An experimental work was conducted to study the use of factory-waste roof shingles to enhance the properties of fine-grained soil used in road works. Cement kiln dust (CKD), a cogenerated product of Portland cement manufacturing, was used as a stabilizing agent while the processed shingles were added to enhance the soil tensile strength. The effects of shingles on strength and stability were evaluated using the unconfined compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and California Bearing Ratio (CBR) tests. The results showed that the use of CKD alone resulted in a considerable increase in the unconfined compressive strength but had a small effect on the tensile strength. The addition of shingles substantially improved the tensile strength of the stabilized soil. A significant reduction in the capillary rise and a slight decrease in the permeability were obtained as a result of shingle addition. An optimal shingle content of 10% is recommended to stabilize the soil.

Aly Ahmed

Medhat Shehata

Said Easa

Use of Factory-Waste Shingles and Cement Kiln Dust to Enhance the Performance of Soil Used in Road Works

The effectiveness of vehicle weight estimations from bridge weigh-in-motion system is studied. The measured bending moments of the instrumented bridge under a passage of vehicle are numerically simulated and are used as the input for the vehicle weight estimations. Two weight estimation methods assuming constant magnitudes and time-varying magnitudes of vehicle axle loads are investigated. The appropriate number of bridge elements and sampling frequency are considered. The effectiveness in term of the estimation accuracy is evaluated and compared under various parameters of vehicle-bridge system. The effects of vehicle speed, vehicle configuration, vehicle weight and bridge surface roughness on the accuracy of the estimated vehicle weights are intensively investigated. Based on the obtained results, vehicle speed, surface roughness level and measurement error seem to have stronger effects on the weight estimation accuracy than other parameters. In general, both methods can provide quite accurate weight estimation of the vehicle. Comparing between them, although the weight estimation method assuming constant magnitudes of axle loads is faster, the method assuming time-varying magnitudes of axle loads can provide axle load histories and exhibits more accurate weight estimations of the vehicle for almost of the considered cases.

Teerachai Deesomsuk

Tospol Pinkaew

Effectiveness of Vehicle Weight Estimation from Bridge Weigh-in-Motion

This paper introduces binary recursive partitioning (BRP) as a method for estimating bridge deck deterioration and treats it as a classification and decision problem. The proposed BRP method is applied to the Indiana bridge inventory database containing 25 years of detailed information on approximately 5,500 bridges on state-maintained highways. Classification trees are separately created for 4 and 2 prediction classes and relatively high degrees of success are achieved for deck condition prediction. The significant variables identified as the most influential include current deck condition and deck age. The proposed method offers an alternative nonparametric approach for bridge deck condition prediction and could be used for cross comparisons of models calibrated using the widely applied parametric approaches.

Mariza Pittou

Matthew G. Karlaftis

Zongzhi Li

Nonparametric Binary Recursive Partitioning for Deterioration Prediction of Infrastructure Elements

Condition assessment forms an important part of the asset management of buried pipelines. This is carried out through the use of inspection systems which usually consist of an image acquisition device attached to a mobile robotic platform. Complete or partial automation of image interpretation could increase the efficiency and objectivity of pipe inspection. A key component of an automatic pipe inspection system is the segmentation module. This paper describes an approach to automatic pipe inspection using pixel-based segmentation of colour images by support vector machine (SVM) coupled with morphological analysis of the principal component of the segmented image. The morphological analysis allows the principal component of the segmented image to be decomposed into the pipe flow lines region, the pipe joints, and adjoining defects. A simple approach to detecting pipe connections using fuzzy membership functions relating to defect size and location is also described.

John Mashford

David Marlow

Stewart Burn

An Approach to Pipe Image Interpretation Based Condition Assessment for Automatic Pipe Inspection

In vibration-based damage detection, changes to structural modal properties are tracked over time in order to infer the current state of damage or deterioration. As such, the ability to obtain reliable estimates of modal parameters, particularly natural frequencies and mode shapes, is of critical importance. In the present study, the influence of the dynamic excitation source on the accuracy and statistical uncertainty of modal property estimates for a three span reinforced concrete bridge was investigated experimentally and numerically. Comparisons were made between the dynamic responses due to vehicle loading, harmonic and random forcing, impact, and environmental excitation. It was demonstrated that natural frequencies and mode shapes extracted from the free vibration response following vehicle and random loading events were of higher quality than corresponding values determined during the forcing phase of those events. Harmonic excitation at resonant frequencies and impact were also found to produce statistically reliable results.

