girders corroded resistance. A testing rig was designed in the UMass Amherst Brack Structural Testing Laboratory to both apply a shear dominated load to the corroded girder and withstand the developed lateral loads throughout the analysis. Reaction force data obtained from the …

Steel Bridge Truss Analysis, Alastair Seed

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to conduct a study comparing the effectiveness of different cross frame orientations in lowering the deflection of the main stringers of a bridge. Three different orientations of cross frames were researched; vertical, angled with the superstructure webbing, and halfway-angled. All of these were studied when the stringers were placed directly under the superstructure and when the superstructure was placed outside of the stringers. Analysis was performed in a program called SAP 2000 to find the deflections along the stringers under different loading conditions. The results showed that when the superstructure was oriented over the …

Identification Of Bridges With Fracture-Prone Details, Theodore Hopwood Ii, Rick Younce, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Welded steel girder bridges can contain details that can high welding and service stresses and are termed constraintinduced fractures (CIF). The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has steel bridges with weld details known to cause CIFs whose girders have experienced fracture events. The Cabinet’s bridge inventory was reviewed and additional candidate bridges with potential CIF details were identified. A review of bridge plans and pictures along with followup field investigations pinpointed bridges with CIF details that warrant up-close (i.e., arm’s length) inspections. Several uninspected bridges were identified as candidates for inspection to determine if they contain CIF details. Guidance is provided to …

Experimental Calibration Of Centrally Loaded Built-Up Battened Compression Members, Ghada El-Mahdy Ph.D., P.Eng.

Civil Engineering

There is a large diversity in the requirements for designing built-up compression members between international design codes. Most codes, including the North American standards and specifications specify the use of an equivalent or modified slenderness ratio. In general, all North American standards and specifications agree on the need of using a modified slenderness ratio, but differ in the factor used to multiply the local slenderness ratio. Theoretically it is difficult to estimate the exact value of this factor, and using experimental methods does not capture the exact value of this factor either. Hence, a different approach is needed to determine …

Steel Test Set-Up For Non-Ductile Concrete Shear Walls, Colin S. Ridgley

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this project was to provide a robust test set-up for the thesis work being conducted by graduate students, Jerry Luong & Rory de Sevilla. Their research aims to evaluate the feasibility of using fiber-reinforced polymer wraps and splay anchors to retrofit non-ductile concrete shear walls through a series of tests on reinforced concrete walls.

Four key constraints governed the design of the test set-up. First, the wall can be cyclically, laterally loaded to develop data for comparison with theoretical analysis methods. Second, the wall can be axially loaded to simulate interaction effects and prevent a sliding failure …

Development Of A Mechanical Device For Measuring Connection Rotations During Seismic Loading, Garrett Tatum

Civil Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This engineering design project sought to design a cheap and easy-to-use sensor to monitor seismic connection rotations in steel buildings during earthquakes by using a linear ratchet mechanism. The idea for the project goes against the mainstream of research that is seeking to develop complex digital networks for monitoring structures in earthquake regions. Whereas many modern sensor networks require high-cost, professionally maintained digital networks, an analog sensor could provide much of the same information at a fraction of the cost, allowing sensors to be more widely utilized, particularly in developing countries. This project required an iterative engineering design process to …

2019 Student Steel Bridge Team, Kourtney Arena, Andrew Biglin, Brett Palmer, Nathaniel Maute, Kenneth Reiser, Jacob Dicks, Paul Kowaleski

STEM Student Research Symposium Posters

Every year AISC runs a regional and national steel bridge competition. The competition offers a chance for civil engineering students to gain valuable experience designing a bridge. In addition to this, mechanical engineering students are provided the opportunity to practice machining steel parts. For the competition, teams from participating schools are given a scenario with certain constraints to design a bridge for. At the competition, the bridges are ranked based on weight, structural efficiency, construction economy, assembly speed, deflection, aesthetics, and overall performance.

The program Risa 3D was used in order to design and perform analysis on the bridge. Using …

Adhesion Of Bituminous And Cementitious Materials Using Particle-Probe Scanning Force Microscopy, Yujie Li

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As the most important materials in civil engineering, bituminous and cementitious materials have been used widely in pavements and constructions for many years. Accurate determination of adhesion is important to the bonding properties of bituminous and cementitious materials. In this work, we presented a novel approach to measure the adhesion between binders and aggregate mineral particles at microscopic scale.

Particle probe scanning force microscopes (SFM) were used to study the adhesion between mineral microspheres representing the primary aggregate constituents (Al2O3, SiO2 and CaCO3) and various control (PG 64-22 and PG 58-22) and modified binders. Results showed that these modified SFM …

Effect Of Continuity Plate Eccentricity On The Performance Of Welded Beam-To-Column Connections, Jason Thomas Norwood

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Beam-to-column connections in structural steel buildings may have varying degrees of rotational restraint and varying degrees of moment transfer. In fully restrained moment connections, shear is typically transferred through the beam web, while the moment is mostly transferred through the beam flanges which create tension/compression force couples. Column sections that are incapable of resisting these flange forces are often retrofitted with continuity plates within the connection region to improve capacity. In cases of unequal beam depths on either side of the column, an eccentricity between the framed-in beam flange and continuity plate may be required; however, limited research exists to …

