Iris Publishers Civil Engineering Open Access Journals

  Abstract Concrete structures made with traditional black steel reinforcement are deteriorating at an alarming pace due to corrosion effects. Many research institutes across the globe are spending lots of resources to overcome this problem by replacing steel reinforcement with fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) rebars because these bars are corrosion resistant. FRP rebars are a product of composite materials with raw materials made from sized fibers and thermoset polymeric resin. The fibers can be made from various materials and glass fibers have been most dominant in the US market due to historical developments. However, basalt fiber reinforced polymer rebars (BFRP rebars) are now becoming more popular. With a significant increase in demand for such materials, the number of manufacturers increased notably over the past two decades. Because the production of FRP rebars has not been standardized yet, a wide range of products with several different material characteristics and mechanica...

  Introduction The Swedish Transport Administration (STA) is by far the largest public client of transport infrastructure in Sweden. In addition to the responsibility of planning, construction, and operation and maintenance of public roads and railways, the STA has also been commissioned by the Swedish government to be responsible for the overarching and long-term planning of the infrastructure sector development, including promoting innovation and productivity development. This broad mission comprises major challenges, not least in the planning and execution of large infrastructure projects where a variety of different actors and technical systems are to be coordinated and deliver a sustainable project result. In this article, we discuss that these challenges require project participants to use their creative ability for both proactive and reactive development work to be able to deliver satisfactory project outcome. Further, we argue that these two types of development work can ei...

  Abstract Compaction parameters determination in the laboratory require considerable time and effort that can be saved by using empirical correlations at the early stages. This paper introduces some efforts to predict the compaction properties of soils using the index test results. Apart from the experimental result, the result from other literature have also been considered in the analysis here. Different statistical investigation such as histogram, ACF, PACF, kernel function, correlogram and cross correlogram are used to find the relationship of liquid limit, plastic limit and plasticity index with optimum moisture content and maximum dry density. Regression analyses are done with support vector machine algorithm. The best R squared value found from the predicted equation is 0.86 for optimum moisture content and 0.91 for maximum dry density. Keywords:  Prediction; Optimum moisture content; Maximum dry density; Compaction parameters; Support vector regression Read More about...

  Abstract Although contemporary information and computer technologies enable researchers, designers, and engineers to collect large amounts of data, current approaches for sharing data remain limited by concerns such as interoperability, shareability, data size, transport costs, and privacy. These concerns often prevent or confound the development of reliable and accurate building performance simulations. In an effort to overcome these concerns, we envisioned a complementary approach, called the Virtual Information Fabric Infrastructure (VIFI) approach, where data owners share distributed, fragmented data in a manner that does not require the movement of raw data and data users utilize these data for analysis by transporting analytic computation to the data. The VIFI approach presents new opportunities to conduct building performance simulations. Through two case studies, we demonstrated a new computational framework based on VIFI to support an open and collaborative cyberinfrastr...

  Abstract The high consumption of energy became a danger constitutes to the environment and increases the monthly consumer costs. This leads to the think for some alternative materials that can helps us to avoid these problems. The objective of this study is to measure the effectiveness of thermal insulated concrete blocks in Oman. Study of this kind of blocks have many values and in order to evaluate the results compared with nonthermal insulated concrete blocks. This report is summarized, study the energy consumption, environment-impact and measure the consumer satisfaction for the usage of thermal insulated concrete blocks. The results indicated that the thermal insulated blocks) has a good strength and it shows high efficiency of insulation more than 50 percent compared to (normal blocks). In addition, it helps to save energy consumption and protect the environment. In conclusion it was proved that the (thermal insulated blocks) is the most appropriate choice for the building ...

  Abstract Computational geomechanics is the field of computational mechanics where geo-engineering systems are analyzed using the prinCurrently there is a demand for CCS of large quantities of CO 2  associated with CH 4  in the pre-salt offshore oil fields in Brazil. The pre-salt reservoirs have as caprock 2000 meters of continuous rock salt. Rock salt is a special geomaterial. It has negligible permeability and porosity, is able to support very high stresses, develops the self-healing effect, fractures will heal only with time and a good geomechanical project can design very large openings in the salt body. In Brazil the rock mechanics and computing modeling related to underground excavations in salt rock started in the years 1970´s with very complex challenges, starting with the project of an underground mining of sylvinite (potash ore) overlying tachyhydrite, a very weak salt rock, solving the challenges of the solution mining of salt caverns, for brine production, in...