M. Alwash

B. F. Sparling

L. D. Wegner

Influence of Excitation on Dynamic System Identification for a Multi-Span Reinforced Concrete Bridge

Construction professionals have identified public contract law and bureaucratic procurement/contract offices as a source of problems in the construction industry. The culture within the United State&#39;s Federal Government Acquisitions is based on the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FARs) and its interpretation, often placing organizations/agencies in the price-based environment and continuously resulting in poor performance. The United States Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) (approximately &#36;100&#x2009;M in construction renovation awards per year) attempted to overcome this obstacle through a partnership with the Performance-Based Studies Research Group (PBSRG) at Arizona State University. The MEDCOM implemented the information environment portion of the Performance Information Procurement System (PIPS) into Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts through the specifications. Without controlling the various contract/procurement processes, the developed information environment stimulated an atmosphere of accountability to all parties involved, while reducing the client&#39;s internal bureaucratic resistance. The concept has met with preliminary success, minimizing construction management issues by over 50&#37;, raising owner satisfaction by 9&#37;, resulting in 99&#37; of projects ending with no contractor-generated change orders, and assisting MEDCOM leadership in measuring the performance of their infrastructure revitalization program.

Kenneth T. Sullivan

Dean T. Kashiwagi

Nathan Chong

The Influence of an Information Environment on Construction Organization&#39;s Culture: A Case Study

Three-dimensional finite element (FE) models are developed to simulate the behavior of full-scale reinforced concrete beams strengthened with glass and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer sheets (an unstrengthened control beam, a flexural-strengthened beam, a shear-strengthened beam, and a beam with both shear and flexural strengthening). FE models use eight-node isoparametric elements with a smeared cracking approach for the concrete and three-dimensional layered elements to model the FRP composites. Analysis results are compared with data obtained from full-scale beam tests through the linear and nonlinear ranges up to failure. 
It was found that the FE models could identify qualitatively trends observed in the structural behavior of the full-scale beams. Predicted crack initiation patterns resemble the failure modes observed for the full-scale beam tests.

Kasidit Chansawat

Tanarat Potisuk

Thomas H. Miller

Solomon C. Yim

Damian I. Kachlakev

FE Models of GFRP and CFRP Strengthening of Reinforced Concrete Beams

An application of Genetic Programming (an evolutionary computational tool) without and with standardization data is presented with the aim of modeling the behavior of the water temperature in a river in terms of meteorological variables that are easily measured, to explore their explanatory power and to emphasize the utility of the standardization of variables in order to reduce the effect of those with large variance. Recorded data corresponding to the water temperature behavior at the Ebro River, Spain, are used as analysis case, showing a performance improvement on the developed model when data are standardized. This improvement is reflected in a reduction of the mean square error. Finally, the models obtained in this document were applied to estimate the water temperature in 2004, in order to provide evidence about their applicability to forecasting purposes.

Maritza Arganis

Rafael Val

Jordi Prats

Katya Rodr&#237;guez

Ram&#243;n Dom&#237;nguez

Josep Dolz

Genetic Programming and Standardization in Water Temperature Modelling

The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, USA collapsed on 11 September, 2001. The incident is regarded as the most severe disaster for high-rise buildings in history. Investigations into the collapse scenarios are still being conducted. Possible collapse scenarios assessed by local and international experts were reported. Another possible collapse scenario of the WTC based on two hypotheses was proposed in this paper, and the idea of plastic limit analysis was applied to evaluate the approximate limit load. According to the theory analysis and numerical calculations, a conclusion can be drawn that the large fires, aroused by the terrorist attack, play a significant role on the collapse of the WTC.

G. Liu

D. K. Liu

W. K. Chow

Collapse Scenarios of High-Rise Buildings Using Plastic Limit Analysis

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Advances in Civil Engineering publishes original research articles as well as review articles in all areas of civil engineering. The journal welcomes submissions across a range of disciplines, and publishes both theoretical and practical studies.

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Chief Editor, Professor Vipulanandan, is based at the University of Houston and his current research interests are in geotechnical, materials and geoenvironmental engineering.

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Advances in Civil Engineering - Table of contents 2009

title

Advances in Civil Engineering publishes original research articles as well as review articles in all areas of civil engineering. The journal welcomes submissions across a range of disciplines, and publishes both theoretical and practical studies.

Advances in Civil Engineering