Numerical And Experimental Analysis Of Local Buckling Of Axially Loaded Steel Tubes Confined By Concrete And Frp, Nicholas Colbert

Masters Theses

“The hollow core Fiber-Reinforced-Polymer (FRP) concrete circular-steel (HC-FCS) column consists of an outer circular fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) tube, an inner thin-walled circular steel tube concentrically aligned, and a concrete shell between them. Research has been performed on the performance of the member as a whole, but to date, there has been no investigation into the behavior of the steel tube confined in the column. 17 small-scale columns were tested under axisymmetric axial compressions applied directly to the steel tube under displacement control. The conducted parametric study examined the effects of diameter-to-thickness (D/t) ratio, concrete unconfined compressive strength, FRP thickness, …

Post-Earthquake Fire Assessment Of Steel Buildings, Yi Li, Rachel Chicchi, Amit H. Varma

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Resilience of structural systems after hazardous events is a crucial concern of building design. An abundance of research has focused on hazards such as seismic and fire separately. This project conducted a multi-hazard study on steel buildings considering both seismic and fire damage. A literature review of the behavior of steel-framed buildings due to fires after earthquakes, known as post-earthquake fires (PEF), is offered. The new PEF methodology, delivered in this study, starts with creating a three dimensional (3D) model of the examined steel building using the finite element method software, ABAQUS. Next, varying intensities of seismic and fire hazards …

Condition Factor Calibration For Load And Resistance Factor Rating Of Steel Girder Bridges, Joshua Steelman, Pranav M. Shakya

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

Load and Resistance Factor Rating (LRFR) is a reliability-based rating procedure complementary to Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD). The intent of LRFR is to provide consistent reliability for all bridges regardless of in-situ condition. The primary difference between design and rating is the uncertain severity and location of deterioration, including the potential future loss of strength for an element already evidencing deterioration. Ostensibly, these uncertainties are addressed by applying an additional strength reduction factor: the condition factor, ϕc. Currently, condition factors are nominally correlated to the condition of the member, which can be Good, Fair, or Poor. However, definitions …

Evaluation Of Redundancy Of Twin Steel Box-Girder Bridges, Huy V. Pham

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Based on the definition given in the AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications, twin steel box-girder bridges are classified as bridges with fracture critical members (FCMs), in which a failure of a tension member is expected to lead to a collapse of the bridge. However, a number of such bridges with either a partial or full-depth crack in one girder have been reported and are still providing service without collapsing. The main objective of this research project is to understand the behavior of twin steel box-girder bridges and to develop methods for evaluating their redundancy level in the event of the …

Dynamic Elasto-Plastic Behavior Of Steel Building Sub-Assemblage Including Cfrp Retrofitting Under Impact Load, Ali Mohammed Salih Aloosi

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents the outcome of a theoretical and experimental study of the dynamic as well as the quasi-static elasto-plastic behavior of a steel building sub-assemblage including carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) retrofitting. The steel sub-assemblage consists of a beam-column attached to a pair of beams at its top end while its bottom end is fixed. An apparatus is constructed and used for conducting a series of experiments by applying a lateral impact load on the beam-column in the presence or absence of a static axial load. An innovative procedure for determining the shape of the forcing function caused by …

Threshold Chloride Concentration Of Stainless Steels In Simulated Concrete Pore Solution, Hailong Wang, Jiayan Ling, Xiaoyan Sun

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

To evaluate whether stainless steel can replace carbon steel as rebar in reinforced concrete structures exposed to aggressive environment, the threshold chloride concentration of carbon steel, austenitic and duplex stainless steels were experimentally studied in this paper. The solutions with pH ranging from 9.5 to 13.6 were used herein to simulate the pore liquids in both alkaline and carbonated concretes. Potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) tests were carried out in the solutions with chloride concentration ranging from 0 to 5.0M and at a temperature around 25°C. The activation of pitting corrosion was determined when corrosion current increased and …

Performance Assessment Of Deteriorated And Retrofitted Steel Hp Piles, Joshua Steelman, Steven Stauffer

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Steel Compression Members With Partial-Length Reinforcement, Morgan Herrell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Steel wide-flange columns in existing truss bridges may be built-up with flange cover plate reinforcement to increase compressive capacity. This thesis investigates the use of partial-length steel cover plates about column mid-height to improve the weak-axis buckling resistance.

The present research first reviews literature concerning the Euler buckling of members with partial-length reinforcement. Inelastic buckling is simulated by 3-D finite element analysis accounting for cover plate length, cover plate area, bolt hole perforations, yield stresses, residual and locked-in dead load stresses, and initial out-of-straightness. The model is validated by a load test of a full-scale column with bolted reinforcement plates. …

Stability Sensitivity Of Low-Rise Steel-Moment Framed Buildings To Hazard-Independent Damage, Trey Reynolds Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Structural stability has been the subject of much research in recent years. Simply, structural stability may be vieas the ability of the structure’s response to be relatively unaffected by perturbations to its system. Stability of low-rise steel-moment framed buildings and their sensitivity to perturbations from significant damage are the focus of this work. Perturbations, or changes from the normal state of the structural system, have the ability to affect the structural response. Second-order geometric effects imposed through column axial loads, and/or initial out-of-plumbness during the construction process, are a comperturbation in steel framing systems. If the structural members subjected to …