  Abstract The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were agreed by 195 nations on United Nation (UN) climate change conference in Paris 2015. The agreement was about climate actions to reduce the global warming and reinforcing countries strengths in dealing with climate change phenomenon by means of 17 goals. Researchers and engineers can have a significant contribution in successfulness of the Paris agreement. In particular, ground improvement in geotechnical engineering can have an effective role in promoting goal 12 of the UN SDGs to ensure sustainable consumption and production pattern. One of the key targets for this goal is substantially reduction of the waste production by means of recycling and reuse by 2030. Given the increasing trend of the world’s population, as such, the production and consumption rates have an increasing trend which makes achieving this goal so challenging. Some manufacturing industries generate by-products in addition to their end-products that usuall...

  Abstract The quality problems encountered in concrete structures appear at different stages of the construction of works, it is for this reason that for a long time there has been an increased demand for more precise and, at the same time, more flexible methods of concrete quality assessment. This paper presents some notions concerning the Schmidt rebound hammer test which is one of the non-destructive methods most used for the recognition of the condition of building structures. This test is quick and easy, it makes it possible to control the quality of the construction and to indirectly measure the compressive strength of concrete in situ. The rebound hammer calibration procedure was detailed on an example by presenting the different steps. The influence of several factors affecting the rebound hammer test, whether related to the properties of concrete or otherwise, was were presented. Indeed, Surface texture, concrete humidity, type of aggregates, cement type and carbonation o...

  Abstract A significant proportion of household sanitation needs for low-income densely-populated settlements of developing countries is met by pit latrines, which must be either emptied or relocated when full. New latrine construction cost and space scarcity suggest that pit latrine emptying (PLE) may be the only practical option for the peri-urban poor. PLE, however, has challenges – it is expensive, not well planned, lack of transportation access to disposal sites, often infeasible use of conventional vacuum truck in overcrowded and inaccessible areas, poorly maintained vacuum tankers, and poor households are often missed out of services. One of the major challenges to efficient PLE is technology. Several credible, past and current, literature and bibliographies were gathered to support the review process. This paper explores, through a review, the limitations and challenges of PLE technologies, prompted by the need for more efficient pit emptying options and services. The revi...

  Abstract The classification and translation of 3D point-clouds into virtual environments is a time consuming and often tedious process. While there are large crowdsourcing projects for segmenting general environments, there are no such projects with a focus on AEC industries. The nature of these industries makes industry-specific projects too esoteric for conventional approaches to data collation. However, in contrast to other projects, the built environment has a rich data set of BIM and other 3D models with mutable properties and implicitly embedded relationships which are ripe for exploitation. In this article, the readers will find discussion on contemporary applications of image processing, photogrammetry, BIM and artificial intelligence. They will also find discussions on the applications of artificial intelligence, photogrammetry in BIM and image processing that will likely be at the forefront of related research in the coming years. Read More about this article:  htt...

  Abstract Hydropower is the most developed renewable energy technology. It has evolved over hundreds of years, with the highest growth in the Twentieth century. Some technologies are continuously improving, while others have been forgotten. Four emerging hydropower turbines developed in the past, but forgotten in the last century, are here presented: water wheels, Archimedes screws, Deriaz, and Girard turbines. Their revival is related to the new needs that hydropower must face. The Updraft free-exit-flow turbine, not yet a commercial product, is also described. Read More about this article:  https://irispublishers.com/ctcse/fulltext/the-revival-of-old-hydraulic-turbines-for-innovative-hydropower-generation-water-wheels.ID.000625.php Read More about Iris Publishers Google scholar Articles :  https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=LoZ6uCQAAAAJ&citation_for_view=LoZ6uCQAAAAJ:sSrBHYA8nusC